Beginning
16 They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they left the land of Egypt.
2 And the whole congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness,
3 And said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from the heavens for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law or not.
5 On the sixth day they shall prepare to bring in twice as much as they gather daily.
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all Israel, At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out from the land of Egypt,
7 And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, for He hears your murmurings against the Lord. For what are we, that you murmur against us?
8 And Moses said, [This will happen] when the Lord gives you in the evening flesh to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumblings which you murmur against Him; what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord.
9 And Moses said to Aaron, Say to all the congregation of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your murmurings.
10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud!
11 The Lord said to Moses,
12 I have heard the murmurings of the Israelites; speak to them, saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and between the two evenings you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.
13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the camp.
14 And when the dew had gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a fine, round and flakelike thing, as fine as hoarfrost on the ground.
15 When the Israelites saw it, they said one to another, Manna [What is it?]. For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.(A)
16 This is what the Lord has commanded: Let every man gather of it as much as he will need, an omer for each person, according to the number of your persons; take it, every man for those in his tent.
17 The [people] did so, and gathered, some more, some less.
18 When they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to his need.
19 Moses said, Let none of it be left until morning.
20 But they did not listen to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it bred worms, became foul, and stank; and Moses was angry with them.
21 They gathered it every morning, each as much as he needed, for when the sun became hot it melted.
22 And on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each person; and all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses.
23 He said to them, The Lord has said, Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake and boil what you will bake and boil today; and all that remains over put aside for you to keep until morning.
24 They laid it aside till morning, as Moses told them; and it did not become foul, neither was it wormy.
25 Moses said, Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you shall find none in the field.
26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there shall be none.
27 On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.
28 The Lord said to Moses, How long do you [people] refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?
29 See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day the bread for two days; let every man remain in his place; let no man leave his place on the seventh day.
30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
31 The house of Israel called the bread manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers made with honey.
32 Moses said, This is what the Lord commands, Take an omer of it to be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.
33 And Moses said to Aaron, Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept throughout your generations.
34 As the Lord commanded Moses, Aaron laid it up before the Testimony to be kept [in the ark].(B)
35 And the Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a habitable land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
36 (Now an omer is the tenth of an ephah.)
17 All the congregation of the Israelites moved on from the Wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and encamped at Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink.
2 Therefore, the people contended with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you find fault with me? Why do you tempt the Lord and try His patience?
3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?
4 So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.
5 And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the rod with which you smote the river [Nile], and go.
6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at [Mount] Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.(C)
7 He called the place Massah [proof] and Meribah [contention] because of the faultfinding of the Israelites and because they tempted and tried the patience of the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?
8 Then came Amalek [descendants of Esau] and fought with Israel at Rephidim.
9 And Moses said to Joshua, Choose us out men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.
10 So Joshua did as Moses said and fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the hilltop.
11 When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and when he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Moses’ hands were heavy and grew weary. So [the other men] took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Then Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other side; so his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
13 And Joshua mowed down and disabled Amalek and his people with the sword.
14 And the Lord said to Moses, Write this for a memorial in the book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens.(D)
15 And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord is my Banner;
16 And he said, Because [theirs] is a hand against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
18 Now Jethro [Reuel], the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.
2 Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after Moses had sent her back [to her father],
3 And her two sons, of whom the name of the one was Gershom [ expulsion, or a stranger there], for Moses said, I have been an alien in a strange land;
4 And the name of the other was Eliezer [God is help], for the God of my father, said Moses, was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.
5 And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with Moses’ sons and his wife to the wilderness where he was encamped at the mount of God [Horeb, or Sinai].
6 And he said [in a message] to Moses, I, your father-in-law Jethro, am come to you and your wife and her two sons with her.
7 And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed in homage and kissed him; and each asked the other of his welfare and they came into the tent.
8 Moses told his father-in-law all the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake and all the hardships that had come upon them by the way and how the Lord delivered them.
9 Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness the Lord had done to Israel in that He had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
10 Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, Who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, Who has delivered the people [Israel] from under the hand of the Egyptians.
11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods. Yes, in the [very] thing in which they dealt proudly [He showed Himself infinitely superior to all their gods].
12 And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices [to offer] to God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
13 Next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening.
14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, What is this that you do for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?
15 Moses said to his father-in-law, Because the people come to me to inquire of God.
16 When they have a dispute they come to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God and His laws.
17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, The thing that you are doing is not good.
18 You will surely wear out both yourself and this people with you, for the thing is too heavy for you; you are not able to perform it all by yourself.
19 Listen now to [me]; I will counsel you, and God will be with you. You shall represent the people before God, bringing their cases and causes to Him,
20 Teaching them the decrees and laws, showing them the way they must walk and the work they must do.
21 Moreover, you shall choose able men from all the people—God-fearing men of truth who hate unjust gain—and place them over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, to be their rulers.
22 And let them judge the people at all times; every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they shall judge. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.
23 If you will do this, and God so commands you, you will be able to endure [the strain], and all these people also will go to their [tents] in peace.
24 So Moses listened to and heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said.
25 Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
26 And they judged the people at all times; the hard cases they brought to Moses, but every small matter they decided themselves.
27 Then Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went his way into his own land.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation