The First Week of Manna

The First Week of Manna, documented in Exodus 16, is often referred to as a "Pinpointed Lunar Sabbath". This is because the Sabbaths of that month appear to fall on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th day of the month. This event happened during the second month of the first year after the Israelites left Egypt.

This page presents the rationale for considering it as a Pinpointed Lunar Sabbath, and discusses several objections.

Rationale

Exodus 16:1-2 documents that the Children of Israel began to murmur against Moses and Aaron after they arrived in the Wilderness of Sin. Though the KJV translation reads as though they were traveling on the 15th (a Lunar Sabbath) and arrived on that date, the Septuagint (LXX) translation indicates that they may have arrived before the 15th:

And they departed from Aelim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Aelim and Sina; and on the fifteenth day, in the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt, all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron. (Ex 16:1-2, Brenton Septuagint Translation)

YHVH told Moses that they would receive flesh to eat "at even" and bread in the morning (Ex 16:12). Since the day begins at evening, they would have received both the quail and manna on the 16th of the month. The first day of manna was on the 16th, and the sixth day (the 21st) they gathered twice as much for Moses instructed them that the next day (the 22nd) would be the Sabbath (Ex 16:22-26). This proves that the weekly Sabbath was on the 22nd of the month.

Timeline of Events

In order to best understand what is happening in Chapter 16 of Exodus, and more importantly when it happens, the timeline of events must be clearly laid out.

Two Events Prophesied

In response to the murmuring, Moses and Aaron prophecy to the Congregation the timing of two events that will happen:

And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that YHVH hath brought you out from the land of Egypt: And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of YHVH; for that he heareth your murmurings against YHVH: and what are we, that ye murmur against us? (Exo 16:6-7)

The two events prophesied are (1) at even (sunset) they will know that YHVH brought them out of Egypt, and (2) in the morning they will see the "glory of YHVH". It's often assumed that the first event refers to the arrival of quail at the camp, and that the second event is the arrival of manna. However that does not fit within the overall timeline of the chapter for several reasons.

First, when the phrase "glory of YHVH" is used throughout the Bible, it always refers to the physical manifestation of YHVH in visible form. That phrase is repeated in v10 when the "Glory of YHVH" appears in the cloud. Because the prophecy of the "glory of YHVH" appearing in the morning comes to pass in v10, before either the quail or the manna appear in v13, it is obviously a separate event from the quail and manna. By implication then, the first prophecy that they "shall know that YHVH hath brought you out from the land of Egypt" must also occur before the quail and manna.

Second, the phrases "in the evening" and "in the morning" in verses 6 and 7 are written differently in the original Hebrew than when they appear elsewhere in the Bible. Normally they are prefaced by the letter Bet(ב), meaning "in the...". However in verses 6 and 7 the Bet is missing from before the words "evening" and "morning". This means that the literal translation of the Hebrew is actually:

"Evening, and ye shall know that YHVH hath brought you out from the land of Egypt; and morning, and ye shall see the glory of YHVH..."

This wording brings to mind the creation story in Exodus 1, where "evening and morning" represent on complete day. Perhaps Moses is using that imagery here to convey the fact that the Children of Israel are going to need to wait one day before their demands for food are met.

The Wait for Food

If the events in verses 6 and 7 indicate that a complete day is yet to pass before the quail and manna, what is it that transpires in the evening whereby the Israelites "shall know" that YHVH brought them out of the land of Egypt? The answer can be found in Deuteronomy 8, where Moses explains why these events transpired:

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of YHVH doth man live. (Deu 8:3)

The Israelites were "murmuring" to Moses and Aaron that they would literally die of hunger if they did not get bread to eat, and that they would have been better off staying in Egypt. YHVH decided to humble them, and to teach them that they "do not live by bread only", but by following the words of YHVH. He therefore "suffered (them) to hunger" overnight, and then appeared to them in the morning to explain when and how they would be fed (v10-12). Jesus refers to this same teaching when he is tempted in the wilderness by Satan to turn a rock into a loaf of bread after a forty day fast. He reminds Satan that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God". In other words, Jesus does not need to turn the rock into bread after a 40 day fast because he trusts in YHVH that he will not die from a lack of bread, just as the Israelites did not die while waiting for an answer from YHVH.

It's also worth recognizing that, even though it had not been revealed to them yet, the day that the glory of YHVH appeared to them was the Sabbath day. This can be determined because the manna fell the next day for six days, and it was the Sabbath on the seventh day. It's likely that YHVH did not give the Israelites flesh or manna a day earlier because, besides the reasons stated above, they would have had to gather it and prepare it, thereby violating the Sabbath. Observing the Sabbath itself is a way that the Israelites "shall know" that YHVH sanctifies them (i.e. brought them out of Egypt as a separate people), as written in Exodus 31:

And YHVH spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am YHVH that doth sanctify you. (Exo 31:12-13)

Therefore the hunger that the Israelites suffered this night served several purposes: it taught them that their reliance is on YHVH and not on having bread, taught them that YHVH brought them out of Egypt to be his sanctified people, and He kept His people from violating the Sabbath day by gathering or preparing food even though they had not yet been instructed in that commandment.

Quail and Manna

Before the appearance of the glory of YHVH, Moses prophesies in v8 about two additional events:

And Moses said, This shall be, when YHVH shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that YHVH heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against YHVH. (Exo 16:8)

The timing of v8 must be significantly later than v6-7, because again he describes two events to take place "in the evening" and "in the morning" but not on the same days. Shortly afterwards in v10-12, YHVH appears (in the morning) and repeats the same prophecy:

And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of YHVH appeared in the cloud. And YHVH spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am YHVH your God.(Exo 16:10-12)

Subsequently we read in v13 that the quails arrived and covered the camp in the evening, and that the manna arrived the following morning. This shows that there were four prophesied events which happened over two days: an evening of hunger, the glory of YHVH in the morning, the quail the subsequent evening, and the manna the subsequent morning. This is illustrated in the timeline below:

Timeline of Exodus 16
Day 1	Evening
	Morning	Arrival (v1)
		Murmuring (v2)
		“At even, then ye shall know that YHVH hath brought you out from the land of Egypt” (v6)
		“And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of YHVH” (v7)
Day 2	Evening	Humbling via Hunger
	Morning	“This shall be, when YHVH shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full” (v8)
		“Come near before YHVH...” (v9)
		The glory of YHVH appears in the cloud (v10)
		In the evening you shall eat flesh (v12)
		In the morning ye shall be filled with bread (v12)
Day 3	Evening	At even the quails came up, and covered the camp (v13)
	Morning	In the morning the dew lay round about the host (v13)

Arrival on the 15th or before?

With the timeline now established, it must be determined whether "Day 1" of the timeline is the 14th or the 15th of the month. Although the KJV, and other translations of the Hebrew text, indicate that the Congregation arrived in the Wilderness of Sin on the 15th, the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew) instead says that the murmuring began on the 15th. While it's possible that both are correct (arriving and murmuring on the 15th), a closer study of the Hebrew and Greek texts is required in order to establish whether the Greek translation is more accurate than our English translations of the Hebrew, and leaves open the possibility of arrival on the 14th.

Hebrew versus Greek Translations

English translations of the Hebrew text, such as the KJV, are worded such that they clearly say that the arrival was on the 15th:

And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: (Exo 16:1-2)

However the English translations of the Septuagint indicate instead that it was the murmuring that occurred on the 15th:

And they set out from Ailim, and the entire congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Ailim and between Sina. And on the fifteenth day, in the second month, after they had gone out from the land of Egypt, the entire congregation of the sons of Israel was complaining against Moyses and Aaron," (Ex 16:1-2, NETS)

The difference between the two translations is where one sentence ends and the next begins in v1.

Hebrew and Greek Conjunctions

One of the challenges inherent in reading and translating both the Hebrew and Greek languages is that no punctuation is used to separate sentences. For example, this is how Exodus 16:1-2 appears on a Torah scroll:

ויסעו מאילם ויבאו כל עדת

בני ישׂראל אל מדבר סין אשׁר בין אילם ובין סיני בחמשׁה עשׂר

יום לחדשׁ השׁני לצאתם מארץ מצרים וילינו כל עדת בני

ישׂראל על משׁה ועל אהרן במדבר

One of the techniques commonly used in Hebrew to construct a sentence is to begin the sentence with a Vav (ו), a conjunction meaning "And..." . You can see this consistently in the surrounding verses of Exodus 15 and 16:

Exo 15:23 And when they came to Marah...

Exo 15:24 And the people murmured against Moses...

Exo 15:25 And he cried unto YHVH...

Exo 15:27 And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water...

Exo 16:1 And they took their journey from Elim...

Exo 16:2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured...

Exo 16:3 And the children of Israel said unto them...

In the Septuagint, the Vav at the beginning of each sentence is usually translated directly as the equivalent Greek conjunction Kai (καὶ). However, the translator(s) of the Septuagint did not begin Ex 16:2 with Kai. Instead, an alternative conjunction, De (δὲ), was inserted in verse one before the word "fifteenth". This causes the new sentence to begin with "And on the fifteenth day...". The usage of Vav (sometimes pronounced "waw") in Hebrew and it's translation to Kai or De in Greek is explained in the beginning notes on Exodus in The New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS):

In the Hebrew narrative of Exodus the waw-conjunctive occurs frequently. The translator of Exodus normally used καὶ as the Greek equivalent. However, where a change in subject occurs or some other emphasis may be warranted, he selected δὲ. Aejmelaeus observes that in the case of the translation of Exodus “[c]oordination of clauses by w has been rendered by the use of various literal and free renderings, but total omission of w —disregarding the apodotic cases—is found in less than 3% of the cases, of which 3% some cases may even depend upon a difference in the Vorlage.”5 So the places where the translator failed to render the conjunction are rather infrequent. The translator was equally careful to render pronouns in his Hebrew text.

So it appears that in roughly 97% of the cases where a Vav conjunction is used in the Hebrew text to begin a sentence, the Septuagint translator used Kai as a direct translation. One of the rare exceptions is here in Ex 16:1-2, where the translator(s) removed the Vav ("and") from the beginning of verse 2 and instead placed a De earlier in verse 1. So it should be obvious that this was a deliberate change made by the Septuagint translator(s) for some reason.

Reconciliation of Two Different Texts

Is it possible that the Hebrew could be read in such a way to mirror the wording of the Septuagint translation? Here is a word-by-word translation of the Hebrew into English, without punctuation:

And they journeyed from Elim and arrived all Israel at the wilderness Sin which is between Elim and between Sinai on the fifteenth day of the month second of going out of the land of Egypt and complained all the assembly sons of Israel against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness

The English translations of the Hebrew separate the text into two sentences as follows:

And they journeyed from Elim and arrived all Israel at the wilderness Sin which is between Elim and between Sinai on the fifteenth day of the month second of going out of the land of Egypt. And complained all the assembly sons of Israel against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness

The Septuagint separates the sentences in this way:

And they journeyed from Elim and arrived all Israel at the wilderness Sin which is between Elim and between Sinai. On the fifteenth day of the month second of going out of the land of Egypt and complained all the assembly sons of Israel against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness

The problem here is that the "and" before the word "complained" doesn't make sense when it does not begin a new sentence. This is why, in the Septuagint, the "and" was deleted from the beginning of v2 and instead inserted before the word "fifteenth". It's not the case that the Hebrew was ambiguous and could be translated either way. Rather, the Septuagint translator(s) chose to re-arrange the text in that manner.

If the difference in translation in the Septuagint was deliberate, then what was the intent? Did the translator(s) feel that the original text was incorrect in stating that the Israelites arrived on the 15th of the month, and that they really arrived on the 14th? If so, then agreeing with the Septuagint translation would require that we place the opinion of the translator(s) over the original meaning of the Hebrew text.

A more likely explanation is what the NETS commentators explained above: the translator(s) wished to shift the emphasis of the passage from the act of arriving in the Wilderness of Sin in v1 to the act of murmuring in v2. This is because the murmuring is the act that brings about the subsequent events in the rest of the chapter. This does not mean that the Septuagint translator(s) did not agree with the statement in v1 that the Israelites arrived on the 15th, but rather that the translator(s) believed that the murmuring also began on the 15th and was more important to emphasize.

In summary, it is clear from the Hebrew text that the Israelites arrived in the Wilderness of Sin on the 15th of the month, and the Septuagint translation does not contradict that fact. Therefore the events of their first days in the Wilderness of Sin correspond to the timeline below:

Timeline of Exodus 16
15th	Evening
	Morning	Arrival (v1)
		Murmuring (v2)
		“At even, then ye shall know that YHVH hath brought you out from the land of Egypt” (v6)
		“And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of YHVH” (v7)
16th	Evening	Sabbath Begins (not yet known to Israel)
		Humbling via Hunger
	Morning	“This shall be, when YHVH shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full” (v8)
		“Come near before YHVH...” (v9)
		The glory of YHVH appears in the cloud (v10)
		In the evening you shall eat flesh (v12)
		In the morning ye shall be filled with bread (v12)
17th	Evening	At even the quails came up, and covered the camp (v13)
	Morning	First Day of Manna (v13)

References

Pinpointed Lunar Sabbaths
Abib 15 in Egypt	The First Week of Manna	The Last Day in Rephidim
The Law of the Leper	The Consecration of Aaron and his Sons	Esther 9
The Feast of Tabernacles	The Wave Sheaf Offering	Passover in Gilgal
Marching Around Jericho	The Dedication of Solomon's Temple	Hezekiah's Cleansing of the Temple
The Healing at the Pool	Healing of the Blind Man	Paul's Journey to Troas
The Crucifixion Week	Siege of Jerusalem	Christ the Firstfruits