Commentary on Numbers

Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

The people in the desert deserved to be reprimanded, not because they desired meat but because they murmured against the Lord as a result of this desire for meat.

Do we not see that the Israelites got to their own hurt what their guilty lusting craved? For while manna was raining down on them from heaven, they desired to have meat to eat. They disdained what they had, and they shamelessly sought what they had not, as if it were not better for them to have asked not that their unbecoming desires be gratified with food that was wanting, but that their own dislike be removed, and that they be made to receive rightly the food that was provided. For when evil becomes our delight and good the opposite, we ought to entreat God to win us back to the love of the good rather than to grant us the evil.

See also

• More works by Augustine of Hippo

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