1)

When did they stop eating the Manna?

1.

Rashi and Targum Yonasan (based on Yehoshua, 5:12): On the fifteenth of Nisan of the fortieth year after leaving Egypt. 1


1

Forty days after Moshe's death (R. Yehoshua in the Mechilta and Targum Yonasan. Refer also to 16:36:2:1. (In Devarim (34:6), Targum Yonason states that they ate it for thirty-seven days after his death - twenty-two in Adar, and fifteen in Nisan. Presumably, the contradiction is due to Midrashim that translators added, and which became incorporated into the Targum. Refer to Bereishis 38:25:5:1**. R. Yehoshua and Targum Yonason here must hold that Adar had thirty days, and they count the day of his death, and also the sixteenth of Nisan, since they ate on the night of the sixteenth (PF)

2)

Bearing in mind that the Manna began to fall on the fifteenth of Iyar (one month after they left Egypt), how can the Torah then say that they ate the Manna for forty years?

1.

Rashi: It teaches us that the 'cakes' that they took out of Egypt (and which they ate from the fifteenth of Nisan until the fifteenth of Iyar) tasted like Manna. 1


1

See Torah Temimah, note 54.

3)

How will we reconcile the two (seemingly contradictory) phrases "Ad Bo'am el Eretz Noshaves" and "ad Bo'am el K'tzei Eretz Cana'an"

1.

Rashi: It means that the Manna stopped falling when they were in the land of Sichon and Og (which was the land of the Cana'ani - Rashi in KIdushin, 38a) on the banks of the River Yarden, when Moshe died, but it lasted until the sixteenth of Nisan, when they were already in Eretz Cana'an. 1

2.

Seforno: When the Torah writes that the B'nei Yisrael ate the Manna for forty years, it means that they ate only the Manna and no other food. And tthe Pasuk is now informing us that that lasted until they arrived at inhabited country - the land of Sichon and Og, when they began to eat of the local food as well. 2


1

Refer also to 16:35:4:1. See also Torah Temimah, note 57, where he points out that this also explains the (otherwise superfluous) phrase "es ha'Man Achlu".

2

Refer also to 16:35:4:2.

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