Melons

Melons (Hebrew abattichim) appear in the Old Testament only in Numbers 11:5, where the Israelites in the wilderness recalled with longing the food of Egypt: "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick." Egypt was and remains famous for its melons — both water-melons and musk-melons — grown abundantly in the Nile valley. The complaint reflects a deeper spiritual failure: the people preferred the remembered abundance of slavery to the covenant relationship and manna that God provided in the wilderness.