THE TEXT

The Text

1 Now the people set up a lament which was offensive to Yahweh's ears, and Yahweh heard it.

4 The rabble who had joined the people were overcome by greed, and the sons of Israel themselves began to wail again, “Who will give us meat to eat?” they said.

5 “Think of the fish we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic!

6 “Here we are wasting away, stripped of everything; there is nothing but manna for us to look at.”

7 The manna was like coriander seed, and had the ap pearance of bdellium.

8 The people went around gathering it, and ground it in a mill or crushed it with a pestle; it was then cooked in a pot and made into pancakes.

9 It tasted like cake made with oil. When the dew fell on the camp at nighttime, the manna fell with it.

31 A wind came from Yahweh and it drove quails in from the sea and brought them down on the camp. They lay for a distance of a day's march either side of the camp, two cubits thick on the ground.

“A wind came from Yahweh and it drove quails in from the sea… .The people were up all that day and night and all the next day collecting quails.”

32 The people were up all that day and night and all the next day collecting quails.

Numbers 11:1, 4–9; 31–32a, The Jerusalem Bible