The Sages Dispute How Long the Manna Lasted After Moses

Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 15:12

It was taught: Rabbi Yehoshua says, Israel ate the manna forty days after the death of Moses. How so? On the seventh of Adar Moses died, and they ate from it the twenty-four remaining days of Adar and the sixteen of Nisan, as it is said, "And the manna ceased on the day after" (Joshua 5:12). Rabbi Elazar of Modi'in says seventy days. How so? Moses died on the seventh of Adar, and they ate from it the twenty-four remaining days of the first Adar, and the thirty days of the second Adar, for it was a leap year, and the sixteen of Nisan. Rabbi Eliezer says seventy days: Moses died on the seventh of Shevat, and they ate from it the twenty-four remaining of Shevat, the thirty of Adar, and the sixteen of Nisan, and that year was not a leap year. Rabbi Yose says fifty-four years. Israel ate the manna forty years in the lifetime of Moses and fourteen years after his death, as it is said, "And the children of Israel ate the manna forty years" (Exodus 16:35). Since there is no need for the verse to say, "And they ate the manna until they came to an inhabited land," rather these are the fourteen years after the death of Moses, the seven years that they conquered the land and the seven years that they divided it.

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