Complaining 101: you must be a whiner

Stu Heiss — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:29:20 +0000

On the heels of 1 Chron 29:14,¹ I was reading Num 11:1-15 in the TNK² and this caught my eye: “Now our gullets are shriveled” (Num 11.6a TNK). If you ever needed a primer on complaining, look to Numbers 11. A good complainer must be 1. ungrateful, 2. a creative articulator, 3. know how to whine, and finally, 4. be willing to gorge themselves on what they complain they lack. If you are human, you probably know from personal experience a little about each of these essential qualities, but hopefully don’t excel to the degree that these folks did. The translation of v6 is somewhat ambiguous³. I like shriveled gullets. It has zing! Really good whiners don’t use plain vanilla language. Even Moses does a bit of whining: “Where am I to get meat to give to all this people?” (Num 11:13 ESV) The NLT says whine/whined/whining is vs 10,13,18,20. The TNK substitutes weeping in vs 10 which leads me to believe that weeping is occasionally an appropriate substitute for whining. The BDE ups the ante by including vs 4 when you look for weeping. But I prefer whining as weeping is somewhat ambiguous. So what can you expect in return for a good whine? How about fire from heaven? “and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some” (Num 11:1 ESV). If that doesn’t finish it, you might just get what you asked for. “18 Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the LORD, saying, ‘Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.’ Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. 19 You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. (Num 11:18-20 ESV). This is serious stuff, but you too can be a first class whiner if you try, and it seems that complaining is part of the human condition. We have no need for instruction as this comes quite naturally. Where does this come from? Is there an antidote? Please, no simple moralisms. Been there, tried that.

A passage that encourages generous gratefulness ↩
I enjoy reading “The Jewish Study Bible Featuring The Jewish Publication Society TANAKH TRANSLATION” for its, ahem, colorful language. ↩
“strength is dried up” (ESV), “soul is dried away” (JPS), “appetite is gone” (NAS), “withering away” (NJB) ↩

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Complaining 101: you must be a whiner