and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
They had bread for a month, and when it ran out, despair set in at once, as if the God who parted the Red Sea could not feed them in the desert. They charge Moses with malice when he acted by God's command for their good. The best actions get the worst colors put upon them, and people wish themselves back in bondage rather than trust the invisible hand that saved them.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 16:1-12
They talk wildly of flesh pots and bread to the full, exaggerating their comfort in hard slavery to magnify their present misery. Death in Egypt seemed better to them than the wilderness, though they had flocks and herds aplenty with them, which they simply would not eat unless forced by true necessity.
AI summary
How impious to charge Moses after all they had seen of God's wisdom and power! But complaint spreads like infection through a multitude, and the desert brings solitude and fear that numbers cannot cure. They lived by sight, not faith, and we ought not wonder that men without the Comforter, cut off from every visible comfort, found it hard to trust an unseen God.
AI summary