Exodus-16

Exodus 16:1-9–More Grumbling: About Food
Exodus 16:1-9(ESV)
¹They 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. 
²And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 
³and 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.”
⁴Then 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. 
⁵On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.” 
⁶So 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, 
⁷and 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?” 
⁸And 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.”
⁹Then 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.’” 

Before the grumbling was about water and now it is about food.  It isn’t surprising that in the wilderness it would be difficult to buy or find food.  They experienced new things:

1 – They left what comfort they had known.

2 – They could see their children and themselves losing weight as they walked along.

3 – They were on the move, thus they had only the routine of walking or pitching their tents in a wilderness terrain. 
 

4 – The animals themselves could have been bawling for lack of food and water. 

5 – With this list and properly more, the human tendency to be pessimistic when in pain all combined to cause them to grumble.    

6 – In Egypt, they were cattle herdsmen and would have plenty of meat available as the scriptures states:  “pots of meat” that they sat around while in Goshen.

The PROBLEM was that they were grumbling against the living God.

V. 3– their words:  “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.”
These remarks would be essentially rhetorical rather than literal as they didn’t really wish to be died in Egypt or to die in the wilderness.  It would be the absurdity of going to all the trouble they have gone so far in the past month to just now die off. 

V.4-5 – God addresses both their short term and long term needs.

Manna was a great gift and also involved a test.  They were to only gather enough for their one day as there was not to be any leftovers – (How do we feel about leftovers? – Some of us like them or at least eat them, while others avoid them. )  

HOW was it a test?  –  We are dealing with a group of ‘agricultural people’.  These were people that lived to gather the harvest for the time when there wasn’t a harvest to gather until the next season.  They had life experience that crops were seasonal.   (Today we might call them wanting a stash – too accumulate, amass, buildup or bank.  However, don’t we all have food stored in our homes for the next day, week or need?)

They were being asked to restrain their natural tendency to gather all that was available and stock up for the rainy day.  In this case they were to gather only what was needed for the 1 day and on the 6^th day gather enough for the next day so they would rest from ‘gathering’ on that day.  Performing this pattern would help them realize that it is one used during the creation week and God’s plan for the human family to rest every 7^th day.   It would prepare them for the 4^th of the 10 commandments given to them in the near future.

Each week they would see how God provided for them, in a manner counterintuitive to their normal sense of how to gather and store food.  They would see that God was teaching them to learn to obey him in advance of the forth-coming covenant law.  

V. 8 – Only the bread would be in abundant supply, but He would provide meat tonight to fill their appetites till morning when the manna would come from heaven.

V. 9 – come before God in assembly for God has heard your grumbling.    In God’s omniscience he would know what they were concerned about.  It was an idiom for “paying attention to and planning to respond to” something.

Exodus 16:10-15– God Grants Manna in Response to the Grumbling About Food

Exodus 16:10-15(ESV)
¹⁰And 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. 
¹¹And 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.’”
¹³In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. 
¹⁴And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. 
¹⁵When 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. 

 God was testing (teaching)(training) his people throughout the exodus events:

1.       Leading them in odd directions without fully explaining why

2.       Surprising them with potentially destructive enemy attacks

3.       Requiring them to walk into and through deep ocean water

4.       Taking them to locations that lacked the necessities of life

All of these were challenges that were part of a plan to develop a people’s willingness to trust him.  Explaining everything in advance would have run counter to that plan.  It was necessary for Israel to learn faith while confused, while afraid, while desperate – not just in theory but under pressure of actual conditions where survival was uncertain and faith was tested to the limit.  Therefore, the manna story represents still another ‘testing story’.   A test for them as it ran counterintuitive to ancient agrarians and it was a way to test obedience of gathering for 1 day at a time. 

A possible lesson for today:

Caution that we don’t think God demands a behavior that runs against our intuitive sense of what is right, or pleasurable, or reasonable…

·         A view of it  is just “not so bad”  – That it is just not so bad to have sex outside of marriage assigning human logic that doing it will help us know if that is the right person to spend our life with.

·         A view of thinking the command isn’t that important.  Take the command “not to become unevenly yoked.”   One frequently thinks they can change the person or moderate attitude toward their behavior. 

·         A view of thinking that the command of “Not forsaking yourselves together”  can be by-passed week after week without effect on our spiritual well being.

STILL how much better if the Israelites prayed patiently and trustingly for God’s answer to their lack of food.  Grumbling is not to be commended and rewarded, however, God still graciously responded.  He did NOT respond in kind, that is a ‘poor quality’ would be sufficient for grumblers.  No it was of high quality and capable of providing healthy nourishment to the people.   Thus, a demonstration that God’s goodness is not dependent on their willingness to respect him as they should, but God’s will and purpose for his people.

V.10-12 –  God’s glory appeared in the cloud.  This would be his impressiveness/awesomeness, the sense of his divine greatness that may be difficult to describe in words.  It has been expressed as felt in terms of fear, awe, amazement, and the sense that one is not in the presence of anything of this world.  One senses that it is truly the essence of superiority and eternal authority, worthy of worship and adoration, and dangerous to oppose.

God’s glory was seen/sensed in this account:  Exodus 24:16-17(ESV)
¹⁶The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 
¹⁷Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 

Exodus 40:35(ESV)
³⁵And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 

In this case the cloud may have displayed a sort of blinding fiery brilliance of a smoky opaqueness from their point of view sensing an overwhelmed encounter.  

 From these accounts and the present it would seem that the Israelites apparently had no trouble sensing that God was right among them in real power and substantial presence because it states in V. 10  “they looked toward the desert” or they turned their attention to the cloud.       

The Lord graciously acknowledged that he had ‘heard’ (was going to respond to) the grumbling.  He would give them within a twelve hour period both meat and bread.    V. 12 “saba” (have one’ fill of)  “you will eat” or “you will be filled with”…

V.13 – the only time Quail is mentioned and it is briefly. “…That evening quail came and covered the camp,” –  Perhaps because Quail was a one-evening supply of meat  and manna was a daily occurrence for forty years and the more important food supply for that entire generation. 

V14-15 – A thin, crisp substance, thin like frost on the ground – it may have appeared in ‘flake’ form but perhaps in sheets. It may have been flaky and separating upon picking.  The word “manna” may have come from the people saying:  (what is this) (man hu).  It is described as a massive, collectable, permanent daily food source for thousands of people.

Exodus 16:15-20(ESV)  – a gift and then disobedience
¹⁵When 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. 
¹⁶This 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.’” 
¹⁷And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. 
¹⁸But 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. 
¹⁹And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” 
²⁰But 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. 

Would you not say the instructions were explicit in the amount and not to keep any for the next day?  They were not to over gather or over eat.   To gather what they could eat.

An Omer = 2 quarts

 A day’s new manna had to be eaten that day as if left overnight it was full of maggots and smelled.    They were to trust in God’s daily provision…  “give us this day our daily bread” (Lord’s prayer)    Also, the Israelites were taught to observe other food consumption laws that forbade leftovers.  (Today, if we don’t have refrigerator we couldn’t keep left overs either.)

They were to work each day at gathering not just work harder one day and have the next off.  

Exodus 16:21-26(ESV)  –  Manna gathering and the Sabbath
²¹Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.
²²On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, 
²³he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’” 
²⁴So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. 
²⁵Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. 
²⁶Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”

Laziness was not allowed than and still not today.  An opportunity to demonstrate that were not lazy to sleep in instead of rising up to begin the work of gathering their needed food for the day.  God intended that we work, not be freeloaders.  (An early to rise rule!)

Instructed that on the 6^th day to gather a double portion and keep one day’s worth for the 7^th day while you rested from your labors.    Thus establishes the work 6 days and rest on the 7^th that was established at creation.   It was to be a day of refocusing service toward the holy God. 

The word ‘Sabbath’ means ‘stoppage’.  They were being taught this to be 4^th commandment of the law.   On the 7^th they could cook the manna as usual manner of boiling or baking it. 

That the manna kept an extra day on the 7^th day only would act as a weekly reminder of God’s control and intervention in their lives.  It would also show that God wanted them to see the importance of setting a day to give worship to Him.  It was also reminder that man is not designed or equipped to work every day without a respite time and that time is needed on a weekly basis.     They were rewarded each week with God’s blessing to “eat it today” and the time spent in gathering used of honor the creator, Jehovah.   Their life style allowed little time of rest. 

Exodus 16:27-30 – the 2^nd disobedience and the Sabbath Lesson Learned

Exodus 16:27-30(ESV)
²⁷On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. 
²⁸And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? 
²⁹See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” 
³⁰So the people rested on the seventh day.

 Some went out on the 7^th day and found none.  It stressed to them that the Sabbath day represented a gift  (“the LORD has given you the Sabbath”) as Jesus taught.

They still had to feed their flocks, milk their goats and cattle, and other human needs.  However, the harvesting was not to be that day.  It was to teach them to set aside some time to reflect on their blessings and the promises of God.

Spend a couple minutes thinking about this principle for us today.

Exodus 16:31-36(ESV)  –  Preserving the Manna for Generations to Come as a Testimony to God’s Faithfulness.
³¹Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. 
³²Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” 
³³And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.” 
³⁴As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. 
³⁵The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. 
³⁶(An omer is the tenth part of an ephah.)^£

 V. 31 – Manna was a thin wafer like ‘bread and honey’  It was tantamount to saying that it was “the most delicious food imaginable”. 

V.32-34 – In the “Holy of Holies” that was only the ark in the room.  It symbolized the very presence of God.  To be kept there gave ‘manna’ the prominence above many other objects including the showbread, lampstand or incense alter which was excluded from the holy of holies by the tabernacle’s inner curtain. 

It was on a table in a jar until the ark was belt, then placed inside the ark.