Manna

2023-04-23

Manna was the bread from heaven that God gave His people while in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan. The people called it that because they did not know what it was at first. Moses told them what it was. “And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat” (Exodus 16:15). Even after knowing what it was, it was still always called “manna.”

It came down from heaven six days, and they gathered double on the eve of the Sabbath to have food on the Sabbath. There were many rules they had to follow in gathering it, and they did not follow those rules at first. “...it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). “...and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium” (Numbers 11:7).

A bit of it was stored in the ark so they would remember God’s faithfulness in the wilderness. It never grew any worms like it would have otherwise. “And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations” (Exodus 16:33; cf. Hebrews 9:4).

The manna stopped when they made it to Canaan. “And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year” (Joshua 5:12).

Jesus fulfills that pattern in the Old Testament. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die” (John 6:47-50). The ancients were supernaturally sustained in the wilderness by the first manna. Jesus is He that sustains us forever.

Just like many did not know what the manna was, they do not know who Jesus is. “for they wist not what it was.” Just like the first manna, people “try” Jesus for a while, and give up. “But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes” (Numbers 11:6). “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66).

The manna was sent first, and then the Son. The first bread from heaven taught us to trust in the second. “And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

But there is nowhere else to go, but to Jesus. “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:67-68).