Exodus 16:1-261And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. 2And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: 3And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger. 4Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. 5And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. 6And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt: 7And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord; for that he heareth your murmurings against the Lord: and what are we, that ye murmur against us? 8And Moses said, This shall be, when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that the Lord heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord. 9And Moses spake unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the Lord: for he hath heard your murmurings. 10And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 12I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. 13And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. 14And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. 15And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. 16This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents. 17And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. 18And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. 19And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. 20Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them. 21And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. 22And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. 24And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. 25And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the Lord: to day ye shall not find it in the field. 26Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. (Exodus 16:1‑26).
THEY had gone through one little “wilderness” (verse 22 in the fifteenth chapter), or rather I should. say, they had gone across a little corner of a big wild waste where nobody lived, and now the children of Israel were led across another wilderness, for there are very few places in the peninsula of Sinai where anyone lives, or anything grows. Great stretches of shifting sand have to be crossed from one oasis (like Elim) to another.
Their course was now away from the sea altogether, for before this, up to the end of the fifteenth chapter, the people had been traveling near to the Red Sea ever since they crossed it with the Egyptian army behind them. A month had been passed on the journey. That is not a very long time, but it seems to have been long enough for nearly everyone that came out of Egypt to forget what a hard time they had had; how cruelly they had all been treated there. Perhaps they really had not forgotten those dreadful days and nights when they just about wished that they had never been born, but Satan surely put into their hearts what they said to Moses and Aaron, as we read in the third verse.
They said that they would rather have died, like some of the people did in Egypt, under God’s punishment in the land of their cruel slavery, than to be brought into the country of sand and rocks, to die of starvation. There, where they had been, the people said, they “sat by the flesh pots,” and “did eat bread to the full;” here, it was to die with hunger. We read on, to see what God did, or said, to people so ungrateful, so slow to trust Him, and what do we find?
“Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you ... .every day.”
How kind, how unwilling to be angry He was, He is! They had forgotten that the Lord had brought them, out from the land of Egypt, but He had not forgotten, and would not forget, them. He knew all about their clothes, their shoes, food and drink, everything indeed, He would take care to see that they had all the way, though God would let them wait a little now and then, test them, as we sometimes say, before giving them what they needed.
Aaron, at Moses’ word, called the people to come near, telling them that God had heard their murmurings, and as they looked toward the wilderness, the brightness of God’s presence was seen in the cloud that went before them on their journeys. To Moses God said, “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel; speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread.” How was this to be? The thirteenth verse tells; in the evening a great flock of the birds called quails came by, flying low, as travelers tell us they frequently do in that region, so that they would be easily caught; and in the morning there was another surprise.
When the dew was gone with the heat of the rising sun, there lay on the ground thousands of small round white things, having a taste like honey. The people called them manna, and Moses told them it was the bread God had promised. They gathered enough for their families each morning, and it had to be eaten the same day. But on the sixth day they gathered enough for two days, and then the next day’s portion did not go bad, nor was there any manna found on the seventh day.
ML 02/12/1922