Old Testament - Exodus 16 - April 7, 2022

4/7/2022 – Exodus 16

This chapter finds the Israelites, once again, intent on murmuring. They are now in the wilderness, and they seem to remember only the good things about Egypt and they long to go back, although no one mentions that they miss their work as slaves…. V 2 tells us that “the whole congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.” They see no way that they will be able even to eat now.

But the Lord speaks to 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.” (v 4)  The mana has two purposes: one to feed the people where there is no food, and 2) to give them an opportunity to show that they can, and will, follow the Lord’s commandments.

Part of this new commandment was to gather twice as much manna on the 6th day, so they would not be working to gather food on the 7th day.

The Lord continues to use “the glory of the Lord in the cloud”, as these people have lost much of their spiritual knowledge, and He is helping them learn-- not just from FEELING, but from SEEING also.

The Israelites were amazed as the manna “lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground.” They had never seen anything like it. They wanted a name, and they called it “manna”…when in Hebrew means “what is this”.

Even though the Israelites were happy with the manna, they soon got tired of eating the same thing day after day. The Lord then says He will give them bread in the morning and meat in the evening. “And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp.” (v 13)

The Lord then gives them further commandments—they are to gather only the amount of manna they need to feed those in their tents. (v16) They are eat the manna, and are not to leave any to linger until the next morning. Unfortunately, those who did not follow this direction (this commandment), woke the next morning only to find that the manna stank and was filled with worms.  They had been told to gather the manna morning, but those who waited to do their manna gathering found that once the sun became hot, the manna melted and disappeared.  They were also commanded to gather twice as much on the 6th day, so that they would not work on the Sabbath day. Those who ignored this woke on the Sabbath only to find that there was no manna.

The manna was used to make what tasted like honey wafers. They lived off of it for forty years(v 35) which is when they were finally able to go into Canaan. 

But the most important verse to me is v 28: “And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” He was trying to lead them to an understanding, and by not responding to the instructions that He gave them, they caused their desert journey to expand to 40 years. I hope to take a lesson from them, and work to follow the Lord to the best of my ability, and when the hard times come I will not let my faith slowly dribble out—but instead I will pray harder for directions on how to make my way through the difficult times, and hopefully learn from those times.

 

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