Bread from Heaven, Exodus 16:1-12

1 They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. [They leave one wilderness (Shur) for another (Sin) after an entire month has gone by, staying close to the east coast of the Red Sea and probably closely following the road the Egyptians had used for mining operations. Surely their supply their provisions were becoming depleted.] 2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled [understandably from a human perspective as hunger was affecting all the people, not just some] against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” [Grumbling had worked to get water. Would it work to get food? Watching themselves and their flocks grow thinner, they knew they would die without food.]

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to 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 they will walk in my law or not. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.” [God addresses their short-term and long-term needs. God is teaching them a concept: he is their ultimate provider, the one who from heaven gave them not necessarily what they expected but what they really needed. This, then, becomes a theme in Scripture that ends with the ultimate provision of eternal sustenance in Christ himself, the bread of heaven in John 6:31-58.] 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us?” [There is an evening/morning pattern that reminds us of creation.] 8 And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.” [Moses reminds the people that their grumbling comes from lack of faith in the Lord.]

9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’” 10 And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud [immediately before they even heard the good news]. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” [“The manna story represents another testing story. Because the schedule for gathering manna seemed counterintuitive to ancient agrarians, to provide a way of testing Israel to see if they would obey not only those commandments that made perfect sense to them but also those that did not. The same sort of challenge exists today. If people think God demands a behavior that runs against their intuitive sense of what is right, or pleasurable, or reasonable, or just ‘not so bad’ (sex outside of marriage for example), it is easy for them not to take a commandment seriously, which is the same as not taking God seriously. This correspondence of not respecting commandments and not respecting God explains the severity of God’s reaction when his people do not do what he tells them to do.”]