people as the subject instead of God or Moses, which perhaps sharpens the seriousness of their rebellion.416 They described their food supply as “miserable” (haqqĕlōqēl, “worthless, contemptible”), thereby deploring and degrading that which God had so graciously given to them for some forty years. When a person’s heart is intent on rebellion and beset by discontent, even the best of gifts from the Lord can lose their savor; nothing will fully satisfy until the heart is made right. The structure