NOTES for Num 11:1-35
The road to the Promised Land is hard. The exodus from slavery is even harder. How familiar this grumbling is to those who lived in the Soviet Union: "But sausage was two twenty! And there were special orders for union members!" (see vv. 4-5). But we are no longer in "Egypt"; we are on the way. Conditions here are different, and what worked in slavery is no good here. God is with us. He goes ahead in the pillar of cloud, and He sends manna, which gives us the ability to live in this wilderness.
How hard it is for Moses, the one who understands what is happening. He cannot carry this responsibility alone (v. 14). And here is God's answer: He sends the Spirit to the seventy elders so that, filled with the Spirit, they can share the heavy burden with Moses.
And to the rest of the people (oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets! - v. 29) God in effect says, "You want meat? Very well, but do not blame Me afterward," and the meat does them no good.
And once again we see: the point is not the meat, but the Spirit.