I appreciate the help if anyone knows if Logos 6 has the capability to search for the number of times the bible says that the children of Israel complained against Moses (Ex 16:2).
Well there are several ways of going about it. One example is to create a collection of your topicals, and then do a search on <ex16.2>. That identified a list in MacaArthur's Topical Bible under Complaining, Instances of, Israelites.
Looking at that list of verses, I took another approach and did a basic search on
"<ex16.2> NEAR <ex17.3> NEAR <num21.5>"
and found the following:
"Then came the first wilderness murmuring. Six more are reported in Exodus and Numbers; Exodus 16:2; 17:2, 3; Num. 11:33, 34; 14:2; 16:41; 21:5. God had a remedy."
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Book of Exodus: A Complete Analysis of Exodus with Annotations (New York: “Our Hope” Publication Office, 1912), 41.
So here's Gaebelein stating that there are 7 total instances of this type of complaining in Exodus and numbers. Of course there are probably numerous other approaches to doing this. I'm sure others will chime in.
As with everything in Logos, there are "many ways to skin a cat." With that in mind, let me walk you step-by-step through the work flow that I would take to approach this question.
1) It is always a good idea to start any study with a specific case example. You have already provided that with the verse reference of Ex 16:2.
2) Next look at the cross references provided by the Bible version being used. With the ESV, we instantly have examples from Ex 15:24 and 17:3.
3) Consult the Bible Sense Lexicon to see if there are other synonymous Hebrew terms that can be searched. Notice the the sense "grumble" is a child term of a larger set "to complain." We find 5 synonymous Hebrew terms through this lexical entry.
4) I would then run a search for all of the instances where child and parent senses appear in the Bible and set them to an aligned view for quick analysis.
Lastly, I would run Topic Guide Reports and Sermon Starter Guide Reports on the synonymous English words of grumble, complain, and murmur to try to find any other additional verses that may have been missed through this sense search. Notice that there is a really key narrative in Numbers 20 and 21 that was missed by our initial search that the SSG found.
Notice that from our current work flow, we found all 7 of the examples that Gaebelein listed, plus some additional instances. I am not claiming a perfect work flow here, but this is what I normally do when approaching topical studies like this. Hope this helps.
