In today’s first reading we have the story of the Lord delivering manna to the people at the beginning of the Exodus. It has been about one month since their departure from Egypt and it seems like they have been complaining the whole time (see Monday’s reading!)

Perhaps the desert heat is softening their recall of the conditions of the slavery of Egypt. They seem to be in the midst of idealizing its good points. Available historical information does not indicate that meat was a large part of a slave’s diet, yet the fleshpots (or ‘meat cauldron’) looms large in their memories. Elsewhere, they remember the pungent garlics and sweet melons of the Nile delta (Num. 11:5).

In the account there is no mention of the people crying out to the Lord. There is no indication that Moses intercedes on their behalf.  We simply read: “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.’ ” If bread is to be taken in its old sense of ‘food’ (as leḥem seems to have meant originally), then this promise could cover both the quails and the manna. The people are told to “gather their daily portion.”

Clearly the Lord has heard their grumbling. Was their grumbling taken as prayer? One might think of the second reading this previous Sunday when St. Paul told us we don’t know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit will lift up our prayers to the Lord.  Or perhaps the Lord’s response arises out of his love for his people. “But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us … and you gave your children good ground for hope.” (Wisdom 12:18-19 – also from Sunday’s readings)

Be that as it may, I’d recommend a more standard form of prayer that brings your grumblings and complaints into dialogue with God – always the ground of good hope.

Epilogue

In our memory the manna receives all the attention given its Eucharistic foreshadowing and the Gospel of St. John’s extensive reference to this scene from Exodus in Chapter 6 of the Gospel, the Bread of Life Discourse.  Scant attention is given to the quail: “In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, … In the evening quail came up and covered the camp.” R. Allen Cole offers this interesting bit:

Quails (in Hebrew, a collective noun, like ‘sheep’ in English) migrate regularly between south Europe and Arabia across the Sinai Peninsula. They are small, bullet-headed birds, with a strong but low flight, usually roosting on the ground or in the low bushes at nightfall. When exhausted, they would be unable to rise above the low black tents of nomads, and too weary to take off again. A quail running on the ground is easy quarry for a nimble boy. The birds are good eating, and were a favourite delicacy of the Egyptians (Herodotus ii. 77) when dried in the sun. In Numbers 11, the quails became a ‘plague’ by which God punishes Israel. Here, however, there is only a passing mention of the quails, as the main interest is in the manna. Numbers tells us that it was the east wind that brought the quails: that fits with the known fact that quails fly north in March–April, roughly in the time following passover, presumably the date of the incident.

(from Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 2. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries.)