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Antony Gormley

Home of the Heart II, 1992, Concrete, 85 x 36 x 49 cm, © Antony Gormley; Photo courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery

Ferdinando Scianna

Sicily, Palermo, 1991, Photograph, © Ferdinando Scianna / Magnum Photos

Unknown Bohemian artist

The Seventy Elders, from Rudolph von Ems Weltchronik, c.1360, Manuscript illumination, 295 x 220 mm, Fulda University and State Library (FUSL), 100 Aa88, fol. 124v, Fulda University and State Library (https://fuldig.hs-fulda.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn🇩🇪hebis:66:fuldig-1925724)

Gifts of God for the People of God

Comparative Commentary by

Ferdinando Scianna’s photo can work to unmask us; to present us with ‘our selves, our souls and bodies’. We are not, in fact, ‘reasonable, holy, and living sacrifices’ to the Lord (BCP 1979: 336). We are full of desires, brimming to the point of cravings and boiling to the point of lust, envy, and covetousness.

The ‘quail story’ of Numbers 11 performs a similar service for us, reminding us that, more often than not, our wants are not our needs but rather wanton desires that obscure the divine Giver. But what do these desires have to do with the rest of this biblical chapter—especially with the story of the elders whose prophesying seems ill-equipped to help with something as basic as hunger for meat? ‘How [the relief of Moses’s burden] is achieved by putting the seventy elders into a state of ecstasy is difficult to imagine’ (Noth 1968: 89).

It may be difficult to imagine, but not impossible. In all likelihood, the passage is an extended meditation on the Hebrew word, massa (which can mean both ‘burden’ and ‘oracle’), and on the phrase ‘graves of craving’ (which is the meaning of the place name in v.34, Kivrot ha-Ta’avah). As we have seen, our cravings can themselves be burdens, not just to us, but to those who care for us. The response we need is the gifts of God by his ruach, which means both ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’ but also ‘wind’ as in verse 31 when God blows in more meat than is humanly imaginable. Coming on the heels of God’s gift of the spirit on the elders at the tent of meeting, as depicted in the von Ems illumination, we can soon see that the unity of God’s action is his overflowing gift (Olson 1996: 68–69).

It is this overwhelming gift which itself overcomes Moses’s overwhelming ‘burden’, transforming his view of himself as trapped and ‘as good as dead’ to a blessedly limited but viable conduit of the Spirit of God upon him. If Moses had been able to look at Antony Gormley’s sculpture, he might initially only have seen the weight with which his concrete flesh felt burdened, but after God’s address to him (vv.16–23), he might instead have seen divine air, wondrously passing through the ‘body’ whose imprinted form proves able to receive and channel it.

According to Numbers 11, our creaturely life does not just need the satisfaction of our wants but the sanctification of our desires. A spiritual process that can only take place in and through chosen, trustworthy, and yet fallible bodies, ‘sanctification is the act of God the Holy Spirit in hallowing creaturely processes … within the history of creation’ (Webster 2003: 17–18). Holy oracles interpret God’s material gifts through a gracious chain of fallible but sanctified authorities so that we might know how to live in our bodies.

Even if we often neglect such prophetic help, like the prophesying of the elders who seem to have no effect on the people’s greed, we are not compelled to see the gift itself as fruitless. Indeed, we may only be underestimating our own sin. Psalm 78 deals with Numbers 11 specifically and suggests that God graciously continues his sanctifying acts, until he gets our attention, ‘In spite of all this they still sinned; … so he made their days vanish like a breath, … [only] When he killed them, they sought for him; they repented and sought God earnestly’ (Psalm 78:31–34 NRSV).

According to Numbers 11, God’s gifts come despite our sin, simultaneously telling us the truth about ourselves, giving us more than what we need, and calling us to continue to listen to His Spirit in our midst, in the middle of our blessedly limited creaturely lives.

 

References

Book of Common Prayer. 1979. (New York: Seabury Press)

Noth, Martin. 1968. Numbers, trans. by James D. Martin, Old Testament Library (London, SCM)

Olson, Dennis T. 1996. Numbers, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press)

Webster, John. 2003. Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch, Current Issues in Theology 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Next exhibition: Numbers 17