Exodus 16:3 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Exodus 16:3
And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
hunger (more or less extensive) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 11:4-5 And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to…
Exodus 17:3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out…
Numbers 20:3-5 And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD!
Deuteronomy 28:67 In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wh…
Lamentations 4:9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the frui…
Numbers 14:2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had di…
Jeremiah 2:6 Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of dese…
Exodus 2:23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cr…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Exodus 16:1-12
The host of Israel, it seems, took along with them out of Egypt, when they came thence on the fifteenth day of the first month, a month's provisions, which, by the fifteenth day of the second month, was all spent; and here we have,
I. Their discontent and murmuring upon that occasion, Exo 16:2, Exo 16:3. The whole congregation, the greatest part of them, joined in this mutiny; it was not immediately against God that they murmured, but (which was equivalent) against Moses and Aaron, God's viceregents among them. 1. They count upon being killed in the wilderness - nothing less, at the first appearance of disaster. If the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he could easily have done that in the…
Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt--How unreasonable and absurd the charge against Moses and Aaron! how ungrateful and impious against God! After all their experience of the divine wisdom, goodness, and power, we pause and wonder over the sacred narrative of their hardness and unbelief. But the expression of feeling is contagious in so vast a multitude, and there is a feeling of solitude and despondency in the desert which numbers cannot dispel; and besides, we must remember that they were men engrossed with the present--that the Comforter was not then given--and that they were destitute of all visible means of sustenance and cut off from every visible comf…
The flesh pots - As the Hebrews were in a state of slavery in Egypt, they were doubtless fed in various companies by their task masters in particular places, where large pots or boilers were fixed for the purpose of cooking their victuals. To these there may be a reference in this place, and the whole speech only goes to prove that they preferred their bondage in Egypt to their present state in the wilderness; for they could not have been in a state of absolute want, as they had brought an abundance of flocks and herds with them out of Egypt.
The Church Fathers
Since they dared to prefer the bitterest of Egyptian foods to the heavenly food of manna and preferred the succulent meats of their hostile masters to their own freedom, did they deserve anything else than to have their joy in foods curtailed? They truly deserved to bear the brand of the slavery they had longed for, since a better food—the food of the free—displeased them so.
The Jews ate flesh in the wilderness, and it is written concerning them that, "While the flesh was yet between their teeth the anger of God had dominion over them," not because they had eaten flesh, but because with lust they had asked to eat it. And in the place where they required flesh it is written that, "The people said to Moses, It was better for us when we were in Egypt, for we sat by the flesh pots, and did eat, and were filled with everything that our soul lusted for." Behold then, according to the word of Moses unto the Jews, every one that eateth in lust, rejecteth the Lord Who is in him, and he resteth upon his lust's desire.
Although this manner of speaking first referred to that people, nonetheless we see it now daily fulfilled in our life and profession. For everyone who has first renounced this world and then returns to his former pursuits and his erstwhile desires proclaims that in deed and in intention he is the same as they were, and he says, "It was well with me in Egypt."I fear that there will be found as many such people as we read there were multitudes of sinners in the time of Moses. For although six hundred and three thousand armed men were said to have left Egypt, no more than two of these entered the Promised Land. Hence we must strive to take our models of virtue from the few and far between, since, according to that figure of speech in the Gospel, many are said to be called but few are said to be chosen. Bodily renunciation and removal from Egypt, as it were, will be of no value to us, therefore, if we have been unable to obtain at the same time the renunciation of heart which is more sublime and more beneficial.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Food — Originally the Creator granted the use of the vegetable world for food to man (Gen. 1:29), with the exception mentioned (2:17). The use of animal food was probably not unknown to the antediluvians.…
Aaron · Murmured against, by the people — Murmured against, by the people
Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The · Murmuring for bread — Murmuring for bread
Diet Of The Jews, The · In Egypt — In Egypt
Evil For Good · .Israelites, to Moses — .Israelites, to Moses
Infidelity · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Ingratitude · .Israelites to Moses — .Israelites to Moses
Manna · Given: When Israel murmured for bread — Given: When Israel murmured for bread
Murmuring · (Complaining, grumbling) -Of Israelites against Moses — (Complaining, grumbling) -Of Israelites against Moses
Trouble · .Foo — .Foo
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Exodus 16:3
And the children of Israel said unto them,.... They not only inwardly murmured, and privately complained among themselves, but they spoke out their complaints, and that in a very extravagant manner:
would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt; by one of the plagues, or some such like plague as were inflicted on the Egyptians, which killed many of them, and particularly the hailstorm and plague on the firstborn; suggesting that death, even by the hand of the Lord, whether in an ordinary or extraordinary way, was more eligible than their present circumstances: when we sat by the fleshpots, and when we did eat bread to the full; which is an exaggeration of their forme…
Exodus 16:1-8
1. And they took their journey from Elim; and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.
1. Profectae autem ab Elim cunctae turmae filiorum Israel, venerunt in desertum Sin, quod est inter Elim et Sinai, quinto decimo die mensis secundi post eorum exitum e terra AEgypti.
2. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
2. Et murmuraverunt omnes turmae filiorum Israel contra Mosen et contra Aharon in deserto.
3. And the children of Israel said unto them, Woul…
Here, in this arid sandy waste, the whole congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron on account of the want of food. What they brought with them from Egypt had been consumed in the 30 days that had elapsed since they came out (Exo 16:1). In their vexation the people expressed the wish that they had died in Egypt by the flesh-pot, in the midst of plenty, "by the hand of Jehovah," i.e., by the last plague which Jehovah sent upon Egypt, rather than here in the desert of slow starvation. The form ויּלּינוּ is a Hiphil according to the consonants, and should be pointed ילּינוּ, from הלּין for הלין (see Ges. 72, Anm. 9, and Ewald, 114c.). As the want really existed, Jehovah promised them help (…
all the bread we wanted: The Israelites had been oppressed slaves in Egypt! One of the great dangers of complaining is that it blinds us to reality. Faith is grateful for what is, and believes the best is yet to come. Complaining focuses on what is wrong with the present and glorifies an unreal past.
Rashi on Exodus 16:3
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).
