Kommentar zu Schemot 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).

מי יתן מותנו...בשבתנו על סיר הבשר, they did not want to die. What they said was that if it had been G’d’s plan all along to let them die, why had He not arranged for them to die while they were still satiated from their last meal? A similar thought is expressed in Lamentations 4,9טובים היו חללי חרב מחללי רעב, “the ones killed by the sword were better off than the ones who died from hunger.”

ביד ה׳ בארץ מצרים, "by the hand of G'd, in the land of Egypt." They meant that if they had still been in Egypt and would have refused to leave they would have died by the hand of G'd in Egypt. They preferred to have died for that sin rather than to die in the desert from hunger without having sinned. The situation is reminiscent of Lamentations 4,9: "those who died by the sword are better off than those who died from hunger."

'ביד ה, a kind of death described in Job 5,26 as בכלח אלי קבר, “coming to the grave in ripe old age,” not from hunger.

מי יתן מותנו ביד ה' “who would give that we had died by the hand of the Lord, etc.!” They referred to the three days of darkness during which most of the Israelites had died, (compare Rabbeinu Chananel).

Onkelos translates it לוי דמיתנא . . . Meaning: Onkelos translates מי יתן מותנו just as he translates the verse לו מתנו (Bamidbar 14:2). And לו מתנו clearly means, “If only that we should die.” Thus our verse also means, “If only that we should die.”

'מי יתן מותנו ביד ה, a reference to the three days of intense darkness when all the Jews not deserving redemption had been killed by G’d and been buried by their brethren.

(Ibid. 3) "And the children of Israel said to them: Would that we had died by the hand of the L rd, etc.": Would that we had died in the three days of darkness in Egypt. (Ibid.) "when we sat over the flesh-pot": Israel lusted to eat. R. Elazar Hamodai says: Israel were servants to kings in Egypt. When they went out to market they could take bread, meat, fish, and all other things, and no one would stop them. They could go out to the field and take grapes, figs, and pomegranates, and no one would stop them. R. Yossi Hamodai says: Know this to be so, for they were given kishuim last (i.e., as a last alternative), wherefore it is written "kishuim" last (viz. Numbers 11:5), in that they were hard ("kashim") on their stomachs. "that you have taken us out to this desert": They said to them: You have taken us out to this desert "in vain" — There is nothing in it. "to kill this entire congregation by famine": R. Yehoshua b. Karcha says: There is no death worse than famine, viz. (Eichah 4:9) "Better the slain by the sword than the slain by famine!" R. Elazar Hamodai says: (lit., "in the famine"): There has come upon us famine after famine, pestilence after pestilence, darkness after darkness.

V. 3. בני ישראל, einzelne, die Kecksten in der Gemeine, liehen der allgemeinen Unzufriedenheit das offene Wort des Vorwurfs und der Anklage gegen Mosche und Aaron. ביד ד׳, dort in Mizrajim wären wir durch Gottes Hand eines natürlichen Todes gestorben. Hier sterben wir durch eure Schuld. Unmöglich hat Gott euch aufgetragen, uns hierher in die Wüste zu führen, wo uns allen der Hungertod gewiss ist!

'מותנו ביד ה, “if we had died directly as an act of Hashem;” they meant that they rather would have died at their appointed time, instead of having had their lives cut short through dying from starvation.

על סיר הבשר, the word על here means “next to,” as it does in Numbers 2,20 ועליו מטה מנשה, “and next to him the tribe of Menashe.”

בשבתנו על סיר הבשר, "while we sat by the flesh-pots, etc." This verse clearly shows that the people who uttered this slander were not the ones who had performed slave labour, but had been overseers. The labourers had never had anything to eat but unleavened bread. Possibly the speakers were the well known Datan and Aviram who were known for their wickedness.

בשבתנו על סיר בשר, “when we had been sitting besides a pot of meat.” They did not imply that they actually had meat in Egypt, but that they had adequate food. Another example of where לחם does not literally mean “bread,” but a meal, is found in Genesis 37,25. The same is true for the expression סיר בשר.

בשבתנו על, "when we sat by, etc." Possibly the reason they felt satisfaction when they ate bread was because they also had meat to eat with it.

Alternatively, it may mean that though they had already stilled their hunger by eating bread, they ate meat after having had their fill of bread. It is possible that the detail "by the flesh-pots" as opposed to "we ate meat," means that they did not eat the meat for some considerable time after it had been cooked and had already lost some of its taste, but that they sat by the pots waiting for the meat to be thoroughly cooked and then eating it at once. These people may have hinted to Moses that though he might tell them to go ahead and slaughter their livestock so that they would have meat to eat, this would not represent a permanent solution, seeing that in Egypt they had enjoyed a regular meat-based diet.

The verse may also explain why the Torah had previously described the whole congregation of Israel as complaining against Moses and Aaron. Under normal circumstances it is most unlikely that everyone in such a large group of people should be of the same mind when it came to complaining against G'd and Moses, His prophet. The fact that they were all of one mind in this case required the existence of two preconditions. There were two groups of people of which one demanded bread whereas the other demanded meat. The group of people which mentioned the time they sat by the flesh-pots were the wealthy Jews. Although they were a small minority, the Torah mentioned them first as in times of negative developments one usually mentions the extremists first. Afterwards the Torah mentioned the people whose principal diet had been bread, though they had enjoyed an abundant supply of that, i.e. "we ate bread to our satisfaction." Now that these people found themselves in an uninhabited desert they grew restless pending their leader providing them with their necessities.