Bible Strands
Numbers 11:19
You will eat it not for one or two days, nor for five or ten or twenty days,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses addresses the Israelites at the wilderness encampment, delivering God’s direct response to their demand for meat. He specifies the timeframe of the promised provision immediately after announcing its arrival.
The words — The verse centers on לֹא (loʾ), translated “not,” and יוֹם (yôm), translated “day,” which structure a descending list of time periods. These terms create a progressive negation that emphasizes the extended duration of what follows.
The thread — Numbers 11:19 bridges the promise of meat in Numbers 11:18 with the month-long judgment detailed in Numbers 11:20. The verse tracks the escalation from a brief provision to a prolonged punishment as the people’s complaint hardens into rejection of the Lord.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to acknowledge that God’s answer to persistent complaint will exceed initial expectations and become a physical burden. It asks the reader to confront how prolonged exposure to a desired thing, when rooted in rebellion, turns into nausea rather than satisfaction.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days;