Commento su Esodo 16:19

ויאמר משה…אל יותר ממנו עד בקר, Moses said…not to leave over from it till the following morning. It is possible that Moses issued this directive on his own. He did so because he knew that G'd would provide daily rations. He interpreted G'd's intention as being that one day's food supply should not serve as preparation for the following day's needs. This may be why the Torah phrases Israel's disobedience as "they did not listen to Moses," instead of simply saying: "they left some over till the morning."

אל יותר ממנו, “do not leave any leftovers from it.” Moses meant that no one should deliberately leave over from his portion meaning to eat the leftover on the day following. He did not mean that it was compulsory to eat up his whole portion. Anyone who found it impossible to eat up his entire portion was supposed to throw the leftover into the garbage.

V. 19. יותר. Es scheint ein Unterschied zwischen הותיר und השאיר zu sein. Da יתר seiner Grundbedeutung nach spannen heißt, daher יתר die Bogensehne und מיתר das fest angezogene Seil, somit etwas über das natürliche Maß ausdehnen, so wird ein unberechtigtes Übriglassen, d. h. ein von der gebührenden, berechtigten Vernichtung Verschontseinlassen, zunächst mit הותיר ausgedrückt: das Dasein eines Gegenstandes über die Gebühr ausdehnen. השאי hingegen drückt mehr das berechtigte Übriglassen, das von unberechtigter Vernichtung Verschontseinlassen aus. Dieses Verbot macht den Genuss des dem redlichen Fleiße von Gott Gewährten zur Pflicht und stempelt den aus Kleinmut den Genuss des gewährten Gegenwärtigen sich versagenden oder verkümmernden Geiz zur Sünde, sowie in den vorhergehenden Versen die Trägheit und die Habgier als verwerflich erscheinen.

אל יותר, “do not leave any over!” The word יותר is word is to be understood as if it had been spelled in the transitive mode אל יותיר. We have other examples of such a formulation, as in Genesis 24,53, where Avraham’s servant Eliezer is described as taking jewelry out of his pocket or luggage, to give to Rivkah, and instead of the Torah writing: ויוציא העבד, it wrote: ויוצא העבד, “which literally translated would mean ”he went out,“ instead of “he took out.” These formulations of the root יצא also occur in the opposite direction as in Psalms 105,43: “He led His people out in gladness, “מוצא רוח מאוצרותיו ויוציא עמו בששון,“ or in Psalms 135 7: מוצא רוח מאורותיו, “He releases the wind from His vaults.”

Furthermore, why was it not sufficient to say: "they did not listen and left some over?" This would have told us that they did not listen to the one who had given the instructions. According to our interpretation the meaning of "and they did not listen" means the reason they ignored Moses' instructions was that they were clever enough to perceive that the instructions originated with Moses and not with G'd. This also explains the fact that Moses had introduced the instructions he gave concerning collecting the manna in verse 16 as being in the name of G'd. He had not done so previously. If the manna turned bad and sprouted worms this shows that G'd agreed with Moses' intiative.

It is also possible that every instruction Moses issued originated with G'd; seeing Moses had already introduced his directives concerning collection of the manna as instructions given to him by G'd, he did not see the need to re-emphasize this at every juncture. The Israelites misunderstood this, thinking Moses had acted on his own. They also did not know that instructions issued by a prophet are to be obeyed even if the prophet did not receive specific instructions concerning them from G'd.