Biblical Wisdom
The Fish Was Free
Numbers 11 remembers Egypt through the kitchen. Exodus remembered the same years through the bricks.
Scripture Numbers 11:4–6 · Exodus 5:13–14
“We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.”
It is a remarkably exact memory. Cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic, each one named, out in a desert.
One word in it carries more than it should. Freely. The people saying this had been slaves. Whatever they ate in Egypt, they ate as someone else’s labour force, and Exodus remembers those years through brick and mortar, daily quotas, and Israelite foremen beaten when the count came up short.
Numbers 11 remembers the same years through the kitchen.
Longing for the past can do this. It can name the leeks and forget who was counting the bricks.
Meanwhile the manna is on the ground every morning, and the complaint against it is that there is nothing to see but this.
Scripture in English is from the Berean Standard Bible, placed in the public domain by its publisher on 30 April 2023.