How high is the water, mama?

I'm in a three-week accelerated class this month (just finished week one) and need to write a paper this weekend on Chapter 11 of the Book of Numbers. No biggie; the weather sucks anyway. BUT, that was before I had what I'll call my "prophetic dream." I'm not much of a dreamer, but I did have one last night and it clearly told me I needed to work a Johnny Cash tune into my paper. And not just any Cash tune...Five Feet High and Rising. WTF???

Here's the deal about chapter 11: Moses and company are in the desert in the earlier part of their 40-year journey. Key thing to remember here -- the desert. The people (some translations say "the rabble") are complaining/lusting/desiring food. They've had manna which presumably is so nutrition-packed that it's sufficient for survival for years on end. While it sounds as if it doesn't taste all bad, as my instructor noted, "how many different ways can you make a casserole with just one ingredient." Anyway, Yahweh (Israel's God) hears the complaining, gets pissed, and tosses out a little fire, probably a bolt of lightening, and takes out a few Israelites.

The griping continues, Moses appeals to the LORD for help. He's got two complaints: the unsatisfied masses and also that he's the mayor of this big, moving city and is in charge of setting up the departments of sanitation, education, transportation, and religious affairs with no help. (Okay, so he's got his brother and sister, but sometimes with friends like that, who needs enemies?) Even our small township is run by a group of supervisors and other administrators. Yahweh takes care of the administrative issue first and tells Moses to find 70 guys (women don't play much of a role in the Book of Numbers except to have curses tossed on them and bear the burden of childbirth and the occasional bout of leprosy) and Yahweh will transfer some of the burden from Moses to them. (Curious note: the "burden" is translated as "spirit") Two guys stay in camp, but the spirit finds them, anyway, and they commence to speaking in tongues and such. So complaint 1 is covered. Now about the food...

To the complaint about the food, Yahweh says sure, I'll help you. I'll feed them quail. Yeah, they'll get quail all right. Lots of it. Yahweh ain't kidding. They get several bushels of quail apiece because of a shifting wind (the Hebrew for "wind" is the same word as "spirit" noted above). The migrating quail must have been knocked off course or something. That part's not explained. So, the rabble put the first bits of meat to their mouths and, ZAP. Yup. Yahweh changes course and the people are afflicted by a plague. A bunch of people die and the people pick up camp and move on. End of story.

Yeah, that has a lot to do with Johnny Cash. Let's see...Numbers is set in the desert. "Five feet high" is set in a flood. Well, okay, I guess you could say there was a flood in Numbers, too. A flood of quail. With all the sacrificing that went on in that book, you could say there was a flood of blood, too.

Johnny's song has chickens sleeping in willow trees, hives under water, cows with water up to their knees, railroad tracks washed out...and mama observes "looks like we'll be blessed with a little more rain." But, like the people of Israel, the family is left to wander the wilderness and flee to safety. The path isn't clear. Israel keeps getting heading in new directions at Yahweh's instruction or because of other nations not being too keen on this mass of people crossing their boundary. Cash's family starts out to evacuate by train, the tracks are washed out, and they seek the refuge of higher ground. Both songs are about family dynamics, one figuratively, the other in a more literal sense.

Okay, there are some similarities. But still...what in Yahweh's name am I supposed to do with this in my paper? "How high are the quail mama?" just doesn't have the same ring.