From Mount Hor the people set out by the way to the Sea of Reeds, to bypass the land of Edom; but, on the way, they became long of grumble, and short of soul.
---Numbers 21:4 (para. laca)
The people of Israel, during the sojourn in the wilderness, often remind me of the Keystone Cops --- one frantic, hopeless, ridiculous antic after another as they bumble their way toward making a 40-year journey out of an 11-mile weekend jaunt. Could they be any more clueless? Could they have any more positive signs that the One God was leading them? Good grief! Yet, time and again, God's chosen people checked 'NO' and tried their best to pass the note back across the row to the hopeful-looking kid in the new sneakers and shy grin.
Things had gotten bad. A few verses later, the people even yelled into the sky that they hated the miserable food. That fell out of the sky. Every day. For free. Just because. Yeah. They were those people. The ones movies and Buzzfeed Videos and SNL skits (and we) like to make fun of. Partly because they deserve it. Partly because they are such an easy target.
You see, they'd got impatient. With the journey. With Moses, for sure. Most definitely with the once miraculous-seeming manna (the very name of which translates, "What IS it?!"). And they were impatient with God. And the Hebrew word used here that we translate with our English word 'impatient' can be illuminated with the phrase 'short of soul'.
Short of soul. I've been down that 11-mile path before, dusty and thirsty and bone-weary and ready for anything but the same old thing. I've been long of grumble, and short of soul.
And a grace was raised up for me in that dry place, and it wasn't on my own strength my soul was restored.
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