the twelve wells of water, and the seventy palm trees, to
correspond to the twelve tribes and the seventy elders of Israel,
that Israel first took up the study of the law, for there they studied
the laws given them at Marah. [88]

THE HEAVENLY FOOD

The bread which Israel had taken along out of Egypt sufficed for
thirty-one days, and when they had consumed it, the whole
congregation of the children of Israel murmured against their
leader Moses. It was not only immediate want that oppressed
them, but despair of a food supply for the future; for when they
saw the vast, extensive, utterly barren wilderness before them,
their courage gave way, and they said: "We migrated, expecting
freedom, and now we are not even free from the cares of
subsistence; we are not, as out leader promised, the happiest, but
in truth the most unfortunate of men. After our leader's words had
keyed us to the highest pitch of expectation, and had filled out ears
with vain hopes, he tortures us with famine and does not provide
even the necessary food. With the name of a new settlement he has
deceived this great multitude; after he had succeeded in leading us
from a well-known to an uninhabited land, he now plans to send us
to the underworld, the last road of life. [89] 'Would to God we had
died by the hand of the Lord during the three days of darkness in
the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we did
eat bread to the full.'" In their exasperation they spoke untruths, for
in reality they had suffered from want of food in Egypt, too, as the
Egyptians had not given them enough to eat. [90]

In spite of the railings against him, Moses was not so much