Introduction
Lil Abner was a comic strip written and illustrated by the cartoonist Al Capp. He died about 35 years ago leaving us memories of Pogo the alligator and a hillbilly, a backwoods set of characters of no honorable mention. One of the characters was a group of animals called the “Kick Me’s” These looked like the size of tenpin bowling pins and had a target on their bellies or their backsides. You could fry them and they would taste like your favorite steak or you could play with them like a doll. They existed for your pleasure. This was quite a fun idea for a young boy as I was when I first read about them.
At the same time I was learning with rabbis in Hebrew school. And one of the things they taught me was that the manna in the wilderness was for Jewish people like the kick-me’s in the comic Li’l Abner. How, we asked? In that, if you wanted the manna to taste like steak, it did. If you wanted it to taste like cholent or cream pies or whatever, it would taste like that for you. So the rabbis taught me.
But I don’t think this is the way the text teaches us today. In fact, although heartened in their fears and anxiety by the presence of the manna, they were also annoyed that it is all they got to eat. Now, if it turned into our imaginary food choice, who would complain about that? So I’m starting to get the impression that the rabbis could be wrong on this one. At least on this one.
What is the manna? What is God’s idea of somewhat daily provision of the bread from heaven? And what lessons does manna have for us as 21st Century people in Australia today?
Where are they?
Alfred Edersheim the 19th Century Jewish Christian commentator writes,
“Accordingly they called this the wilderness of Shur, or of “the wall.” (Exodus 15:22) This then was the wilderness, fresh, free, and undisputed! But this also was that “great and terrible wilderness,” so full of terror, danger, and difficulty, (Deuteronomy 8:15; 32:10) through which they must now pass.”
Basically the Jewish people have escaped. Phew! And now they turn from the drama of the Red Sea and look forward at… at….emptiness! They think, Ouch! What am I doing out here? What possible oasis can I find? Where is the McDonalds or at least the neighbourhood fish and chips shop? It’s vast and vacant and void of anything, and it appears that Moses has played the biggest impractical joke of recent history… the mockery of the Hebrews.
Remember yesterday the Jewish people had been found at Marah as the chapter ended. There was no water and what they did find was undrinkable.
Again from Edersheim,
“Worse than fatigue and depression now oppressed them, for they began to suffer from want of water. For three days they had not come upon any spring, and their own supplies must have been well-nigh exhausted. When arrived they found indeed a pool, but, as the whole soil is impregnated with nitre, the water was bitter (Marah) and unfit for use. Luther aptly remarks that, ‘when our provision ceases, our faith is wont to come to an end.’ It was so here. The circumstances seemed indeed hopeless. The spring is still considered the worst on the whole road to Sinai, and no means have ever been suggested to make its waters drinkable. But God stilled the murmuring of the people, and met their wants by a miraculous interposition. Moses was shown a tree which he was to cast into the water, and it became sweet. The help came directly from heaven, and the lesson was twofold. “There He made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them.” (Exodus 15:25)”
So what is the ordinance or the statute? I believe it’s God’s command and/or Word. He leads us and He desires us to respond and do what He asks. And there He did prove them. What is this? This is the right and privilege each of us has to live by faith. Faithfulness and faith…they go hand in hand. Ordinance and proving, in the foreground; faith and faithfulness in the background. Are you with me?
Today’s test: The Manna
So in today’s passage, again we see another ‘proving’ or test. Edersheim says “Once more their unbelief broke forth. True, it was only against Moses that their murmurs rose. But in reality their rebellion was against God. To show this, and thereby “to prove them, whether they would walk in the law of God or no,” (Exodus 16:4) that is, follow Him implicitly, depending upon, and taking such provision as He sent, and under the conditions that He dispensed it, God would now miraculously supply their wants.”
That is, being given what we want is actually a test of our faithfulness to the Lord. Strange—when He give us things or when He withholds them—both alike are equally proving. No wonder Solomon said in the Proverbs,
“Two things I asked of Thee, Do not refuse me before I die: Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, Lest I be full and deny Thee and say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God.” (30.7-9)
Both riches and poverty are testing places. What will I do if I have a lot; what will I do if I have too much? Solomon wrote at the end of his days a reluctance to have such testing prove him, that is, to show of what he is made of. But that’s exactly what is happening to our reluctant heroes, the Jewish people in our chapter today.
We are called in verse 9 to come near before the Lord. Where would this be? Where would you go if you were a Hebrew freed slave and are being paged to come to God?
Adam Clarke says, “The great tabernacle was not yet built, but there appears to have been a small tabernacle or tent called the Tabernacle of the Congregation, which, after the sin of the golden calf, was always placed without the camp; see Exodus 33:7: And Moses took the Tabernacle and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it The Tabernacle of the Congregation; and it came to pass that every one that sought the Lord went out unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation, which was without the camp.”
I agree with Clarke. Later the tent of meeting, the tabernacle of Moses will be built a full 10 months after this event, in the 2nd year of the Jewish people’s new calendar. Also this helps us understand the placement of the jar of manna in the ark (v. 34). Where is this to be? It’s the original traveling tabernacle already in existence, but a mere model, a toy-sized compared to the one to be built by Bezalel and Oholiab.
Manna: The rules
The quail is significant as it gave the Jews good food, apart from their cattle to eat. There is no mention of the utes on which their family goods were carried, so we ought not to mention that at this point. Now let us move to the manna itself which is much more discussed in our text today than the quail.
The Hebrew is an answer really. The people said in verse 15. Man hu. What is it? And that question became for them the answer. Manna.
Moses says to them, “This is the bread which God is giving you to eat.”
Then verse 16 immediately gives us rules on management and conservation; on collection methods and times. I love that about the Book. It’s not open free-ranged gathering which is the way a mob conducts a looting riot. It’s the energy of an ordered crowd going about its collective responsibility.
Have you ever seen a school of fish or a flock of pigeons being given a random amount of bread pieces? Is there any order to that motley crew?
God wants to ensure that His people, numbering 3 million, are well behaved, in decency and in good order. So he tells them to collect a certain amount only, which is how much? One omer per household member. And on certain days. Which ones? Sunday through Friday. That’s right.
So what is happening is that God is training us. He is changing us from a mob of infidel slaves into a community of order and faith. From ‘what is it?’ to “pass the tupperware’ is one of the first lessons. He will do it in building a tent and telling us when and where to worship. He will do it in sending down food daily and telling us how to eat it. He will give us a caste of priests and telling us how to conduct ourselves annually with a whole new calendar. All in design here is the development of a family from frayed individuals. Do you see how He wants to organize our lives in such a way that we prove what is true and what is truly divine? In other words, what God wants is a vessel that is clean and useful in conducting His work in the world which is so desperately in need of His teaching and love.
In verse 19 we read, “Let no man leave any of it until morning”. Why? God is teaching us His principle of ‘give us this day our daily bread.” This is not a new teaching in the time of Yeshua; but God needs to teach it to us at this Exodus time. Don’t store up things for yourselves; trust in the Lord throughout your days. Again Solomon’s riches advise comes into play.
And just in case some miss the teaching, if they did horde it, they would have found worms eating the manna the next morning.
But there were two locations of storage that were acceptable. What were they? The jar of manna kept into the Tabernacle, yes. And the other? The Friday double portion which had to remain until Sunday morning. Neither of these stored mannas corrupted which itself is miraculous in the heat of the Arabian desert. No cooking was going to be allowed by the Almighty, but honestly I think the idea of rest is more highlighted.
Shabbat is for man, not man for the Sabbath
Let me speak plainly about Shabbat. Some argue for a Saturday vs. Sunday worship from some Bible passages. I don’t know where they get that. Honestly, the passages of biblical relevance continue to make rest the number one priority. I’m glad to gather on Saturday or Sunday or any day with the people of God to worship and pray and learn and sing and fellowship. And Saturday makes sense in so many ways. But to argue that worship is in the mind from texts like these is poor argument at best. Gather double amounts on Friday so that each man can remain in his tent on Saturday. It doesn’t say to come to the Tabernacle and have a prayer meeting. It says to rest. And that needs to be in your mind as you mark your Shabbat. What are you doing that is ordinary work? What can you do to ‘stay inside’ and chill? What can you do to gather with others and chill? When the gathering takes a disproportionate amount of work to accomplish, we need to chuck it out. The main thing is to meet up with others regularly and if Shabbat is your time to do so, goodonya. If you can gather and rest, even better. But always let ‘rest’ be the most significant thing. Of course, that precludes something—that you are working on the other 6 days. The reason many believers today don’t need to rest is that they don’t work on the 6 days. I know Canberra and London want to argue for a 4-day work week of 9 hours, but God is clearer and more defining than anyone on either side of the aisles. Work hard and you will rest well.
The true manna from heaven
We read in John 6 today as well as Exodus. I’m glad for that and hope to increase our public reading of Bible.
They said therefore to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’ Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” They said therefore to Him, “Lord, evermore give us this bread.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.” (John 6.30-35; 47-51)
Messiah here is making one of the boldest claims of his career. He says that what you know about manna is really about him. Who doesn’t know the story of the feeding of the family of God for 40 years? No one! Earlier in this chapter, John records for us the feeding of the multitude. 5 loaves and 2 fish (or as some say some lox and bagels) was hardly enough to feed 5,000 men as well as all the ladies and children. But God did a miracle and provided. Jesus was the instrument of that miracle and Jesus teaches the people in the afterglow of that moment that all they had heard about manna… well, it was really His doing. In fact, he continues, that He was not only the agent of that miracle; He was portended and He is the true bread that comes down to earth to men, from heaven. Unless you eat of Him and are sustained in relationship to Jesus, He says, you will not have eternal life. What chutzpah! What audacity! What if…He’s right?
I totally agree with Yeshua. I believe He is the Son of God. I believe He died for my sins and rose again from the dead. I believe He is the sustainer of the Jewish people. He is the true bread from heaven. He is what God is giving us to live by.
Listen, as I grew up an Orthodox Jew, I would have said of Yeshua, “What is it?” I didn’t recognize Him as one of us. I didn’t know He was good for us. I didn’t know He was good for my family. But now, He is the One who has shown Himself a miracle worker. He is the One who died under such horrible Roman beating and inhumanity as shown in the movie The Passion. He is the One who rose from the dead to sustain us.
If you are hungry for relationship with God, go nowhere else. If you want eternal life, search no longer. Yeshua wants to give it to you.
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