We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt
freely
Fish was food the Egyptians much lived upon; for though Herodotus
says the priests might not taste of fish, the common people ate
much; yea, he himself says that some lived upon nothing else but
fish gutted and dried in the sun; and he observes, that the kings
of Egypt had a great revenue from hence F23; the
river Nile, as Diodorus Siculus F24 says, abounded with all kind
of fish, and with an incredible number, so that there was a
plenty of them, and to be bought cheap; and so Aben Ezra and Ben
Gersom interpret the word freely, of a small price, as if they
had them for nothing almost; but surely they forgot how dear they
paid for their fish, by their hard toil, labour, and service. Now
this, with what follows, they call to mind, to increase their
lust, and aggravate their present condition and circumstances:
the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the
garlic;
in the Hebrew language, the word for "cucumbers" has the
signification of hardness, because they are hard of digestion In
the Talmud F25 they are so called, because they
are as harmful to the body as swords; though it is said in the
same, that Antoninus always had them at his table; and Suetonius
F26 and Pliny F1 say,
that they were in great esteem with the emperors Augustus and
Tiberias; though some think what they call cucumbers were melons.
We are told F2, that the Egyptian cucumbers are
very different from our European ones, which in the eastern
countries serve only to feed hogs with, and not men; but the
Egyptian cucumber, called "chate", differs from the common one in
size, colour, and softness; and not only its leaves, but its
fruit, are different from ours, being sweeter to the taste, and
of more easy digestion, and reckoned to be very wholesome to the
bodies of men: and so their "melons" are different from ours,
which they call "abdellavi", to distinguish them from others
called "chajar", which are of little use for food, and not
pleasant, and more insipid, and of a softer pulp {c}: as for the
"leeks, onions, and garlic", that these were commonly and in
great plenty eaten of by the Egyptians appears from the vast sums
of money spent upon the men that worked in building one of the
pyramids, in radishes, onions, and garlic only, which Herodotus
F4, Diodorus Siculus F5, and
Pliny F6 make mention of. Indeed, in later
times these were worshipped as gods, and not suffered to be
eaten, as Pliny F7 and Juvenal F8 inform
us; but there is little reason to believe that this kind of
idolatry obtained so early as the time of Israel's being in
Egypt; though some have thought that these were cheaper because
of that, and so the Israelites could more easily come at them;
but if that had been the case, it is more reasonable to believe
that the Egyptians would not have allowed them to have eat of
them at all: however, these are still in great plenty, and much
used in Egypt to this day, as Vansleb F9
relates, who says, for desserts they have fruits, as onions,
dried dates, rotten olives, melons, or cucumbers, or pompions, or
such like fruits as are in season: thus carnal men prefer their
sensual lusts and pleasures, and self-righteous men their
righteousness, to Christ, the heavenly manna, his grace and
righteousness.