על חיי משה, ספר ב מ״זOn the Life of Moses, Book II 47
א׳
1[258] It was thus that Moses began and opened his work as a prophet possessed by God’s spirit. His next utterance of this sort was concerned with that primary and most necessary matter, food; and this food was not produced by the earth, which was barren and unfruitful, but heaven rained down before daybreak, not once only but every day for forty years, a celestial fruit in the form of dew, like millet grain.
ב׳
2[259] When Moses saw it, he bade them gather it, and said under inspiration: “We must trust God as we have experienced His kindnesses in deeds greater than we could have hoped for. Do not treasure up or store the food He sends. Let none leave any part of it over till the morrow.”
ג׳
3[260] On hearing this, some whose piety had little ballast, thinking perhaps that the statement was no divine oracle but just the exhortation of the ruler, left it to the next day; but it first rotted and filled the whole extent of the camp with its stench, and then turned into worms which are bred from corruption.
ד׳
4[261] Moses, seeing this, was naturally and indeed inevitably indignant at their disobedience—to think that after witnessing wonders so many and so great, impossibilities no doubt as judged by what to outward appearance is credible and reasonable but easily accomplished by the dispensations of God’s providence, they not only doubted, but in their utter incapacity for learning actually disbelieved.
ה׳
5[262] But the Father confirmed the utterance of the prophet with two most convincing proofs. One proof He had given at the time, when what was left over corrupted and stank and then was changed into worms, the vilest of living creatures. The other He gave later, for the unneeded surplus over what was gathered by the multitude was dissolved by the sun’s rays, melted away and disappeared.