929/Exodus 16-20: Meat & Manna

(32) Take also your flocks and your herds, as you said, and begone! And may you bring a blessing upon me also!”

(38) Moreover, a mixed multitude went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.

(4) The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! (5) We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. (6) Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”

AND THEY SAID: WHO SHALL GIVE US FLESH TO EAT. [They used this expression who shall give us] because there was not enough meat for the whole people to have every day, although they did eat it many times, for some of them had herds, but [only] the important people ate it [every day], as happens in camps and places where prices are high. But about fish they said, We remember the fish, like one who remembers forgotten things, since they had not eaten any fish from the day that they left Egypt until now.

(3) The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of יקוק in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this whole congregation to death.”

(12) “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Speak to them and say: By evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; and you shall know that I יקוק am your God.” (13) In the evening quail appeared and covered the camp; in the morning there was a fall of dew about the camp.

(20) When יקוק enlarges your territory, as promised, and you say, “I shall eat some meat,” for you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish. (21) If the place where יקוק has chosen to establish the divine name is too far from you, you may slaughter any of the cattle or sheep that יקוק gives you, as I have instructed you; and you may eat to your heart’s content in your settlements.

"and you will say: I shall eat flesh, for your soul will desire to eat flesh": R. Yishmael says: We are hereby apprised that "flesh of desire" was forbidden to Israel in the desert, and when they came to Eretz Yisrael it was permitted to them.

(4) And יקוק said to Moses, “I will rain down bread for you from the sky, and the people shall go out and gather each day that day’s portion—that I may thus test them, to see whether they will follow My instructions or not. (5) But on the sixth day, when they apportion what they have brought in, it shall prove to be double the amount they gather each day.”

(3) [God] subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, in order to teach you that a human being does not live on bread alone, but that one may live on anything that יקוק decrees.

(10) And as Aaron spoke to the whole Israelite community, they turned toward the wilderness, and there, in a cloud, appeared the Presence of יקוק.

(13) In the evening quail appeared and covered the camp; in the morning there was a fall of dew about the camp.

(22) On the sixth day they gathered double the amount of food, two omers for each; and when all the chieftains of the community came and told Moses, (23) he said to them, “This is what יקוק meant: Tomorrow is a day of rest, a holy sabbath of יקוק. Bake what you would bake and boil what you would boil; and all that is left put aside to be kept until morning.” (24) So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered; and it did not turn foul, and there were no maggots in it. (25) Then Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath of יקוק; you will not find it today on the plain. (26) Six days you shall gather it; on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.” (27) Yet some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found nothing. (28) And יקוק said to Moses, “How long will you all refuse to obey My commandments and My teachings? (29) Mark that it is יקוק who, having given you the sabbath, therefore gives you two days’ food on the sixth day. Let everyone remain in place: let no one leave the vicinity on the seventh day.” (30) So the people remained inactive on the seventh day.

(9) When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

(31) And God saw all that had been made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (1) The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. (2) On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work. (3) And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy—having ceased on it from all the work of creation that God had done. (4) Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created. When God יקוק made earth and heaven— (5) when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because God יקוק had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil, (6) but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth— (7) God יקוק formed the Human from the soil’s humus, blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being.