Text: Exodus 15:27-16:15 (translation by Robert Alter)[1]
And they came to Elim where there were twelve springs of
water and seventy date palms, and they encamped there by the water.[2]
And they journeyed onward from Elim, and all the community
of Israelites came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai,
on the fifteenth day of the second month of their going out from Egypt.
And all the community of Israelites murmured against Moses
and against Aaron in the wilderness. And the Israelites said to them, “Would
that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt when we sat by the
fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out to this
wilderness to bring death by famine on all this assembly.”
And the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I am about to rain down
bread for you from the heavens, and the people shall go out and gather each
day’s share on that day, so that I may test them whether they will go by My
teaching or not. And it will happen, on the sixth day, that they will prepare
what they bring in, and it will be double what they gather each day.”
And Moses, and Aaron with him, said to the Israelites, “At
evening, you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of
Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the Lord’s glory as he hears your
murmurings against the Lord, and as for us, what are we that you should murmur
against us?” And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat in the evening to
eat and your fill of bread in the morning, when the Lord hears your murmurings
that you murmur against him—and what are we?—not against us are your murmurings
but against the Lord.”
And Moses said to Aaron, “Say to all the community of
Israelites, ‘Draw near before the Lord, for he has heard your murmurings.’” And
it happened as Aaron was speaking to all the community of Israelites, that they
throned toward the wilderness, and, look, the Lord’s glory appeared in the
cloud.
And the Lord said to Moses, saying, “I have heard the
murmurings of the Israelites. Speak to them saying, ‘At twilight you shall eat
meat and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, and you shall know
that I am the Lord your God.’”
And it happened in the evening that the quail came up and
covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the
camp. And the layer of dew lifted, and look, on the surface of the
wilderness—stuff fine, flaky, fine as frost on the ground.
And the Israelites saw, and they said to each other, “Man
hu, What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It
is the bread that the Lord has given you as food.”
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