Midrash sobre Salmos 119:108

These are the accounts of the tabernacle … and the bronze of the offering (Exod. 38:21, 29). The bronze of the offering (tenufah) refers to the bronze vessels given to a bride, for in Greek they call a bride nymphé.¹⁴A play on words: tenufah (“offering”) and nymphé, a Greek bride. You find that while the Israelites were making bricks in Egypt, Pharaoh decreed that they were not to sleep at home so that they would not have intercourse with their wives. R. Simeon the son of Halafta said: What did the Israelite women do? They would go to the Nile to draw water, and the Holy One, blessed be He, would fill their jugs with little fishes.¹⁵Small fishes arouse sexual desire (Berakhot 40a). They would (sell some), cook and prepare (the fish), and buy some wine (with the proceeds of the sale), and then bring it to their husbands in the fields, as it is said: In all manner of service in the field (Exod. 1:14). While the men were eating and drinking, the women would take out their mirrors and glance into them with their husbands. They would say: “I am more attractive than you,” and the men would reply: “I am handsomer than you.” In that way they would arose their sexual desires and become fruitful and multiply. The Holy One, blessed be He, caused them to conceive on the spot.

The Holy One, blessed be He, said: In this world you shall offer gifts to the Temple that it might atone for you, but in the future I shall atone for you and love you freely, as it is said: I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely (Hos. 14:5). They replied: When we have neither Tabernacle nor Temple, let the prayers of our lips be our offerings. David exclaimed: Accept, I beseech thee, the free-will offering of my mouth, O Lord (Ps. 119:108).