Numbers 11:5 - Exposition

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, i.e; gratis. No doubt this was an exaggeration on the part of the murmurers, but it is attested by classical writers that fish swarmed in the Nile waters, and cost next to nothing. Cucumbers. קִשֻׁאִים . Cucumbers of peculiar softness and flavour are spoken of by Egyptian travelers as fructus in Egypto omnium vulgatissimus. Melons. hsilgnE:egaugnaL אַבַטִּחִים }. Water-melons, still called battieh, grow in Egypt, as in all hot, moist lands, like weeds, and are as much the luxury of the poorest as of the richest. Leeks. חָצִיר . This word usually means grass (as in Psalms 104:14 ), and may do so hare, for the modem Egyptians eat a kind of field-clover freely. The Septuagint, however, translates it by τὰ πράσα , leeks or chives, which agrees better with the context. Pliny (Nat. Hist. 19:33) speaks of it as " laudatissimus porrus in Egypto. " Onions. בְּצָלִים . Garlic. שׁוּמְים . These are mentioned in the well-known passage of Herodotus (2.125) as forming the staple food of the workmen at the pyramids; these still form a large part of the diet of the labouring classes in Egypt, as in other Mediterranean countries. If we look at these different articles of food together, so naturally and inartificially mentioned in this verse, we find a strong argument for the genuineness of the narrative. They are exactly the luxuries which an Egyptian labourer of that day would have cried out for, if deprived of them; they are not the luxuries which a Jew of Palestine would covet, or would even think of. The very words here used for the cucumber, the melon, and the garlic were probably Egyptian, for they may still be recognized in the common names of those vegetables in Egypt.