Would to God we had died. — Heb., Would that we had died. There is no mention of “God.”
By the hand of the Lord. — There is, perhaps, an allusion to the last of the plagues, “Would that we had not been spared, but had been smitten, as the Egyptians were! A sudden death would have been far better than a long and lingering one.” (Comp, Lamentations 4:9.)
When we did eat bread to the full. — The Israelites had been well fed in Egypt. They had been nourished upon flesh, fish, bread, and abundant vegetables, especially cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlick (Numbers 11:5). It was the habit of the Egyptians to feed well those whom they employed in forced labours (Herod. ii. 125), just as slave-owners commonly do their slaves. The remembrance of the past abundance intensified the pain felt at the present want.
To kill this whole assembly with hunger. — It is difficult to imagine that there could have been as yet any real danger of starvation. The cattle may have suffered considerably in the passage through the wilderness of Shur, but the bulk of it survived (Exodus 17:3), and there were lambs enough for the whole nation to observe a Passover a few months later at Sinai (Numbers 9:1-5). But it may well be that a considerable number of the Israelites had had no cattle; others may have lost what they had, or have consumed them. Want may have stared some in the face, and the nation generally may have come to see that the prospect before them was a dismal one. Even supposing that the desert was anciently four or five times as productive as it is now, it could not possibly have afforded sufficient pasturage to maintain such flocks and herds as would have been requisite to support on their milk and flesh a population of two millions. It may have been brought home to the people that their flocks and herds were rapidly diminishing, and they may have realised the danger that impended of ultimate starvation after the cattle was all gone.