“The fish which we did eat in Egypt freely.” —Numbers 11:5.
The word translated freely in this verse really signifies gratuitously. It is rendered for naught in Genesis 29:15; Job 1:9; for nothing, Exodus 21:2: nothing, 2 Samuel 24:24; and the French Bible gives it “sans qu’ il nous en coutat rien.” Even in the present-day fish is so abundant in some parts of Egypt, that it is to be had for the asking, that is, literally given away. A missionary long resident in Egypt has recently written: —It was my privilege a little more than a year ago to make a week’s ramble through the field of Zoan, and the land of Goshen. All Europeans who have traveled in Egypt know that they, as wearers of hats’ are expected by the natives to pay at least double price for all they get... We ate fish freely, both in the sense of abundantly and gratuitously. We did not beg them, nor did any one seem to think of asking us to pay for them. It is true, not of the whole land of Egypt... that men may eat fish gratuitously, but only of the eastern section of the Delta-the land of the sojourn of the Israelites.