While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck down the people with a very great plague. (Numbers 11:33 ESV)
According to Numbers 11:1-35, after their exodus, the Israelites had to live in the desert. Initially, God dropped vegan manna from the sky to feed them. However, after some time, they grew tired of the vegan food and, through the middleman Moses, complained to God about the lack of animal flesh, demanding that He give them some to enjoy.
“The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days… but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord,…” God ordered Moses to reply to the people. The Lord then sent huge number of quails from the sea to their camp. However, just as the people were gathering together and greedily chewing the birds, a furious God struck them down with a horrible plague. They ended up in a place called Kibroth Hattaavah, meaning “graves of gluttony.”
The lesson of this event is that when people have a choice between veganism and meat-eating, and they choose to consume animals, God may let them enjoy their sinful, carnist pleasure for a while, only to eventually punish them with a tragic end, like a severe plague, or a painful, fatal illness. In fact, the severe plague in Numbers 11:35 reminds us of the 2020 pandemic, which quite a few scientific studies, e.g. Michael Worobey (2022), Jonathan Pekar (2022), believe was caused by people of the Oriental Red Dragon eating wild animal flesh bought from the Woohann market.
Article link: https://www.hkbnews.net/post/the-price-of-eating-animal-flesh-is-death-numbers-11-33-by-dr-chapman-chen
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