From the Red Sea to Sinai
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they had been a month absent from Egypt, they made their first en-
campment in the wilderness. Their store of provisions had now begun
to fail. There was scanty herbage in the wilderness, and their flocks
were diminishing. How was food to be supplied for these vast mul-
titudes? Doubts filled their hearts, and again they murmured. Even
the rulers and elders of the people joined in complaining against the
leaders of God’s appointment: “Would to God we had died by the
hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots,
and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into
this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
They had not as yet suffered from hunger; their present wants were
supplied, but they feared for the future. They could not understand
how these vast multitudes were to subsist in their travels through the
wilderness, and in imagination they saw their children famishing. The
Lord permitted difficulties to surround them, and their supply of food
to be cut short, that their hearts might turn to Him who had hitherto
been their Deliverer. If in their want they would call upon Him, He
would still grant them manifest tokens of His love and care. He had
promised that if they would obey His commandments, no disease
should come upon them, and it was sinful unbelief on their part to
anticipate that they or their children might die for hunger.
God had promised to be their God, to take them to Himself as
a people, and to lead them to a large and good land; but they were
ready to faint at every obstacle encountered in the way to that land.
In a marvelous manner He had brought them out from their bondage
in Egypt, that He might elevate and ennoble them and make them
a praise in the earth. But it was necessary for them to encounter
difficulties and to endure privations. God was bringing them from a
state of degradation and fitting them to occupy an honorable place
among the nations and to receive important and sacred trusts. Had they
possessed faith in Him, in view of all that He had wrought for them,
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they would cheerfully have borne inconvenience, privation, and even
real suffering; but they were unwilling to trust the Lord any further than
they could witness the continual evidences of His power. They forgot
their bitter service in Egypt. They forgot the goodness and power of
God displayed in their behalf in their deliverance from bondage. They
forgot how their children had been spared when the destroying angel
slew all the first-born of Egypt. They forgot the grand exhibition of