🔢WEB · Numbers 11:5
What does Numbers 11:5 mean?
"We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;"
— Numbers 11:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
The people cried to Moses; and Moses prayed to Yahweh, and the fire abated.
The name of that place was called Taberah, because Yahweh’s fire burned among them.
The mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?
We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;
but now we have lost our appetite. There is nothing at all except this manna to look at.”
The manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like the appearance of bdellium.
The people went around, gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it. Its taste was like the taste of fresh oil.
Explanation
Numbers 11:5 records the complaint of the Israelites in the wilderness as they longed for the food they had eaten back in Egypt. In plain language, the people are saying: "Remember how good the food was when we were slaves? We had fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic, and we didn't even have to pay for it." This statement comes in the middle of a larger outburst of grumbling recorded in Numbers 11, where the people express weariness with manna, the food God had been miraculously providing for them each day since they left Egypt.
The context is essential to understanding the verse. Numbers was traditionally attributed to Moses, and this section narrates events shortly after Israel departed from Egypt and began the long journey through the wilderness toward the Promised Land. The "rabble" among the people (as verse 4 calls them) began to weep and crave other food, and their complaint quickly spread through the whole camp. It's important to notice the irony embedded in their words: they call their former slavery "free" food, when in reality they were forced laborers in Egypt with no freedom at all. Their memory has been distorted by present discomfort—they are romanticizing bondage because the wilderness journey, though it led toward freedom, was difficult and monotonous.
Theologically, this verse illustrates a recurring biblical pattern: God's people forgetting his past deliverance and provision because of present hardship, and idealizing their former captivity rather than trusting God's ongoing care. Manna, the food God supplied, was itself a sign of his faithfulness and prov
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