30. The people followed the divine injunction concerning the Sabbath, and nobody went out to seek manna.

31. The manna is compared with coriander seed. The coriandrum sativum is frequently found in Egypt, Persia and India, has a round, tall stalk, the lower leaves are simply feathered, and toothed; the upper ones are smaller, doubly feathered, and pointed; it bears umbelliferous white or reddish flowers, from which arise globular greyish-coloured, spicy, hollow seed-corns, the surface marked with fine striae; they are in Egypt exclusively employed as a spice in meat and other food. It is, at present, also much cultivated in the south of Europe, and in this country, as its seeds are used by confectioners and druggists, and its leaves are employed as an ingredient for different kinds of dishes. As, therefore, the coriander is yellowish, Rashi explains our words thus: "The manna was, with regard to the globular form, similar to the seeds of coriander, which has besides, a white colour." And similarly Kimchi: "The manna was white, and consisted of grains like those of coriander-seed." But these explanations are against the construction of the Hebrew words. In Num. xi. 7, the colour is described as that of bdellium, which is "whitish, resinous, and pellucid, nearly the colour of frankincense; when broken it appears the colour of wax."-Its taste was like honey-cake, or, according to Num. xi. 8, it resembled that of " an oiled cake;" which two designations Ebn Ezra, Rashbam, and others, reconcile by the suppo

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sition, that the manna, when falling from the air, tasted like coriander, but, when ground and cooked, like oil. However, coriander and oil are both poetical figures for a soft agreeable substance. According to the Rabbins, the manna contained ingredients of every delicious food, and had a different taste for the children, the youths, the men, and the aged, to every one according to his individual liking.

32-34. An omer of the manna was to be preserved, that the future generations might be reminded with what miraculous food God supported the Israelites in the desert-a proof that, according to the narrative of the sacred text, not the usual manna which falls every year, and which was known to everybody, is here understood. That omer was likewise intended or calculated to recall, in times of disbelief and misery, to the memory of the Israelites, God's providence and love, by exhibiting the unsubstantial food with which He satisfied so many millions through so protracted a period. This vessel with manna was to be placed before God, or before the Testimony, which two expressions must, therefore, be identical; for " Testimony" stands here instead of the "Ark of the Covenant," which contained the two stone tablets upon which the ten commandments were engraved. The vessel with the manna, occupied thus a most significant place in the holy tabernacle. It is self-evident, from this circumstance, that this command, or at least its execution (ver. 34), cannot fall into the time of our chapter, namely, the second month after the exode,

but considerably later, after the legislation, and the construction and erection of the tabernacle. But the historian intended to combine, in these verses, all notices relating to the manna, and, from the same consideration, the next verse (ver. 35) contains even the fact, that the Israelites were provided with manna during forty years, till they came to the borders of the promised land. Instances of a similar anticipation occur both in the Pentateuch and the historical books of the Old Testament. According to Joshua v. 10-12, the manna ceased after the transit of the Israelites over the Jordan, after the death of Moses, who could, therefore, have made that statement only by divine inspiration (as Abarbanel observes), especially as Moses knew, according to Numb. xiv. 33, that the Israelites would eat the manna for forty years. According to others, this remark has been inserted by Joshua, or by Moses, immediately before his demise. Hengstenberg explains, that our verse simply relates that the Israelites were provided with manna till they came to the inhabited districts in the cast of the Jordan, without leading the narrative beyond the time of Moses; they eat manna till that period, which does not exclude their enjoying the same heavenly food even after that time. A similar difficulty and difference of opinion prevails in Deut. xxxiv. 5. et seq. where the death of Moses himself is reported.-Forty years are given as a round sum, although the manna lasted about one month less; for it commenced in the second month after the

exode (ver. 1), and ceased immediately after the first Passover which the Israelites celebrated in the west of the Jordan (Josh. v. 12).-The Septuagint, Vulgate, English Version, and many modern commentators, translate the following words thus: "until they came to a land inhabited." This is at variance both with historyfor the Israelites passed, long before their entrance into Canaan, through many inhabited countries, for instance, those of Sihon and Og-and with the succeeding words, which are explanatory of that statement: "until they came to the borders of the land of Canaan" (to Gilgal).

36. Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah. The Septuagint translates: "The omer was the tenth part of three measures" (that is, seahs, ). Thus also Onkelos and Rashi: The omer was the third part of three seahs. Rashi continues, One seah is equal to 6 kabs, one kab is equal to 4 logs, and one log is equal to 6 eggs, so that, again, an omer is equal to 43 eggs (for, if a log is equal to 6 eggs, a kab is equal to 24, and a seah is equal to 144; therefore, three seahs are equal to 432, and the tenth part, or an omer, is equal to 43}). See note on ver. 16. The Septuagint usually renders ephah by the Egyptian word oiphi or oiphei, that is, measure; and hin it translates with ein or in, which is the Egyptian name for sextarius. Ephah and hin seem therefore to have been originally Egyptian measures. The molten sea of Solomon (1 Kings vii. 23-26) contained two thousand baths; and if we compare the dimensions of this vessel

1. The Israelites break up from Sin which we have found identical with Wadi esh-Sheikh (see on xvi. 1); and from here they proceed on the command of God always nearer to their first great aim, the Sinai, and arrive at Dophkah, then at Alush (Num. xxxiii. 12, 13), and lastly at Rephidim. The two first stations are here omitted from the same principle, which we have already pointed out in our note on xvi. 1; and the text pauses at Rephidim, where the people "tried God" once more (ver. 2).— From the whole context (compare xviii. 5), especially from ver. 6, where the "rock in Horeb" is mentioned, Rephidim cannot lie far from the group of the Horeb mountains. The more accurate situation cannot be fixed with certainty. Perhaps it is the plain of Szueir, which is open and covered with low hills, and which extends between the Wadi esh-Sheikh and the Horeb in a southerly direction. But the Wadi Feiran it cannot possibly be, as Kutscheit and others believe, as that valley lies at too great a distance northwest of Horeb (see on xvi. 1).- Kitto infers, from the statement of Makrizi: "that Feiran was one of the towns of the Amalekites," that Rephidim is the Wadi Feiran. But according to ver. 8, the Amalekites proceed to Rephidim to fight against Israel (see on ver. 8).—According to others it is the deep, dark, rocky valley El-Ledsha, between the Horeb and the Mount St. Catherine, and in the west of the former (see p. 47); but this would, on the other hand, be so near the mountain of legislation, that another day's journey into the "desert of Sinai," would have been superfluous or impossible (see on xix. 1, 2).—And there was no water

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for the people to drink. The great scarcity of water in the peninsula of Sinai is universally known: "In a space of 315 miles," says Harmar, over part of this wilderness, Mr. Irwin found only four springs of water. In another space of 115 miles he found only four springs, at one of which the water was brackish, and at the other unwholesome." See xv. 22, 23.

2. And the people quarrelled with Moses, and said, Give us water. All the great and various wonders, which the Lord had hitherto wrought against their adversaries and for their own subsistence, had yet little served to strengthen their reliance in the love, and their belief in the omnipotence of God, and at every new privation, or every approaching danger, they murmured with obstinacy and refractoriness against Moses, who as they now knew, was but the instrument and messenger of God. But God's long-suffering and love in the face of this disbelief and contumacy, proved inexhaustible. On this occasion also the Israelites had, at a momentary want of water, impetuously demanded the satisfaction of that want, exclaiming: will try the Lord, and see whether He is really among us or not" (ver. 7). But this was a direct and immediate temptation of God, for which Moses reproved them with the words: "Wherefore do you try the Lord"? (ver. 2). To lead such a people into the land of promise, and to give them a pure and sublime, but still to them comprehensible religion and legislation, was a work, which human power alone would have been incapable

to execute.

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3. As the Israelites reproached Moses

in xvi. 3, when famine menaced, that he had torn them from their Egyptian tranquillity and comfort, so also here, when the horrors of thirst threatened them. So deeply were their souls degraded, that they did not feel the ignominious servitude in Egypt, and even longingly remembered the "onions and garlick," which they did eat there freely.

4. Moses cried to God: What shall

I do to this people? there is but little wanting, and they will stone me. Thus the Sept. and Vulgate; that is, their dissatisfaction has reached such a degree, that they will almost kill me in their excitement. Rashi takes these words less appropriately in their proper sense: "if I wait but a little, they will stone me."

5. God said to Moses: Go on before the people. Some, as Abarbanel, refer these words to the preceding verse: thou art afraid the people might stone thee; now, stand before it, and thou wilt see that it will not touch thee. But more correctly that phrase finds its explanation in the following verse: Go thou first alone to Horeb, whilst the people shall still remain in Rephidim.-Moses shall take some of the elders with him, according to Rashi and others, "that they might see and bear witness, that through him the water came from the rock, lest anybody say, that already from ancient times fountains existed there."-According to Nachmanides, the staff of Moses is here designedly described as that with which the Nile was smitten (vii. 20; viii. 5, etc.), not as that which was converted into a serpent, or in any similar manner, because in both cases a miracle was to be effected with the water.

6. This verse narrates a new wonder, how Moses, before the eyes of the elders, and by the assistance of God, struck water from a rock on Horeb, so that the whole people of Israel and all their flocks and herds had sufficient to drink. Our text admits no doubt concerning the miracle itself, and the manner in which it was effected; but tradition, mostly embellished by Christian monks and Mohammedan pilgrims, has appropriated to itself this subject to adorn and to hand down even its minutest details, with no word alluded to in the holy record, to the pious believers; and even enlightened travellers have suffered themselves to be blinded by such intentional or pious fictions. Thus reports Shaw, that, after having descended, with considerable difficulty, on the western side of Mount Sinai, he arrived in the plain of Rephidim [see, however, on ver. 1]. Here he saw that ancient relic, the rock Meriba, which he believes has remained to his time without the least change. He describes it as a square granite rock, each side about six yards long, which lies moveable and loose in the midst of the valley; it appears formerly to have been a piece or cliff of Mount Sinai, from which a great number of such huge rocks hang over the plain. The water which streamed from it has hollowed out a canal, about two inches deep and twenty wide, which is entirely covered with a kind of crust. Besides some spots overgrown with moss, which is still preserved by the dew, a number of holes are visible, some of which are four or five inches deep, and one or two in diameter, and Shaw considers them as clear and convincing traces that they