Exodus 16:13

Hebrew Bible

12 “I have heard the murmurings of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘During the evening you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be satisfied with bread, so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.’” 13 In the evening the quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning a layer of dew was all around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew had evaporated, there on the surface of the wilderness was a thin flaky substance, thin like frost on the earth.

Numbers 11:9

Hebrew Bible

8 And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it with mills or pounded it in mortars; they baked it in pans and made cakes of it. It tasted like fresh olive oil. 9 And when the dew came down on the camp in the night, the manna fell with it.) 10 Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and when the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, Moses was also displeased.

Pseudo Jonathan Exodus 16:13

Targum

Speak thou with them, saying, Between the evenings (suns) you shall eat flesh, and in the morning shall you eat bread, and shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass, that in the evening the pheasants came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a fall of holy dew, prepared as a table, round about the camp: and the clouds ascended and caused manna to descend upon the dew; and there was upon the face of the desert a minute (substance) in lines, minute as the hoar frost upon the ground. And the sons of Israel beheld, and wondered, and said, a man to his companion, Man Hu? for they knew not what it was.

 Notes and References

"... There are two occasions for harmonization in the Hebrew verses. The text might seem to imply, for one thing, that the manna came first and then the dew, and that the manna was only visible when the dew evaporated. But this is in clear contradiction to Numbers 11:9: “When the dew came down at night, the manna would come down on it.” The verses in Exodus must therefore be construed to mean that the dew came first. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan accomplishes this by introducing “clouds” to ascend in place of the dew, which remains fixed in place on the ground. These “clouds” then bring down the manna upon the solidified dew. This has the additional benefit of linking the story with Psalm 78:19 (“Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?”) and Psalm 23:5 (“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”; Targum Psalms translates as “a table of manna”) ..."

Cook, Edward M. "The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums" in Henze, Matthias (ed.) A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism (pp. 92-117) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012

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