Verse Lens · Context pointer
Numbers 11:18 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 18. 18And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
Numbers 11:18 within “Seventy Elders and a Month of Meat Are Promised,” marks where authority is questioned, shared, corrected, or transferred; in lightly modernized wording, the clause reads: say you to the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and you shall eat flesh: for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and you shall eat.
Read It With
- Numbers 11:16–23
Read Numbers 11:18 with 11:16–23. It within “Seventy Elders and a Month of Meat Are Promised,” marks where authority is questioned, shared, corrected, or transferred; in lightly modernized wording, the clause reads: say you to the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and you shall eat flesh: for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and you shall eat. The complete unit establishes this contextual meaning: The LORD orders seventy recognized elders to share Moses' burden through the Spirit and announces meat until it becomes loathsome; Moses questions the logistics for 600,000 men, and the LORD challenges whether divine power is shortened.
Why It Needs Context
Numbers 11:18 within “Seventy Elders and a Month of Meat Are Promised,” marks where authority is questioned, shared, corrected, or transferred; in lightly modernized wording, the clause reads: say you to the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and you shall eat flesh: for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and you shall eat. Its responsible force depends on 11:16–23; isolated from “Seventy Elders and a Month of Meat Are Promised,” the verse's actor, action, reason, object, or transition could be mistaken for independent teaching.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Numbers 11:16–23 — Seventy Elders and a Month of Meat Are PromisedSources used for this context pointer
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Numbers 11:16–23, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Numbers
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project
Open Scriptures, release 2.2, 2021
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 11:16–23
Open source ↗