The Book of Exodus

Hebrew Study

Explanation

A month out of Egypt, the food runs low, and the same people who sang at the sea now murmur. Their memory has gone strangely sweet: they recall "the flesh pots" and eating "bread to the full," forgetting the whips and the bondage, and wish they had died in Egypt rather than starve in the wilderness. Yet God does not answer their ingratitude with judgment but with bread: "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you." He will send it daily, and the daily gathering will be a test, "that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no." Moses warns them that their complaint is heavier than they know: "your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD." At evening they will know the LORD brought them out, and in the morning they will see His glory. God turns their grumbling into an occasion to reveal Himself.

Gospel Focus

Notice how quickly the flesh romanticizes what God has saved us from. Israel remembered Egypt's "flesh pots" and forgot Egypt's chains. This is the deceit of the old life: once we are in the wilderness of testing, the bondage we escaped starts to look like comfort. The murmuring heart edits its own history, magnifying the pleasures of sin and hiding its cruelty. But mark God's response, grace instead of wrath. He rained bread on the very people who accused Him. And mark that provision was a proving: "that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law." God's daily supply was also a daily test of trust and obedience. So it is with us. God feeds us not to spoil us but to teach us dependence, and how we handle His provision reveals our hearts. And Moses' warning is sobering: "your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD." When we complain against God's dealings and God's servants, we are complaining against God Himself. The redeemed are called to trust, not to murmur.

Explanation

God tells the people to "come near before the LORD," and as Aaron speaks, "the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud." That evening the quails come up and cover the camp, giving flesh to eat; and in the morning, when the dew lifts, the wilderness is spread with "a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground." The people had never seen anything like it and asked one another, "It is manna", literally, "What is it?", "for they wist not what it was." Moses gives them the answer: "This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat." So God fed a whole nation in a barren desert with bread that fell from the sky, promising, "ye shall know that I am the LORD your God." The provision itself was a revelation of who He is.

Gospel Focus

The manna is one of the clearest pictures of Christ in all the Old Testament, and Jesus Himself made the connection. When the crowds spoke of the manna, He said, "the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven" (John 6:33), and "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35). The manna came down from heaven, as Christ came down; it came in the night of the world's need; it had to be gathered and taken in personally, as Christ must be received; and it was despised by many who wanted the flesh pots instead. But there is a difference Jesus pressed: "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead," yet "if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" (John 6:49, 51). The manna sustained the body for a day; Christ, the true Bread, gives life for ever. The God who would not let His people starve in the desert has given us the living Bread from heaven. To refuse Him is to starve with the table spread.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The gathering had a rule: an omer for each person, no more. Some gathered much and some little, but when it was measured, "he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack." God saw to it that everyone had exactly enough. And it could not be stored: "Let no man leave of it till the morning." Those who disobeyed and hoarded found that it "bred worms, and stank," and Moses was angry with them. Each morning they gathered fresh, and "when the sun waxed hot, it melted," so it had to be gathered early. Day by day, for the whole camp, the bread appeared and was gathered and eaten, and day by day they learned to look to God for the next supply rather than trust a hoard of their own.

Gospel Focus

The manna teaches daily dependence. It could not be stockpiled; yesterday's manna was useless and today's would rot by tomorrow. Every morning the people had to come again to God for bread. This is exactly the trust Jesus taught us to pray: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). God rarely gives us a lifetime of grace in a lump; He gives it fresh each day, so that we keep coming to Him. His mercies "are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23), and like the manna they must be gathered early, before the cares of the day melt our resolve. The hoarding that bred worms warns against trying to live on stored-up religion, on yesterday's experience, instead of a fresh walk with God today. And the wonder that "he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack" is the picture Paul draws for generosity among believers, "that there may be equality" (2 Corinthians 8:14), for God supplies His people so that none need lack. He still feeds us day by day, and "my God shall supply all your need" (Philippians 4:19).

Explanation

On the sixth day the people gather "twice as much bread, two omers for one man," and Moses explains that the next day is "the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD." What is kept over for the Sabbath, uniquely, "did not stink, neither was there any worm therein." No manna falls on the seventh day; those who go out to gather find none, and God asks, "How long refuse ye to keep my commandments?" So "the people rested on the seventh day." This is the first teaching of the Sabbath, given before Sinai, woven into the very way God fed them. Then Moses has Aaron keep "an omer full of manna" in a pot "before the Testimony," a memorial for the generations to come. And Israel "did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited," God's faithful provision lasting the whole journey.

Gospel Focus

The Sabbath at the manna teaches that rest is God's gift, secured by God's provision. Israel could rest on the seventh day only because God had supplied double on the sixth; their rest stood on His provision, not their own hoarding. This looks forward to the deeper rest God gives His people in Christ: "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9), a rest we enter not by our works but by trusting His finished work. And consider the pot of manna kept "before the Testimony." The bread that rotted overnight in the tents was preserved incorruptible in the sanctuary, later kept in the golden pot within the ark, a picture of Christ the Bread who saw no corruption, the "hidden manna" He promises to those who overcome (Revelation 2:17). For forty years, every single morning, the bread was there. God never missed a day. The same faithful God who fed Israel across the whole wilderness feeds His people still, gives them rest in Himself, and has laid up for them the incorruptible Bread of heaven.