ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף יונה 2:1

את הקשואים ואת האבטיחים, “the cucumbers and the melons, etc.” The people spoke in a desultory way of the superior food the Lord had provided, the manna. In order to belittle the manna they compared it unfavorably to such food as is universally considered as inferior such as cucumbers and melons. We know that the land of Egypt produced excellent food, seeing the Torah had described the land of Egypt as “a garden of the Lord” in Genesis 13,10 when describing the fertility of the Jordan valley. In order to emphasize their disdain for the manna the people did not compare it unfavorably with Egypt’s best produce but they compared it to Egypt’s most inferior produce. Moreover, the fact that they mentioned fish was an outright insult against the manna seeing the only kind of fish the Israelites had been given in Egypt were the fish which had already begun to decompose and to stink. They were given only fish which had been caught at least 4 or 5 days previously. This is the reason they spoke about remembering הדגה instead of דגים or הדג, “the fish.” The word הדגה means that these fish were recognizable only as a species not individually. We know that this is an appropriate distinction from Jonah 2,1 where the prophet describes G’d as commanding דג גדול, “a large fish” to swallow Jonah. However, when the Torah refers to the fish in the river Nile at the time the river was turned into blood, the dead fish are described as דגה. The river is described as “stinking with these dead fish.” (Exodus 7,17). When Jonah prayed inside the belly of the fish, that fish is described as דגה, because Jonah describes himself as praying from “Sheol,” i.e. from the grave (Jonah 2,3). If someone sits inside a dead belly he is equivalent to sitting in a grave. If, later on, we read that G’d commanded Jonah to be spewed out and to be swallowed by a second (smaller) fish, this was only because it was not dignified for Jonah to sit inside a dead fish. The second fish was then ordered to spew out Jonah on dry land (Jonah 2,11).
To get back to our main subject: The Israelites expressed their disgust at what was a most valuable gift from G’d. The people were not so much wanting something as expressing their dissatisfaction with what they had. Significantly, throughout this episode the Torah speaks of the people as העם, “the people,” a term describing the lowest common denominator. They are not referred to as either עדה or בני ישראל, which would have pointed at people on a spiritually higher level. Eventually (verse 5) the בני ישראל, the elite of the people, also became infected with this discontent.
The place referred to in verse 34 as קברות התאוה is none other than תבערה which was mentioned in verse 3. The meaning both times is that at the very site where their unjustified desires surfaced they were punished. The “fire” is none other than their “burning desire.” The reason these two paragraphs dealing with תאוה desire, is written adjacent to the story of Miriam making uncalled for comments about Moses and his family life or lack thereof, is because Miriam too made inadmissible comments, just as had the people who had denigrated the manna or who had wanted to stuff themselves on a meat diet. The paragraph reporting Miriam’s inadmissible comments is followed by the one with the spies who also made inadmissible comments about Eretz Yisrael being a country which devours its inhabitants, etc.

אולי נטתה מפני, “if she had not turned aside on my account, etc.” The word אולי which often means: “maybe, perchance,” here means “if not.” The words “instead of killing her” clearly demonstrate that after the she-ass spoke the angel killed her. He now told her that the she-ass’s very speaking had been the reason he had spared her master, Bileam.
The Midrash cites another possible reason for the ass being killed, namely to prevent the Emorites deifying an ass that was able to speak like a human being (Tanchuma Balak 9). A third reason is simply that the ass had performed the function it had been created for and kept in limbo since dusk on the sixth day of creation (Avot 5,8). We observe a similar phenomenon with the fish whose purpose on earth (in water) had been to swallow and subsequently spit out Jonah. We read in the Book of Jonah 2,2: “G’d appointed a large fish, דג גדול, to swallow Jonah.” The reason that fish was described as גדול “large,” is “great in years,” i.e.very old. Although there were many fish in the sea with bodies larger than that which swallowed Jonah, there was none that was as old, i.e. which had been assigned this particular task since the days of creation.The intention of the author of the Book of Jonah in writing the word וימן is to tell us that this fish and none other had been appointed for this specific task already during the dawn of history. This thought is also reflected in the word לבלוע, “in order to swallow,” instead of the simple ויבלע, “it swallowed,” when the Book of Jonah describes this fish. The peculiar wording alerts us to the fact that the sole purpose of G’d creating this fish when He did was to swallow Jonah. It is also peculiar that initially the fish is described as דג, fish (masculine) whereas in the course of the narrative the author changes to describe it as דגה, fish (feminine). Jonah is described as praying from the entrails of the דגה (Jonah 2,2) after he had first spent three days inside the דג. The term דגה repeatedly occurs as describing dead fish such as in Exodus 7,21 when the fish of the river Nile which had died due to the plague of blood are described as והדגה אשר ביאור מתו. [Perhaps the fact that the fish had died was the catalyst which caused Jonah to pray. Ed.]. When he said: מבטן שאול שועתי, “I have cried out from the belly of Sheol,” he meant that the fish had become his grave (Jonah 2,3).