This our bread we took hot [for] our provision out of our houses,.... These are not the words of the elders to the messengers they sent, continued, but of the ambassadors to the Israelites, pointing to the bread they brought with them, which they pretended was newly baked and took hot out of the oven:
on the day we came forth to go unto you, but now, behold, it is dry,
and it is mouldy: Joshua 9:5; which they gave as a demonstration and proof that they were come from a far country, as they had asserted.