Manna: Bread from Heaven

Main Passage

English Standard Version Chapter 8

8 “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.

11 “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Other Passages

Ge 3:19 “By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.””

Exodus 16:15-30 “When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’ ” And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omer…”

Ex 16:2–4 “The whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The sons of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.”

Numbers 21:5 “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.””

1 Co 4:7 “For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”

Jos 24:17 “for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed.”

Ho 13:5–6 “I cared for you in the wilderness, In the land of drought. As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, And being satisfied, their heart became proud; Therefore they forgot Me.”

Matthew 5:6 ““Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Quotes

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. VII Bread for the Hungry (No. 418)

Naturalists speak of laws of nature: there is no power in a law; write it as you like, it has no power; the laws of nature are simply the Lord operating in a certain manner, producing certain effects by certain means, this is what we call law—it is God in action—and the reason why bread sustains the body is because God putteth of his potency into it, by which it receiveth nutritive virtues, and the body is sustained. Now, the Lord by the manna said to the children of Israel, “Man is not fed by bread only; he is fed by God’s power that cometh from him into the bread; and when the bread is lacking, he can infuse that power into the very dews of the night, and they, as they distil, shall become manna full of nutritive energy, to sustain your frame, and ye shall know that the power to nourish is not in the second cause, but in the great first cause; not in the corn, not in the bread, but in the Lord God himself.” This was the lesson which they were required to learn.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. VII Bread for the Hungry (No. 418)

Ay, but I reply, it is most marvellous for God to be able to do a miraculous thing without a miracle. Do you comprehend me? I think that the working of a miracle is not so wonderful as when that end is gained by ordinary laws and methods—gained without the cessation of any power in nature—simply by Providence overruling the powers just as they are. To be miraculous without miracles is the miracle of miracles. I have seen many miracles, which were not miracles, but yet all the more miraculous. The poor have lacked bread; stones were not turned into bread for them, but they had their bread as much by miracle as if rocks had crumbled into food. We have seen the poor merchant reduced to distress, and he said, “Now I cannot see any hope for me. God must rend his heavens, and put his hand through the very windows to deliver me.” No heavens were rent, but the deliverance came.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. VII Bread for the Hungry (No. 418)

the heavenly bread and its surpassing excellency. This bread, you see, is the Word of God. Now, the Word is given to us first here in the Bible, as it is written; it is given to us, secondly, from the lips of God’s own chosen and appointed ambassadors. He that despises either of these two, will soon find himself growing lean in spirit. The book, the Word, is like the flour, but the sermon is the bread, for it is through the sermon that the Word is, as it were, prepared for human palates, and brought so that human souls may be able to receive it. The moment the Church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume Deuteronomy 8:1–9

For the manifesting of their perverseness: to prove them, that they and others might know (for God himself perfectly knew it before) all that was in their heart, and might see that God chose them not for any thing in them that might recommend them to his favour, for their whole carriage was untoward and provoking.

My thoughts

English Standard Version Deuteronomy 8:4

Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years

We think we would be nothing like the Israelites in forgetting the Lord. If we had unbreakable clothing and good feet after walking all day we would surely acknowledge God in all His ways. We would not forget as we gathered manna that we would have nothing were it not for the kindness of the Lord.

But we are the same. We have abundance that is incredible. Sure, our clothes become threadbare but we can easily replace them. We have money beyond money. We are not destitute. We have a place to lay our heads, in the warmth of heat and the cool of AC every day. We have vehicles and phones and...We have forgotten just as easily. Because we believe that we are the ones that provide and not the Lord. We think we are the ones that manage and not God. We think the bread we eat has the stuff of life and not that it has the stuff of life because God demands it to be.

English Standard Version Exodus 16:1

on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt

45 days after the Exodus. They had already grumbled about water at Marah. “Would that we had died in Egypt!”