출애굽기 16

The people grumble for food

¹After leaving Elim, the whole community of the Israelites arrived in the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Sinai. It was the fifteenth day of the second month since they had come out of the land of Egypt. ²There in the wilderness the whole community of the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³The Israelites said to them, “We wish we had died at the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt! There we sat beside the pots of meat and ate all the bread we could hold. But you two have brought us out into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger.”

⁴The LORD said to Moses, “I am about to rain bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather the amount needed for that day. By this I will test them, to see whether they will live by my law or not. ⁵When they prepare on the sixth day what they have brought in, it will amount to double their usual daily gathering.”^a

⁶Moses and Aaron told all the Israelites, “This evening you will come to know that it was the LORD who led you out of the land of Egypt, ⁷and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD. For he has heard the grumbling you have aimed at the LORD. As for us, what are we? Why grumble against us?” ⁸Moses went on, “You will see this when the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening, and bread in the morning until you are full, because the LORD has heard the grumbling you direct at him. What are we? Your grumbling is not aimed at us at all, but at the LORD.” ⁹Moses told Aaron to tell the whole community of the Israelites to come close and stand before the LORD, because he had heard their grumbling. ¹⁰While Aaron was still addressing the whole community of the Israelites, they turned to face the wilderness, and suddenly the glory of the LORD could be seen in the cloud.

Quail and bread from heaven

¹¹Then the LORD said to Moses, ¹²“The grumbling of the Israelites has reached my ears. Tell them this: ‘As evening falls you will eat meat, and in the morning you will have your fill of bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’” ¹³That evening, quail flew in and covered the camp, and by morning dew lay all around the camp. ¹⁴When the dew had lifted, the surface of the wilderness was covered with something fine and flaky, as thin as frost on the ground.^{b 15}“What is it?” the Israelites asked one another when they saw it, since they did not know what it was. Moses answered them, “It is bread, given to you by the LORD as your food.^{c 16}Here is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Each of you is to gather as much as you need to eat, about 2 quarts for every person. The head of each household is to collect it for everyone who lives in his tent.’” ¹⁷The Israelites did this. Some of them gathered a lot, and others only a little. ¹⁸Yet when they measured it with a 2-quart measure, the one who gathered much had nothing left over, and the one who gathered little had no shortage. All of them had gathered as much as they could eat. ¹⁹Moses told them, “None of you may save any of it for the next morning.” ²⁰But they would not listen to Moses. Some people saved part of it until morning, and it became wormy and foul-smelling. This made Moses angry with them. ²¹So morning after morning they gathered it, everyone as much as they could eat, and when the heat of the sun came, what was left melted away. ²²On the sixth day they gathered a double amount of bread, about 4 quarts per person. All the leaders of the community came and told Moses about it. ²³He told them, “This is what the LORD said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD.’ So today bake whatever you mean to bake and boil whatever you mean to boil. Put aside everything left over and keep it for the morning.” ²⁴They set it aside until morning, just as Moses had ordered. It did not start to smell, and no maggots appeared in it. ²⁵Moses said, “Today, eat this. Today is a Sabbath to the LORD; you will find none of it out in the field today. ²⁶For six days you are to gather it. But the seventh day is a Sabbath, and on it there will be nothing to gather.” ²⁷Even so, when the seventh day came, some of the people went out to gather it, and they found nothing.

Sabbath rest and the jar of manna

²⁸The LORD said to Moses, “How long will you people go on refusing to keep my commandments and my laws? ²⁹Understand this: the LORD has given you the Sabbath. That is why on the sixth day he provides you with bread for two days. On the seventh day all of you are to stay where you are; no one is to leave home.” ³⁰So on the seventh day the people rested. ³¹The people of Israel named it manna. It was like coriander seed, but white, and its taste was like honey wafers. ³²Moses said, “Here is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Set aside a full 2 quarts of it to be kept for your descendants, generation after generation. Then they can look at the bread I gave you to eat in the wilderness after I brought you out of Egypt.’” ³³Moses told Aaron, “Get a jar and put a full 2 quarts of manna into it. Then set it in the presence of the LORD, to be kept for all your generations to come.” ³⁴Aaron set it in front of the testimony for safekeeping, as the LORD had told Moses to do. ³⁵For forty years the Israelites ate manna, until they reached a land where people lived. They went on eating manna until they arrived at the edge of the land of Canaan. ³⁶(An omer is about 2 quarts, one tenth of an ephah.)