HEBREW WORD STUDY – LUSTING  – HITE’AUU  ה,תאוו  

Numbers 11:4-6: “And the mixed multitude that [was] among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? (5) We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: (6) But now our soul [is] dried away: [there is] nothing at all, beside this manna, [before] our eyes.”

I used to teach that the mixed multitude, those who were not of the family of Isaac and Jacob did not have it so bad in Egypt as they were well fed and that they left Egypt because they wanted to follow the miracles.  I read something in the Talmud this morning which has changed my mind. In Yoma 75a it is taught that the listing of the foods they desired from Egypt was really an idiomatic expression for sexual passions.  The word for lusting that is used in this text is hite’auu from the root word ‘avah which means lusting after bodily desires, not just food but sexual desires as well, which in this context was a reference to forbidden sexual relationships. Rabbi Shimeon concluded that they did not lust for meat but sexual vices which were ok under the Egyptians but forbidden under Moses.   In verse six the words “there is nothing at all” is ‘eyn kol bilethi which literally means “without any responsibility or law.”

These foreigners were likely the Hyksos or Sea People who settled in Egypt and ruled Egypt around the Third Dynasty.   Eventually, the Egyptians managed to return to power and began to expel the Hyksos about the time of the Exodus.  So likely these mixed multitudes were refugees also fleeing Egypt.  We are still learning about the Hyksos but it seems they were a people who were, for want of a better word, sexual perverts.  I will not elaborate.  

Another argument for this being an idiomatic expression of sexual perversion is that I found in the Midrash Rabbah that God gave them what they craved in food Psalms 106:15 and Psalms 78:29. They also had livestock to feed on (Exodus 12:28) and even at the end of the forty years wanderings, they had a great multitude of cattle (Numbers 32:1).   The Talmud even teaches that when the people put the manna in their mouths its taste changed to whatever they desired to taste.  Take a healthy bite of manna and it will taste like a Big Mac. Market something like that today and you would be a billionaire overnight.  You actually can have your cake and eat it too.

I believe the evidence is enough to conclude that these foreign refugees were talking of their lack of sexual freedom and perversion rather than food.  It could have been both, but I don’t believe God dealt harshly with these people for bellyaching about the food.  There was something very dangerous going on.  It was sexual perversion that threatened the Hebrews on a number of occasions.  Sexual perversion leads to jealousy, hatred, extreme selfishness, abuse, crime and disregard for another. It is the single most destructive force to a family.  When the enemy wants to steer a nation away from God he hits the family and the best way for him to destroy the family is through pornography.  According to the Huffington Post, one-third of the data transferred across the internet is pornographic. You can check the statistic on the internet. One out of every five women 18% in the United States has been raped. Only 16% are reported to law enforcement. In one year alone 300,000 college women were raped and only 12% are reported to law enforcement.  In reported sexual abuse 26% were children age 12-14 and 34% were under 9  years.    

We wonder why God dealt so harshly with those belly aching about the manna?  Perhaps Jewish teaching is right and God dealt harshly with these foreigners for another reason, a reason which would have destroyed the sanctity of the families among the Hebrews.  

As the Medieval Rabbi Yonatan Eibeschultz said: “A person derives pleasure from material things only by comparing what he has to what his neighbors have. So although they (the Hebrews) could enjoy every taste in the world in the manna, they derived no pleasure from it since everyone had it.”