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1 And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin[a], which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness;

3 And the children of Israel said unto them, “If only the Lord had killed us in Egypt, where we sat by pots of meat, and ate our fill of bread – for now you have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

4 Then said the Lord unto Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or not.

5 And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.”

6 And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, “By evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out from the land of Egypt:

7 (and) In the morning, you shall see the glory of the Lord; for he hears your murmurings against the Lord; but as for us, who are we that you mutter against us?”

8 And Moses said, “This shall be, when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that the Lord hears your murmurings which ye murmur against him; for who are we? Your complaint is not against us, but against the Lord.”

9 And Moses spoke to Aaron, “Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, 'Come near before the Lord: for he has heard your murmurings.'”

10 And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

11 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,

12 “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel; speak unto them, saying, At evening you shall have meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

13 And it came to pass, that at evening the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.

14 And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the morning frost upon the ground.

15 And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, “It is manna!” for they knew not what it was. And Moses said unto them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.

16 This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer[b] for every man, according to the number of your persons; let every man take for themselves and those in his tents.”

17 And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less,

18 but when they measured it against an omer, those who gathered more had no more than an omer, and those who gathered less had a full omer; but every man had gathered according to what they were able to eat.

19 And Moses said, “Let no one leave any remaining until the morning.”

20 Even so, many did not listen to Moses, and some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was angry with them.

21 And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun became hot, it melted.

22 And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.

23 And he said unto them, “This is that which the Lord hath said, 'Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord: bake what you will bake today, and boil that which you will boil; and that which remains over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.”

24 And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses said; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein.

25 And Moses said, “Eat that today; for today is a sabbath unto the Lord: today you shall not find it in the field.

26 Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.”

27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day to gather, and they found none.

28 And the Lord said unto Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?

29 As the Lord has given you the sabbath, he will give you on the sixth day the bread of two days: Therefore abide every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.”

30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

31 And the house of Israel called the name thereof “Manna;” and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

32 And Moses said, “This is the thing which the Lord commands: Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.”

33 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations.”

34 As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.

35 And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

36 Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.

[1] place name

[16] An omer was about 2 liters or two kilograms and if considered a replacement for flour (or bread by weight) would have been enough for one man for one day.

h.בחמשה עשר יום ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY — The day of this encampment is specially mentioned because on that day there came to an end the cake (provisions) they had brought with them from Egypt and they now needed the Manna, thus informing us that of the remains of the dough they had prepared in Egypt (cf. Rashi on Exodus 12:33) they ate sixty-one meals. For the Manna fell for them on the sixteenth day of Iyar, which was the first day of the week, just as is stated in the Treatise Shabbat 87b.

h.וילנו AND THEY MURMURED, because the bread had come to an end.

h.מי יתן מותנו WOULD THAT WE HAD DIED — The word מותנו means “that we should die”; it is not a noun with the same meaning as מיתתנו “our death”, but it is an infinitive like עשותנו and חנותנו and שובנו which signify “that we should make”, “that we should encamp”, “that we should return”. In the Targum it is rendered by לוי דמיתנא which is really the Targum rendering of (Numbers 14:2) לו מתנו “Would that we were dead” (cf. Rashi on Exodus 14:12).

h.דבר יום ביומו THE THING OF THE DAY ON ITS DAY — what is needed for a day’s eating shall they collect on its (that) day, and they shall not today collect what will be needed tomorrow (cf. Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:4).

h.למען אנסנו הילך בתורתי THAT I MAY TRY THEM WHETHER THEY WILL WALK IN MY LAW — whether they will observe the commands associated with it: viz., that they should not leave any overnight, and that they should not go out on the Sabbath to collect it.

h.והיה משנה AND IT SHALL BE DOUBLE — for today and for tomorrow.

h.משנה DOUBLE of what they were accustomed to collect on each day of the other days of the week. I say that the words, אשר יביאו והיה משנה “what they bring shall be double”, imply that after they have brought it home they will find it double in measure of what they had been gathering and measuring each day. This is the force of: “they collected double bread” (v. 22) — when it was collected it was found by them to be double food, and this is the meaning of (v. 29), “therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days”: He gives you a blessing — old French foison, — abundance in the house that you may fill the Omer twice, as bread for two days.

h.ערב is the same as לערב AT EVENING

h.וידעתם כי ה׳ הוציא אתכם מארץ מצרים YE SHALL KNOW THAT THE LORD HATH BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT — Since you said to us, (v. 3) “for ye have brought us forth” you shall know that it was not we who brought you forth, but it was God who brought you forth for He will bring quails for you.

h.ובקר וראיתם AND IN THE MORNING YE SHALL SEE [THE GLORY OF THE LORD] — Not in reference to that glory of which it stated, (v. 10) “And behold the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud” is this said, but thus, in effect, did he say to them: In the evening ye shall know that His hand has the power to give you your desire and He will give you flesh; but not with a radiant countenance will He give it to you, because you have asked Him something that is not proper (since one can exist without eating meat), and out of a full stomach (i. e. you really have meat for you have an abundance of cattle); but the bread for which you have asked out of necessity — when it falls in the morning you will behold the glory of the radiance of His countenance (His glory), because He will make it fall for you in a manner that is indicative of His love (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:7) — in the morning, whilst there is yet time to prepare it, and there shall be dew above it and dew below it as though it were carefully packed in a chest (Yoma 75b).

h.את תלנתיכם על ה׳ this is the same as תלנתיכם] אשר על ה׳] YOUR MURMURINGS WHICH ARE AGAINST THE LORD.

h.ונחנו מה (lit., and we, what?) means AND WE, WHAT ARE WE accounted (of what importance are we?),

h.כי תלינו עלינו THAT YOU MAKE everyone MURMUR AGAINST US — your sons, and your wives, and your daughters and the mixed multitude. — And whether I like it or not I am forced to explain the word תַלִּינוּ in the sense of “you make (people) do something”, viz., murmur (i. e. what we call the Hiphil conjugation), because of its (the ל) be eshed and because of the קרי. For if it (the ל) were weak (i. e. without a Dagesh), I would explain it in the sense of “ye do something” (our Kal), just as, (Exodus 17:3) “And the people murmured (וַיָלֶן) against Moses”, or, if there was still a Dagesh but there was no י in it, so that it could be read תִלּוֹנוּ, I would explain it as meaning “ye put yourself in a state of murmuring” (our Niphal; cf. Rashi on Exodus 15:24). Now, however, it being as it is, it must imply “you make others murmur”, just as in the case of the spies it states, (Numbers 14:36) “And they made all the congregation to murmur (וַיַּלִּינוּ) against him” (where וַיַּלִּינוּ is the same grammatical form, so far as conjugation is concerned, as תַלִּינוּ, but as it has an object, כל העדה, it cannot mean “And they murmured”, and must necessarily mean “they made the congregation murmur).

h.בשר לאכל FLESH TO EAT— but it does not add as it does in the next phrase לִשְׂבֹּעַ, “to satisfaction”; the Torah thus teaches us a rule of conduct — that one should not eat meat to satiety. And what did He see (what reason had He) that He made bread fall for them in the morning and flesh at evening? Because the bread they asked for was a proper thing to demand since it is impossible for a person to exist without bread; but meat they asked for improperly, for they had abundant cattle, and besides it was possible for them to exist without flesh. On this account He gave it to them at evening, at a time of (when it would cause them) trouble, a manner which was not favourable to them (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:8; Yoma 75).

h.אשר אתם מלינים עליו means [YOUR MURMURINGS] WHICH YOU MAKE others who hear you murmuring MURMUR AGAINST HIM.

h.קרבו APPROACH [BEFORE THE LORD] — to the place where the cloud will descend.

h.השליו THE QUAILS — a species of fowl which is very fatty (cf. Yoma 75b).

h.היתה שכבת הטל THERE WAS A LAYER OF DEW — Consequently the dew was lying upon the Manna. In another passage, however, it says, (Numbers 11:9) “And when the dew came down [upon the camp at night, the manna fell upon it]” and so there was dew under the Manna! Thus we see that the dew fell upon the ground and the Manna fell upon it, and then dew fell again upon this, and so it was as though it were carefully packed in a chest (Yoma 75b).

h.ותעל שכבת הטל וגו׳ AND WHEN THE LAYER OF DEW WENT UP etc. — When the sun rose the dew which was lying upon the Manna ascended sunward, as is the manner of dew — that it ascends sunward; even if you were to fill an egg-shell with dew and close up its opening and place it in the sun, it (the egg-shell with the dew in it) will rise of its own accord into the air, (in consequence of the tendency of the dew to rise upwards). — But our Rabbis explained that these words imply that the dew rose from the ground into the air. — When the layer of dew went up the Manna became visible, and they looked, (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 20; Shemot Rabbah 38:4) והנה על המדבר דק AND BEHOLD, UPON THE SURFACE OF THE DESERT there was etc.

h.דק, a THIN object,

h.מחספס uncovered — and there is no other example of this word in the Scriptures. One may also explain מחספס as having the same meaning as המיסה in (Mishna Bava Metzia 1:8) חפיסה ודלוסקמא, “a valise and chest”, in Mishnaic Heberw, and the meaning would be, that when it became uncovered from the layer of dew they saw that there had been a thin object enclosed in it i. e. enclosed between the two layers of dew. Onkelos tranlates it by מקלף peeled (flaky), taking מחספס in the sense of, and from a similar root as, (Genesis 30:37) “peeling off (מחשף) the white”.

h.ככפר AS HOAR FORST — כפר is old French gelide. The Targum renders דק by דעדק כגיר, the word גיר occurring in (Isaiah 27:9) “גיר-stones” — this is a kind of black colour — just as we enumerate amongst the kinds of earth which may be used for covering the blood of a wild animal or bird after it has been slaughtered “powdered chalk (גיר) and orpiment” (Chullin 88b). Onkelos renders the entire phrase by “powdered like גיר, like hoar-frost upon the ground”, meaning that it was as fine as גיר and lay congealed as frost in the ground. This is therefore the meaning of דק ככפור: “spread out fine but yet one atom hanging to another like hoar-frost”. דק is old French tenuis — meaning that it formed a thin incrustation on top. The word וכגיר which Onkelos has in his translation is an addition to the Hebrew text, there being no word corresponding to it in the verse.

h.מן הוא means this is something prepared for food, as in (Daniel 1:5) “And the king appointed (וימן) for them,”.

h.כי לא ידעו מה הוא FOR THEY KNEW NOT WHAT IS WAS so that they could call it by its name.

h.עמר — the name of a measure.

h.מספר נפשתיכם — The second half of the verse means ACCORDING TO (supply כ before מספר) THE NUMBER OF PERSONS WHOM A MAN HAS (איש לאשר being the same as אשר לאיש) IN HIS TENT SHALL YE TAKE AN OMER FOR EVERY HEAD (לַגֻּלגֹּלֶת the definite article with the ל having distributive force: each and every).

h.המרבה והממעיט SOME MUCH, SOME LITTLE — There were some who gathered much and there were some who gathered little; and when they came home they measured it out by an Omer, each what he had gathered, and they then found that he who had gathered much had no excess over an Omer for each head that was in his tent, and that he who had gathered less did not find less than an Omer for each head, and this was a great miracle that was wrought in respect of it (the Manna).

h.ויותרו אנשים BUT SOME MEN LEFT OF IT — Dathan and Abiram (Shemot Rabbah 24:10; cf. Rashi on Exodus 2:13).

h.וירם תולעים AND IT BRED WORMS — the word וירם is of the same meaning and root as רִמָּה, worm.

h.ויבאש AND IT STANK — This is an inverted verse, because first it must have stunk and afterwards have become wormy, just as it is said, (v. 24) “And it did not stink and there was no worm therein — for this is the way of all things that become wormy (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:20).

h.וחם השמש ונמס AND WHEN THE SUN WAXED HOT, IT MELTED — What was left in the field (outside the inhabited camp) melted and ran in streams; the harts and the roes drank therefrom, and the nations of the world hunted them and experienced through them the taste of the Manna, and thereby understood how great was Israel’s excellency (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:21).

h.ונמס Onkelos translates by פָּשָׁר, having the same meaning as פושרים, tepid waters: through the sun it became warm and turned into tepid water; old French détemperer. An example of it (פשר) occurs in Treatise Sanhedrin at the end of the chapter that begins, ארבע מיתות‎ (Sanhedrin 67b).

h.לקטו לחם משנה THEY COLLECTED DOUBLE BREAD — when they measured in their tents what they had gathered they found it double — two Omers for each person (cf. Rashi on v. 5). (Rashi appears to supply אשר before לקטו: It came to pass on the sixth day, what they gathered אשר לַקטו, was double bread.) A Midrashic explanation is that משנה in לחם משנה signifies מְשֻׁנָּה different, changed, — that day it was changed for the better as regards its smell and its taste (Tanchuma Yashan).

h.ויגידו למשה AND THEY TOLD IT TO MOSES — They asked him, “How is this day different from other days?” — From this we may learn that Moses had not yet told them the section regarding the Sabbath which he had been commanded to say to them: (v. 5) “And it shall come to pass on the sixth day they shall prepare etc.” — he did not do this until they asked him, “What is this?” Then he said to them, (v. 23) “This is that which the Lord hath said” this is that which I was commanded to say to you previously, but I forgot to do so (Cf. Shemot Rabbah 25:10). On this account Scripture (God) punished him, in that He said to him, (v. 28) “How long will ye refuse [to keep my commandments]”, and He did not exclude him from the general body, by saying, “how long will they refuse etc.”

h.את אשר תאפו אפו THAT WHICH YOU WOULD BAKE, BAKE whatever you wish to bake (cf. Onkelos: די אתון עתידין למפא and Rashi on אז ישיר משה) in the oven bake to-day — all that you will need for two days; and what you require to boil of it in water boil to-day. The expression baking applies to bread, (cf. Rashi on Genesis 40:1) and the expression boiling to a cooked dish.

h.למשמרת means as something put by (to be kept).

h.ויאמר משה אכלהו היום AND MOSES SAID, EAT THAT THIS DAY etc. — In the morning, when they had been accustomed to go forth and gather it, they came to enquire, “Shall we go out or not?” He replied to them, “What you have in your possession eat (אכלהו היום)”. In the evening they again came before him and asked him, “How is it now about going out?” He answered them, שבת היום “Today is the Sabbath”. He saw that they were worried believing perhaps the Manna had stopped and would not again fall; he therefore said to them, “Today ye shall not find it [in the field]”. What reason was there to say “Today”? — Today you will not find it, but tomorrow you will find it (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:7).

h.וביום השביעי שבת means but on the seventh day is a day of rest (supply the word הוא); and לא יהיה בו means the Manna shall not be on it; and this verse comes (is written) only to include the Day of Atonement and the Festivals [as being also days when no Manna would fall] (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:26).

h.עד אנה מאנתם HOW LONG WILL YE REFUSE — A common proverb says: with the thorn the cabbage which is near it, is also stricken — through the wicked the good are brought into disgrace (cf. Rashi on v. 22) (Bava Kamma 92a).

h.ראו SEE with your very eyes (i. e. the word is used literally and not figuratively in the sense of “consider”) that the Lord in His glory (i. e. the Lord Himself) admonishes you regarding the Sabbath, for, behold, a miracle is performed for you on the eve of every Sabbath in that He gives you then bread for two days.

h.שבו איש תחתיו ABIDE YE EVERY MAN IN HIS PLACE (lit., beneath himself) — From here the Sages derived a support for the permission that a person who has gone beyond the Sabbath limit may move within a space of four cubits (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:7; Eruvin 51a).

h.אל יצא איש ממקמו LET NO MAN GO OUT OF HIS PLACE — These are the 2,000 cubits of the Sabbath limit (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:29); but this is not expressly mentioned here, because the command relating to the Sabbath limits is only an institution of the Sopherim. The text itself was really spoken about those who gathered the Manna (i. e., it does not constitute a prohibition regarding the Sabbath for all men and at all periods but was intended to forbid anyone to go out into the field to gather the Manna; cf. Sotah 30b).

h.והוא כזרע גד לבן AND IT WAS LIKE THE CORIANDER SEED, WHITE — a herb, the name of which is (in old French) coriandre; its seed is round and is not white, whilst the Manna was white. It follows therefore, that it is compared to coriander seed only in respect to its roundness — so that the meaning is: it was like coriander seed, and it was white (Yoma 75a).

h.כצפיחת LIKE FLAT CAKES — dough which is fried in honey. In the Mishnaic speech it is called אסקריטין (Pesachim 37a), and this is the translation of Onkelos here.

h.למשמרת means to put by.

h.לדרתיכם FOR YOUR GENERATIONS e. g., in the days of Jeremiah: when Jeremiah was rebuking them (the people), saying, “Why do you not engage yourselves with the Torah?”, and they answered him, “Shall we leave our work and engage ourselves with the Torah? From where shall we earn a living?”, he brought out to them the cruse of Manna and said to them, (Jeremiah 2:31) “[O Generation], see ye the thing of the Lord!” It is not said “Hear the word” but “See the thing”! — This thing is what your fathers were fed with. The Omnipresent God has many messengers (many means) to provide food for those who fear Him (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:33).

h.צנצנת is an earthern flask, as it is translated in the Targum (cf. Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 16:33).

h.‘והנח אתו לפני ה AND LAY IT UP BEFORE THE LORD — before the Ark; this verse, of course, was not spoken until the tent of meeting had been built and the Ark was placed therein, but it is written here in the chapter about the Manna, as being its appropriate place.

h.ארבעים שנה FORTY YEARS — But was not this period short of thirty days, since it was on the sixteenth of Iyar that the Manna fell for them for the first time and on the fifteenth of Nisan that it ceased, as it is said, (Joshua 5:12) “And the Manna ceased on the morrow”? (cf. the preceding verse which speaks of the day when they ate unleavened bread). But this tells us that in the cakes that Israel had brought out of Egypt and which they ate from the 15th of Nisan to the 16th of Iyar after they left Egypt they experienced the taste of Manna (so that the 40 years mentioned here as those during which they ate Manna may be regarded as complete) (Kiddushin 38a).

h.אל ארץ נושבת TO A LAND INHABITED — after they had crossed the Jordan, [for that territory on the other side of the Jordan was cultivated (מְיֻשֶׁבֶת, which is regarded as the equivalent of נושבת; cf. Rashi on Genesis 36:20) and good, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 3:25) “Let me pass over, I pray thee, and see the good land that is on the other side of the Jordan”. And the translation of נושבת by Onkelos is יתבתא which means to say מיושבת, “settled”].

h.אל קצה ארץ כנען UNTO THE EXTREMITY OF THE LAND OF CANAAN — at the beginning of the border before they passed over the Jordan, that is, in the plains of Moab — consequently they (these two descriptions of the locality) contradict each other! But the explanation is that in the plains of Moab, when Moses died (cf. Deuteronomy 34:1) on the seventh of Adar, the Manna really ceased to fall but they had a sufficient supply from the Manna which they had gathered on that day to last until they had brought the Omer on the sixteenth of Nisan in Canaan itself, the cultivated land, as it is said, (Joshua 5:11) “And they did eat of the produce of the land on the morrow after the Passover” (Kiddushin 38a).

h.עשירית האפה [THE OMER] IS THE TENTH PART OF AN EPHAH — The Ephah is three Seahs, and the Seah is six Kabs, and the Kab is four Logs and the Log has the capacity of six eggs: it follows, therefore, that the tenth of an Ephah has the capacity of forty-three and a fifth eggs — and this is the minimum quantity of dough for the Challa (the minimum quantity to which applies the injunction to separate a portion of the dough; cf. Numbers 15:20), and the measure for the meal offering (cf. Rashi on Eruvin 83b).