Commentaire sur L’Exode 16:2

וילנו AND THEY MURMURED, because the bread had come to an end.

AND THE WHOLE CONGREGATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MURMURED AGAINST MOSES. Scripture should have first narrated the nature of the complaint just as it did in Marah²⁸⁴Above 15:23-24, And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter…. And the people murmured against Moses. and Rephidim,²⁸⁵Further, 17:1-2. And they encamped in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. And the people strove with Moses. and at all other complaints — and stated here first: “and there was no flesh to eat, nor bread for them to the full, and the people were famished for bread.” Now Rashi explained that the reason Scripture specifically mentions [that the date of their arrival in the wilderness of Sin] was on the fifteenth day of the second month²⁸⁶Verse 1. is in order “to make this encampment unique. On that day, there came to an end the provision which the Israelites took along with them from Egypt, and they now needed the manna. It thus informs you that they ate sixty-one meals²⁸⁷The manna first came down on the sixteenth day of Iyar, the second month (see Verse 4), thirty-one days after the exodus. Since two meals are ordinarily eaten daily (see Verse 8), this period required sixty-two meals. The first meal, however, was taken in Egypt on the night of the fifteenth day of Nisan, thus leaving sixty-one meals, which were furnished by the provisions they brought out of Egypt. of the remains of the dough [which they had baked in Egypt on the day of the exodus].”²⁸⁸Above 12:39. [Thus far the language of Rashi.] This is a tradition received by our Rabbis,²⁸⁹Mechilta on Verse 1 here. and the reason that Scripture did not [first] explain the nature of their complaint was that it had not elaborated on this miracle which was done for them secretively, [i.e., that the remains of the dough furnished sixty-one meals]. And it is as I have already written in Seder Vayigash concerning the reason [that Scripture is disposed to be silent on hidden miracles].²⁹⁰See Vol. I, pp. 556-558.
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote that Scripture records the date on the fifteenth day of the second month in order to explain that a month’s time had already elapsed since their departure from Egypt. In the meantime, they consumed the bread they took out of Egypt as well as their cattle, since they were a great multitude of people. This was the reason for the murmuring.
In my opinion, the reason for their complaint is to be found in the Scriptural expression, and they came… unto the wilderness of Sin.²⁸⁶Verse 1. When they came to that wilderness far away from Egypt, they began saying: “What shall we eat? What will this great wilderness into which we have come supply us with?” It may be that at first they had thought that after a few days they would come to the cities round about them. Now that a month had gone by and they found no city of habitation,²⁹¹Psalms 107:4. they said, “We will all die in the great wilderness into which we have come.” This then is the meaning of the verse, And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness, the murmuring being because of the wilderness. And so likewise the people said, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to put to death this whole assembly by famine.²⁹²Verse 3. Thus they mentioned “the wilderness’ and “the assembly,” therein stating that a large assembly such as this will undoubtedly die of hunger in this great wilderness. The Holy One, blessed be He, hearkened unto them, and He now began to prepare a table for them in the wilderness²⁹³Psalms 78:19. until they came to a land inhabited.²⁹⁴Further, Verse 35.

וילונו כל עדת בני ישראל, “The entire community of the Children of Israel complained, etc.” Ibn Ezra writes that at Marah only a small section of the people the people had complained, the Torah writing:וילונו העם על משה, ”the people” as opposed to כל עדת בני ישראל, “the whole community of the Children of Israel,” i.e. including the elite of the people. At that point they also complained to Aaron. Nachmanides writes that actually the Torah should have written the reason for the people’s complaint, such as that there was no meat to eat, and that there was not enough bread to satisfy their needs, as the Torah had done both when they complained at Refidim and when they complained at Marah. Rashi writes that when the Torah mentions that this station occurred on the 15th day of the second month, i.e. exactly a month after their departure from Ramses, this was the day that the dough that they had brought with them from Egypt that had been baked on the way into unleavened bread, ran out. This made it superfluous for the Torah to spell out the nature of their complaint. Ibn Ezra writes that the reason why the Torah mentions the date is to inform us that already a whole month had passed since the people had left Egypt. During that entire period they had subsisted on the bread they had with them and on the meat of the large herds of cattle and sheep they had brought with them. Now they faced real deprivations. Personally, I think that the complaints were sparked by the realization of the Israelites now that they would not be marching along well-traveled routes, encountering towns and villages along the way, but they were headed deeper and deeper into an arid unpopulated desert. The word במדבר in our verse does not so much describe a specific location as the cause for their complaints. The very fact that they kept moving further and further into the desert led them to accuse Moses and Aaron that they had been brought there to die in the desert. If they had to die, they would have preferred to die in a place where they could have been buried with dignity. They spelled all this out when they said: “you have taken us out into this desert to kill this whole community by letting them starve to death.” G’d immediately listened to their complaint and set about to prepare food for them for the duration of their stay in the desert.