Summary: The Israelites cried out to Moses, "We remember the fish we had in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic." There are a lot of foods I like - lemon meringue pie, enchiladas, blueberry muffins. There are even some foods I crave - like chocolate in any form. But cucumbers, leeks and onions? They're not at the top of my list. In fact, they're not even onthe list. Two years after the Exodus, vegetables were very much on the minds and in the hearts of the Israelites. Stirred up by the "rabble among them," they wept for meat and cried out for cucumbers. Certainly, the Israelites had complained to Moses before. At the edge of the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's army breathing down their necks and a watery abyss before them, they cried out, "Were there no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, binging us out of Egypt? ... It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." That longing for Egypt echoes throughout the Book of Exodus. When they ran out of water, the Israelites railed against Moses, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" Facing starvation, they remembered fondly the fleshpots of Egypt. But this complaint in the book of Numbers - this longing for the cucumbers of Egypt - was different. The Israelites weren't dying. They faced no imminent threat, either from Pharaoh's army or the lack of food or water. Pharaoh and his troops didn't make it past the Red Sea, and God had provided manna for the Israelites every single day of the last two years. The Israelites' complaint sounds more like someone who's bored rather than someone fearing for their life. One could argue the Israelites were akin to the young adult in their first apartment or off to college, finally free of Mom or Dad's demands to fold the laundry or sweep the floor - but now missing the parental washer, dryer, and vacuum cleaner.
