16 Manna
Notes
Transcript
16 Manna from Heaven
Exodus 16: 1-36 – Read it all, It’s important that the whole story be told.
According to Jewish teachings: (36 verses may be too much for a line-by-line exegesis).
V.1 –The date marks the day they ran out of food that was taken with them from Egypt. It would seem there was an undocumented miracle. They ate matzo for 31 days, two meals a day, as the unleavened bread they carried with them upon their backs by was baked the sun.
V.2 Without considering the depth of the miracle of the matzo, they came complaining to Moses.
V.3 One month removed, and they longed for Egypt and bondage over death in the desert, essentially saying, we would have already died. It’s only been a month and a month of miracles at that. They just ate yesterday and already they believe they are doomed. This is part of the slave mentality that God is seeking to rid them of. Stop trusting in the Slave Master and start trusting in God.
The devil has convinced us that we need the things of the world and not the things of God. Though the word clearly tells us that “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:” 2 Peter 1:3. HE has already given us all things…
V.4 God said, I am going to rain bread from heaven. It is said that it looked like rain when it came down. It was a raw material from which they made bread. Bread is the biblical word for food.
The manna was given that HE, God, might test the people, to prove them.
Would they keep the two Mitzvah’s?
Are they an obedient people?
They needed to learn to trust God. Each day they must look to heaven for the manna, or at least trust that it will be there in the morning. Again, bringing them out of the slave mentality and into a relationship with God. A relationship based upon trusting God.
[Perhaps God gave them two simple commands knowing that one day He would give them Ten Commandments from which Christ would summarize in Two Commandments; love God, love people.]
What of the Manna?
Manna, more accurately transliterated as mon, was the size of a coriander seed and the color of a white bedolach, which commentaries explain is a fine crystal. [So, the ground was littered with crystal like flakes.]
In order that the manna remain clean, a north wind would blow, sweeping the ground, and then rain would wash it. The ground would then be covered with a layer of dew, and the manna would fall upon it, after which the manna was covered with another layer of dew, as if it were packaged in a box.
The manna served as a great lesson in faith. Each day, in faith, they had to go out and gather the manna.
The manna was a lesson in self-control. Each day they could only take what they needed for the day, except on Friday – they could gather enough for 2 days – trusting that God would meet the need again tomorrow.
[Now here’s an interesting story concerning the manna:]
The manna would fall in such a way that the righteous would find it at the doors of their tents; the average people had to go out of the camp to gather what fell there; and the wicked had to go far out to find their portions.
Additionally, for the righteous the manna fell ready-to-eat, similar to baked bread; for the average person, it fell as unbaked cakes, requiring minimal preparation; and for the wicked it came in an unprocessed form, and consequently they had to grind it in a mill.
[Where does this idea come from?]
The Talmud asks: "It is written, [Numbers 11:9] 'And when the dew came down upon the camp at night, the manna came down upon it.' [This indicates that the manna fell inside the camp.] And it is written, [Exodus 16:4] 'And they went out and collected.' [This indicates that the manna fell outside the camp.] And it is written, [Numbers 11:8] 'They walked and collected.' [This indicates that the manna was far from the camp.]
How were all three possible?"
The Talmud explains that the three verses are talking about three different groups of people. "For the righteous, it came down at the door of their homes [in the camp], average people 'went out [of the camp] and collected,' the wicked 'walked [far from the camp] and collected.'"
The Talmud also explains the three different terms used by the Torah for the manna—"bread," "baked goods," and "ground [in a mill],"—in the same manner.
For the righteous, it was ready to eat, like bread. The average person had to bake it, and the wicked had to start by grinding it into flour.
[What needs to be observed here it that this “bread of life” (if I may call it that) was made available to the righteous and the wicked alike, even as it is today, though none are truly righteous].
A person had until the fourth hour of the day to collect the manna, after which it would melt in the heat of the sun.
The Midrash relates that the melting manna would create streams that provided drinking water for many of the animals in the wilderness. If a member of a nearby nation would then eat one of those animals that had drunk from the manna-infused streams, he would be able to get a taste of the manna.
Other characteristics of the Manna:
[The manna] tasted like your favorite food. It produced no waste, encapsulating its eater's nutritional needs so precisely that after the body absorbed what it needed there was nothing left. (This last fact made some of the Israelites a bit queasy about their "bread from heaven.")
[The idea here is that the Torah could only be given a clean people group, a group of manna eaters, a group of people that had been cleansed from the inside out. This is my interpretation of the Jewish teaching.]
In closing read Revelation 2:12-17
There’s manna yet to be had. I suppose the question is are we ready to receive it?
c
Notes:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4463795/jewish/What-Was-the-Manna.htm
3 minutes in - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vejmz3_OXdE