This verse summarizes the tradition of the manna from the viewpoint of the Israelites after they had settled in the promised land. It explains how Yahweh continued to provide the manna throughout their wilderness wandering. The people of Israel is literally “the sons of Israel.” Ate the manna forty years implies that this was the only food on which they survived. The tradition of the quails, mentioned only in verse 13 and later in Num 11.31-34, suggests that the quails came only occasionally, certainly not every day.

Till they came to a habitable land is literally “until they entered unto a land being dwelt in.” Habitable land has also been translated as “a settled land” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “a cultivated land” (Moffatt), and “a land where they could settle” (Revised English Bible). Good News Translation has interpreted this to mean the land “where they settled,” but the text allows for the possibility of a change of diet in any habitable land they may have passed through before they finally settled in Canaan.

They ate the manna simply repeats the first line, so Good News Translation has condensed the two lines into one: “The Israelites ate manna for the next forty years.” Till they came to the border of the land of Canaan is similar, if not parallel, to the first line and emphasizes the fact that it was the manna that kept them alive.

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .