they said one to another, 'What is it?
'for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, 'It is the
bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.'"**

* _Exod._ xv. 23-25. The station Marah, "the bitter waters,"
is identified by modern tradition with Ain Howarah. There is
a similar way of rendering waters potable still in use among
the Bedawin of these regions.

** _Exod._ xvi. 13-15.

"And the house of Israel called the name thereof 'manna: 'and it was
like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made
with honey."* "And the children of Israel did eat the manna forty years,
until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat the manna until they
came unto the borders of the land of Canaan."** Further on, at Eephidim,
the water failed: Moses struck the rocks at Horeb, and a spring gushed
out.*** The Amalekites, in the meantime, began to oppose their
passage; and one might naturally doubt the power of a rabble of slaves,
unaccustomed to war, to break through such an obstacle. Joshua was made
their general, "and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the
hill: and it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel
prevailed, and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But
Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and
he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the
one side, and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady
until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his
people with the edge of the sword."****

* _Exod._ xvi. 31. Prom early times the manna of the Hebrews
had been identified with the mann-es-sama, "the gift of
heaven," of the Arabs, which exudes in small quantities from
the leaves of the tamarisk after being pricked by insects:
the question, however, is still under discussion whether
another species of vegetable manna may not be meant.

** _Exod._ xvi. 35.

*** _Exod._ xvii. 1-7. There is a general agreement as to
the identification of Rephidim with the Wady Peiran, the
village of Pharan of the Graeco-Roman geographers.

**** Exod. xvii. 8-13.

Three months after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt they
encamped at the foot of Sinai, and "the Lord called unto Moses out of
the mountain, saying, 'Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and
tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did