From chapter 36 onwards, Joseph is the central figure. Neither his father nor his brethren-save the story of Judah (chap. 38)-appear again but in connection with Joseph, who henceforward fills the first place. Faith, as real in him as in Abraham, is not so prominently seen; for God was not so much displaying the power of faith in Joseph as presenting him as a type of Him who, by rejection, death, and resurrection, was to accomplish His purposes of grace.
Besides being a type of the Messiah, he was the providential means of bringing the family into Egypt, God overruling and shaping the effect of his brethren's hatred to bring it to pass. As to his personal faith, the Spirit of God singles out his latest act as its bright evidence. (Heb. 11:2222By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones. (Hebrews 11:22).) The splendor of the king's court did not blind him to the promise made to his fathers. Egypt was no resting-place for him. By faith he foretold the departure of the children of Israel, “and gave commandment concerning his bones.” But, like his fathers, he must be tried. In each case, that for which the trial came was made prominent. Abraham's trial brought out the triumph of faith over death. Isaac's testing showed the absolute certainty of the counsels of God, which neither Isaac's carnal appetite, nor Esau's tears, could set aside. Jacob's testing extended over the greater part of his life, and because so long, admirably proves the patient waiting of God, the grace which is so prominent a feature in His dealings with Jacob, the faithfulness to His word, “I will never leave thee.” This blessed promise is the motto, in large characters, impressed upon the title-page of the history of his life. In Joseph rectitude and moral purity are exemplified; it is the answer of faithfulness on man's part to grace on God's part.
One event is given which, while showing the power of godliness, tells too what the faithful may expect from this world-maligned, falsely accused, and a prison. This was the first effect of faithfulness. Was there ever a trial or a testing cent from God where the faithful saint was not first left to feel the world's malignity? Why? That God's blessing and approval may afterward come all the sweeter. In Potiphar's wife we see the world in no uncommon character, whose prince is first the tempter, then the accuser of saints. Joseph has to wait more than two full years before God appears for him. Faith and patience must have their perfect work. Then the reward comes, not merely liberty but exaltation to the highest power short of the throne. Pharaoh's dream is added to those of the butler and of the baker, where the wisdom of God is displayed in Joseph, the inspired interpreter.
Not less wonderful are the providential means employed to bring Jacob and his family into Egypt. Many a tale has been written, and most improbable contingencies imagined to display the skill of the writer, and so unexpected as to challenge the credulity of the reader; but nothing, in all the range of fiction, surpasses the story of Joseph. Where is there greater cruelty to a young brother, a poor wailing lad, against whose entreaties their hearts were steeled? Where greater heartlessness of grown-up sons against an aged and infirm lather? And when a slave, an imprisoned slave, where a more sudden and surprising change from a dungeon to a throne than that of Joseph? Such are the means which prepare the way for Israel's sojourn in Egypt. Egypt is prepared for them; then God sends famine, and drives them thither. Truly His hand is seen in every step. God could have fed them in the land spite of famine, as He did both Abraham and Isaac. But principles had to be learned there which could be learned nowhere else. Their sojourn in Egypt is a transitional stage, where the family developer into a nation. To provide food was not the primary object, but a minor purpose, and made subservient to the greater, namely, that in Joseph there might be a type of a greater than he, who suffered from a deeper hatred, and who is a greater Deliverer from a worse famine. God was looking onward to His Only-begotten, and the murderous hatred of Joseph's brethren was made to take the form which would best illustrate God's purpose. They sell him to Ishmaelite traders. They had a presentiment-may we not say the assurance?-that the dreams of Joseph meant his ruling over them, and they resented it. Even Jacob was moved, and somewhat rebuked him, yet he “observed the saying.”
There was a figurative fulfillment when his brothers did homage to him in. Egypt. Their sheaves made obeisance to his. Nor did they fail in homage after they knew him. But this did not meet the full meaning of Joseph's prophetic dreams. For not only are the sheaves of Israel to bow to Messiah, but the second dream shows the sun and moon and the eleven stars-all the constituted authority of the world, Gentile or Jewish-bowing to Christ in the person of His representative.
Chapter 38 gives the condition of the Jew after he had rejected Messiah, and though apparently not connected with Joseph, yet is it an integral part of the future which the Holy Spirit is here holding up as in a glass. But first Messiah is cast out. He, as man, was bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, as much as Joseph was to his brothers. The Lord was specially connected with the tribe of Judah. They were the Jews to whom the Messiah was presented, and rejected. The other tribes are lost to the sight of man. So, after they had sold Joseph as a slave, it is Judah alone that we have in the next chapter.
Joseph is as one dead to the family, and Jacob in his grief may remind us of those who mourned when the Son of man was led to Calvary, of the weeping daughters of Jerusalem. In that awful procession that followed the Lord Jesus, bearing His cross, not every one clamored for His death. Some that wept there might be those who had felt His healing power, who once were deaf, dumb, blind; she who was healed of the issue of blood, she who had been made straight, after having been bowed for eighteen years by Satan; she who had washed His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, whose sins were forgiven, “for she loved much.” These were at least in tears, but powerless to avert the sore judgment of such a crime-powerless, because it was “their hour, and the power of darkness"-powerless, because He was foreordained to the cross, because the cross was the way-may we not say the only way-in which God would be glorified while saving lost sinners. Still, the crucifying Christ was a crime (Acts 2:2323Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: (Acts 2:23)), and such a crime, that if the guilt of all other crimes were concentrated in one, it would be small compared to that. It brought judgment upon the murderers. What shall be done to the husbandmen who cast out the Heir? “He will come and miserably destroy those wicked men.” (Matt. 21) Therefore the Lord Jesus, who knew the coming judgment-ever thinking of the loved nation-said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,” &c. (Luke 23:2828But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. (Luke 23:28))
But while Joseph is unknown to his brethren, or at best only a “memory,” he is in power in Egypt, and marries Asenath, an Egyptian woman; his sons are separated from their mother's Gentile connection, trans, planted into the position of “heirs of the promise” with faithful Abraham, duly numbered with Israel, and divide the inheritance with them. So the Lord Jesus, rejected by the Jews, has called out children from among the nations. “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” (Gal. 3:7-97Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. (Galatians 3:7‑9).) I speak here of the fact that Gentiles are called into the position of faith, not of the higher privileges of the church. Branches from the wild olive-tree are grafted in, while the natural branches are cut off. The Jews-the children of Judah—are now mixed up in sinful connection with the nations, and so will remain, until Messiah come in power. Judah separated himself from his brethren, and makes Hirsh, the Adullamite, his friend. When Messiah comes, the Gentile will be a servant. (Isa. 14:1, 21For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. 2And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. (Isaiah 14:1‑2).)
If Abraham and Isaac together exhibit the power of resurrection faith, and its position before God-the believer's standing now in Christ-Jacob not darkly shows the perverse nation. Their history is his, reproduced on a larger scale. Angels appeared to him at the beginning of his course, as the law was given by the ministry of angels. In his dream of Laban and Esau, he cried to God, and was delivered, and, after his deliverance, forgot his vow and God's mercy. The Israelites, when oppressed by their enemies, cried to God, and He raised up judges and saved them, and they forgot their vows and promises of obedience. Images were found in his family: the crying sin of Israel was idolatry, for which they were driven out of the land. And just as Jacob for a time lost his son Joseph, and did not see him till he was exalted in glory, so the Jews will not see their Messiah again till He appears in glory. Israel's joy (Gen. 46:3030And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive. (Genesis 46:30)), when be saw Joseph, leads our thoughts onward to the godly remnant in Jerusalem when the “child Jesus” was brought into the temple, as expressed by Simeon, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” (Luke 2:29, 3029Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: 30For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, (Luke 2:29‑30).) And also the self-judgment of Joseph's brethren, when (Gen. 42:2121And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. (Genesis 42:21)) they said, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother,” points to the time when Israel, repentant, shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and wail because of Him. This will be at the closing of their dark hour; and for the repentant among them, the times of refreshing are about to dawn. As when Jacob was in his darkest moment God appeared, and brought him to Bethel, so in the extremity of Israel's distress the Sun of righteousness will suddenly arise, and the glories of the millennial day burst forth.
In the calling out and separating a people for Himself, beside the unity of His Godhead, God was in grace, on the principle of faith, bringing man into communion with Himself, into loving and obedient relationship. Faith was the only moral way in which this could be accomplished. So the first lessons and of subjective faith. In the ritual which accompanied the law it is objective faith; that is, Christ presented in His varied offices and work, and, above all, in the holiness of His person. We upon whom the ends of the ages have come have before us this rich store, first, of the power of faith, as seen in Abraham; and then, the all-sufficiency of Him who is presented to us as faith's sole object; in types and shadows then, but now seen in all their import, because the True Light now shineth. But throughout all the dispensations of God, faith, viewed either in its objective character, or in its subjective power in the heart, is the grand moral means by which the power of Satan over the soul is destroyed; modified according to the character of each dispensation, but the same principle; for “without faith it is impossible to please God.” And again, “By faith are ye saved.”
In the wisdom of God, the subjective lessons come first, and the family was the fitting school where to learn them. But faith must have an object on which to rest, what we may call its “point d'appui.” And this is presented in the ceremonials of the tabernacle. Under them Christ, the object of faith, is veiled by types and shadows, and necessarily so, for God's moral processes with man required that he should be proved not only fallen, but irretrievably lost (save by grace). To be under law, man himself accepting the responsibilities of that position, and at the same time God's object of faith shadowed forth by the very things which were the bond of retaining him in the responsibilities of that position, is what we see in Israel journeying through the wilderness. So we have, not the subjective power of faith, but Christ, and man as such in his creature responsibility to God, where not only is faith demanded in the power of Jehovah-God, but where obedience is tested. Obedience, of course, is shown now by the believer; but then it was demanded of man while yet in the old creation, to prove him. “The law was added because of transgressions.” (Gal. 3:1919Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. (Galatians 3:19).) It is obvious, too, that Christ, as the object of faith, could not be fully revealed while this process was carried on. The full revelation of Christ, as in the gospel, is grace without law. The gospel of grace necessarily sets aside law. It is also obvious that law to such a creature as man could only result in his greater condemnation in the abounding of the offense. But the proof of this was to be developed in his own history, so that the upright man might acknowledge its truth. And every upright Israelite who discerned the truth of his condition would have beneath the sacrifices of bullocks and of rams the appointed place for his faith to rest upon; dimly seen, no doubt, for God dwelt then in the darkness of types; but wherever any soul, feeling its need, attempted to look beyond the mere shadow, the God of all grace was there to meet him. The ground of faith and responsibility to law are wonderfully blended in the ordinances given to Israel.
In the lives of the patriarchs we have the detail of the exercises of subjective faith, before the varied offices of Christ, as faith's object, are given-every shadow has its substance in Him alone; but it may not be unimportant to remark, that objective faith is the first mentioned. It is seen in the first of faith's heroes, as given in Heb. 11. Abel brought a lamb. In Enoch and Noah we see subjective power, for Enoch walked with God, and Noah testified against the world of the ungodly. It was fitting that Christ, without whose shed blood there could be no faith, should be first presented, though ever so dimly. God saw the import of Abel's lamb, and that was sufficient for blessing. That offering made Abel righteous by faith.
In tracing the agency of faith, as the means of bringing man to God, a very different scene is now before us, in which God is not seen in special relationship with a particular family, but as the God of a nation (hence as a Governor); and the nation that He governs is presented, according to the exigencies of truth, in a condition of natural enmity against God, and constant outbreaks of rebellion. Faith is seen in a few, and God accomplishing His purpose. But, as a whole, Israel in the wilderness is a sad picture of human perversity and evil. It is the second period of the history of the chosen race, and, save with Moses, the intimacy of communion is not seen. It was rather fatherly discipline with the patriarchs, now with the nation God is King. If man puts himself on the ground of law, God must deal with him there. It was a standing deliberately chosen by Israel, and all the responsibility of choosing, and failing after, rested upon them. God did not force law upon them. All His dealings were, up to the time of accepting law, pure grace, though provoked, never upbraiding, but dealing with them, from the Red Sea to Sinai, as if they had been grateful and obedient. Here we must again bow our heads before the inscrutable wisdom of God; for while Israel has free choice to accept law-standing, or continue as before, it was God's purpose that man should be tested by law, and necessarily fail, that his sin might appear exceeding sinful (Rom. 7:3; 33So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. (Romans 7:3)
3For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? (Romans 3:3)); and this, to prove that salvation is altogether of God.
The nation was prepared by God as a sphere where the great problem was to be solved-can man, fallen and sinful, with any amount of help from God, become acceptable, and holy, and obedient by his own will and energy, even with all the advantages possessed by the Jew? (Rom. 3) The universal answer is-No. But it was this terrible truth man had to learn. Even now the same self-confidence is as strong in the natural heart as when Israel, ignorantly and proudly, promised obedience to Jehovah in all things. Indeed, now there is more daring in the man who takes a stand upon the ground, when Israel so utterly failed; for he has both their attempt and immediate failure, and also the warning word of the apostle-that is, of the Holy Spirit—giving us the cause of their failure. They sought to establish their own righteousness, and not that which is of faith. “We are well able,” they said. Faith speaks differently. Even the righteousness of the law could only be attained by faith (Rom. 9:31; 10:231But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. (Romans 9:31)
2For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. (Romans 10:2)), and in the previous chapter this righteousness is the direct result for those “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
When they multiplied in Egypt, the providence of God used a very efficacious means to separate them from others, and to knit them together as a people. Among human things there is no surer way of binding a nation together than by a common suffering. God in His wisdom used this for His purpose. There was not only a common descent, in which they always boasted” We be Abraham's seed” (John 8:3333They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? (John 8:33))-but the additional one of being oppressed with a cruel bondage. Thus dissociated from the Egyptian by peculiar suffering, and distinguished among the nations by miraculous interposition of God, who was also displaying Himself as the God of the whole earth, as well as binding them together, for the report of His wonders in the land of Egypt spread far and wide. “I know that the Lord hath given you the land,” said Rehab. By His mighty power God would teach the nations that He is God in heaven above, and on the earth beneath. It was preparatory to His being known as Savior-God by-and-by among all nations. But even then to Israel was given the knowledge of His great power in saving, and never more evident than when the sea stood up like a rock. It was a question of delivering His people from their enemies, not of their deserts: He would magnify Himself. And He brought them through the waters of death, giving in type, as in the passover, an important but most blessed truth for believers now. The passover afforded shelter from a sin-judging God, the Red Sea brought God over to us on our side against every foe; and if God be for us, who can be against us? Not only deliverance from the enemy, but the power of Him who is now for us exerted in their total destruction-never to be seen alive again. The praises of Jehovah's triumph naturally follow.
The Christian now is not in a condition to worship, until he by faith realizes his complete deliverance from the world and the bondage of sin. As Israel passed through the waters of death, so, we having died with Christ, our old ties with the world in its Egypt character are broken forever. This is the teaching for us of that wonderful display of redeeming power in the God of creation. The certainty of God being for us is thus given by example in the Old Testament, and by doctrine in the New. It was for our sakes that this happened to them, as well as other things which are used as a warning. (1 Cor. 10:1111Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:11).) They are all divine lessons taught, through grace, by the Holy Spirit. Even the natural man, if not judicially blinded ought to know the absolute necessity of a Savior, for the Israelites were shut out from all visible means of deliverance. But teaching and learning is a moral process. God does not communicate the knowledge of His salvation by a simple “fiat” of His will, without preparing the soul for its reception, and then its joy.
What could be apparently more desperate than the position of Israel when, encumbered with household goods, a helpless crowd of men, women, and children, they saw themselves hemmed in on every side, by mountain, by sea, the infuriate king, with all his army, in rapid pursuit? No wonder if that mixed multitude cried out. Is it singular that they upbraided Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness; wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?” (Ex. 14:1111And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? (Exodus 14:11).) We who know the base ingratitude of man are not surprised. Marvelous things had been wrought on their behalf, yet they would rather die in Egypt than wait for deliverance. There was a tomb of sarcasm in their despairing complaint-” Were there no graves in Egypt?” Since they must die, why not have left them in Egypt? How grand and striking the picture drawn in few words in the inspired word! Moses is the only one who is calm and confident. Human reason would call him a blunderer for leading a helpless multitude into such a trap. Pharaoh saw it, and rejoiced; to his eye there was no escape. Moses would have chosen a nearer way, but God led them by a way in which return to Egypt was prevented; and here we see moral means and sovereign grace both prominent. “Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.” God would deliver from and prevent their return to Egypt. He led them by His way, to human wisdom a mistaken way, but by which God was more abundantly magnified. And how manifest His hand in bringing them out of Egypt, even against their desire, for they had said to Moses, “Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians.” Yet they go forth harnessed-laden with household goods. It needed the controlling power of God to do this as much as to divide the sea. It was as natural for them to rush back to their bondage, as for the divided waters to reunite. But Almighty power restrained both, and accomplished His own will. Moses was a man of faith, and his faith drew out theirs. “By faith they passed through the Red Sea.” Faith, in the track of God's way, always gets the victory over the fears of others. “Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of God.” And the salvation came in a way least expected. The cloud came between the terrified Israelites and the raging host of Egyptians. He who dwelt in it could have smitten the host in any way, in which He had already shown His avenging power. The destroying angel could have gone through the host, as He went through the land to smite the first-born in every unsheltered house; as in later times He went through the camp of the Assyrian host. But that the Red Sea should be divided, and the waters stand up like a wall on each side, was a way of which the Israelites never thought; perhaps Moses himself, though perfectly sure that deliverance would come, yet did not know how. It is a most interesting lesson for faith, nor can it be more tersely and beautifully expressed than in the words of Moses, “Fear not, stand still, and see.” There is the helplessness of man, there the power and the grace of God. There man may know himself, there learn to trust in God. God waits for man to recognize his own impotency, then He makes known His sovereign power. The typical teaching of the Red Sea was only seen when the work of the cross was finished; the real work of which, both passover and the Red Sea being but shadows, must be accomplished ere the full blessedness of it can be known to faith.
Many other truths had to be taught, many others learned, and in the journeyings of Israel through the desert all may be learned; for if taught by types and shadows, the truth was there ready to be apprehended, more or less, wherever there was faith and a repentant spirit, tint, owing to the incorrigibility of nature, learned with much sorrow and bitter tears. There was no other moral way by which an intelligent, responsible, yet sinful creature could learn himself and know God. Israel failed to learn, notwithstanding the painstaking of God. Neither mercies nor judgments could change their nature; and their possession of the land, temporary as it was, was due only to the purpose of God, not to their obedience. But we now get all the advantage of the truths taught them, and the teaching of the ordinances comes with greater power now than it could then to them. “When he, the Comforter, is come, he shall teach you all things.” The Mosaic ritual-rather we should say, each divine ordinance given to Israel-unfolds the various offices and glories of Christ. “He shall take of mine, and show them to you.”
So we come now to a new chapter in the moral processes of God with man; not the exhibition of subjective faith, but Christ, the Object of faith, and with this making bare what is in man. Both go on together, and for the most part, if not in every instance, the sin and perverseness of the Israelites in their forty years' wanderings, are used as the occasions for manifesting the power and grace of Christ, in meeting all the need of man in all his diversified forms of failure and sin. Two things go on hand-in-hand, as to man as such-his ineradicable wickedness, his utter inability to help himself under the most favorable circumstances-nay, that the greater his advantages, the greater sinner he became; on God's part the foundation of mercy foreshadowed, and the resources of grace keeping pace with the evil of man. Nor can we avoid marking, that God seemed to wait for every fresh and deeper phase of evil to manifest the yet deeper power of grace, the boundless provision in Him whom God was setting forth in all the varied excellencies of His person and work. And we can now see how fitting and wise that, when man was being made manifest in the unbelief and vileness of nature, God, at the same time, was manifesting in type surely, but still really and efficaciously, Him who alone could meet and purge away all sin; so that sin, and God's remedy for sin, are ever in juxtaposition. There is not a sin or failure recorded in their desert journey, but the divine way of meeting it immediately follows. Heavy judgments, too, appeared at times, for God must assert His authority, but always mercy and greater depths of grace. The whole history of the wilderness demonstrates the absolute necessity of a Savior-God, if man is to be blessed, and also God's determinate counsel to be such, in spite of all that sin, devil, and world can do.
Besides the inveteracy of sin and the sovereignty of grace, a third fact is, that Israel as a nation is under the immediate government of God, From the moment they began their march from Egypt, God appeared as their King. And from Egypt to Sinai all is grace. The people murmured, and betrayed their desire to return to Egypt, almost as soon as delivered from it. Nature is utterly unable to walk in the path of faith, which makes this world a wilderness. Even before they passed through the Red Sea they preferred going back to find a grave in Egypt, rather than trust in God; and now, after the marvelous proof that God is for them, they long for Egyptian food. But grace, without judgment, answers their murmuring, and provides for their need. Jehovah heard them, but did not upbraid. They cried for bread-it was rained from heaven; He gave them flesh every evening, and bread every morning.
We know what the bread signified. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” The bread that Israel gathered every morning was only a type of the true bread, of which, “if any eat, he shall live forever.” (John 6:5151I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6:51).) But the flesh in the evening, what may we learn from that? Does it not tell us of the provision made by God to meet creature wants? After the toil of the day the body needs refreshment. The Lord Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” Accordingly, “at even the quails came up, and covered the camp.” There was abundance. God provides for the natural wants of His saints. He who sent the quails is the same One who said, “Take no thought for the morrow.” That is, God takes thought for us, and would have us free from over-anxiety as to what we shall eat or drink, or how clothed. He who leads us on day by day provides for each day's need. And, just as the evening quails meet all bodily necessities, so the morning bread teaches us to begin each day with Him who alone sustains the soul, and gives health and vigor to the new nature. Thus beginning the day with Him, we are strengthened to bear what each day may bring. How blessed, and what perfect peace, to have the assurance that both body and soul are cared for by our God The quails are as much His gift as the bread; both are of His grace. The quails, as merely meeting creature wants, are not laid up before the Lord, but the manna, the bread from heaven, is. The morning bread is more than a mere question of bodily need. It ceased not till they came to Canaan, the promised land. Heavenly bread is our food while we remain here below.
The unmixed grace of God shines equally clear and bright in the next instance, when they murmur for water. Moses cried to Jehovah that the people were ready to stone him. This aggravated their sin of murmuring. Still there is no judgment upon them for this, but Jehovah at once brings water from the rock, as if there had been no murmuring against Him, nor murderous feeling toward Moses. He called the place Meribah, because of the chiding of the people; he would perpetuate the remembrance of their sin by a local name. But God did not tell him to give that name. Grace would hide the sin. If the people said, “Is Jehovah among us?” God proves His proactive, not by judgment, but by supplying their need.