Numbers 11:1
In the mean time there arose a murmuring of the people against the Lord, as it were repining at their fatigue. And when the Lord heard it he was angry. And the fire of the Lord being kindled against them, devoured them that were at the uttermost part of the camp.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Interea ortum est murmur populi, quasi dolentium pro labore, contra Dominum. Quod cum audisset Dominus, iratus est. Et accensus in eos ignis Domini, devoravit extremam castrorum partem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ ἦν ὁ λαὸς γογγύζων πονηρὰ ἔναντι Κυρίου· καὶ ἤκουσεν Κύριος καὶ ἐθυμώθη ὀργῇ, καὶ ἐξεκαύθη ἐν αὐτοῖς πῦρ παρὰ Κυρίου καὶ κατέφαγεν μέρος τι τῆς παρεμβολῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִ֤י הָעָם֙ כְּמִתְאֹ֣נְנִ֔ים רַ֖ע בְּאָזְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה וַיִּשְׁמַ֤ע יְהוָה֙ וַיִּ֣חַר אַפּ֔וֹ וַתִּבְעַר בָּם֙ אֵ֣שׁ יְהוָ֔ה וַתֹּ֖אכַל בִּקְצֵ֥ה הַֽמַּחֲנֶֽה
Haydock's commentary
Fatigue. Hebrew simply, "and the people were like those who complain of evil, or who seek pretexts, inwardly, in the ears of the Lord." St. Jerome explains this evil to mean the fatigue of the journey, which lasted for three days together. (Calmet)
Hence, some who were ready to lay hold of every pretext, took occasion to murmur, and to contrast their present wearisome life with the false pleasures of Egypt. The people of that country were now desirous of returning, and prevailed upon many of the Hebrews to join with them, ver. 4. (Haydock)
They were chiefly those who were farthest from the ark, the dregs of the people; though some pretend that the uttermost part means the principal men of the camp. See Genesis xlviii. 2. "The fire devoured one part of the camp," Septuagint.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter V
At length, when a familiar people began to be chosen by God to Himself, and the restoration of man was able to be essayed, then all the laws and disciplines were imposed, even such as curtailed food; certain things being prohibited as unclean, in order that man, by observing a perpetual abstinence in certain particulars, might at last the more easily tolerate absolute fasts. For the first People had withal reproduced the first man’s crime, being found more prone to their belly than to God, when, plucked out from the harshness of Egyptian servitude “by the mighty hand and sublime arm” of God, they were seen to be its lord, destined to the “land flowing with milk and honey;” but forthwith, stumbled at the surrounding spectacle of an incopious desert sighing after the lost enjoyments of Egyptian satiety, they murmured against Moses and Aaron: “Would that we had been smitten to the heart by …