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Eating Daily Grace
Currently,
in the area of the Sinai, there is a substance that sounds much like
the manna the children of Israel ate. There is a honeydew secretion
some insects leave on the branches of a common shrub in the area.1
The Bedouin people who
live in the area call this secretion manna.2
During certain periods of
the year, this secretion on a specific variety shrubs will fall on
the ground. As long as the secretion is picked up before the sun
melts it, the manna can be saved and eaten.3
Manna can be gathered
starting in June. The crop can be harvested for about six weeks.4 There
are some significant differences between the manna in the Bible and
what is currently called manna. Bible commentators do not all agree
on the differences between ancient, Biblical manna and contemporary
manna. A few of those differences include the following: Manna
is now only available in a few areas of the Sinai.5 The
Modern manna season is a short period of time. Manna
is currently a very sparse crop, not capable of feeding a large
group of people.6 In
some years, there is no manna at all.7 Contemporary
manna does not seem to be subject to maggot infestation.8 The
manna present in the modern near east does not quickly go bad.9 Our
modern manna is almost all sugar and would not be fit to eat as a
major portion of one's diet.10 Manna
now seen in the Sinai cannot be made into cakes.11 The
commentator Ellison, who wrote the Exodus Daily Study Bible,
reflects, “. . . it would be presumptuous to deny that there is
any link here with the modern phenomenon. But there are such striking
differences that any purely naturalistic explanation of manna must be
ruled out.”12 I
do not see any scientific explanation for what happened. I believe
the Biblical account of manna is a miracle.13
Even if manna then was
exactly what we see now, which does not seem likely, feeding the
people manna was a miracle. This was, at the least, a miracle that
the manna crop lasted so long, that there was enough for a large
group of people to eat and that it was nutritionally wholesome. We
will be looking at Exodus chapter 16. While you find Exodus 16 in
your Bibles, I will give a brief outline the food miracle. People
complain. God
promises. Moses
repeats God's promise. God
fulfilled the promise and more. Memorial
made for God.14 Exodus
16:2-4, 8 (CEV)
There in the desert they started complaining to
Moses and Aaron, 3"We
wish the LORD had killed us in Egypt. When we lived there, we could
at least sit down and eat all the bread and meat we wanted. But you
have brought us out here into this desert, where we are going to
starve."
4The
LORD said to Moses, "I will send bread down from heaven like
rain. Each day the people can go out and gather only enough for that
day. That's how I will see if they obey me. Skipping
to Verse 8.
8Then
Moses continued, "You will know it is the LORD when he gives you
meat each evening and more than enough bread each morning. He is
really the one you are complaining about, not us--we are
nobodies--but the LORD has heard your complaints."
This
was a new area of the world for the children of Israel. They left the
civilization of Egypt and were in the wilderness. Moses spent many
years as a shepherd, so the people might have felt Moses did not
understand how they felt.15 The people were not likely in immediate danger of starvation, but they may have been reduced to meager rations.16
Instead of voicing their
concerns and fears in a reasonable manner, they accused Moses of
leading them out into the wilderness to die. The
King James Bible says the people murmured
against Moses. The word translated murmured
in Hebrew has interesting meanings. The word has the meaning to
dwell.17
Strong's states the
implied meaning is to “stay permanently.”'18
From Hebrew, I get an
image of the children of Israel living in the land of complaints.
Complaining had become a life style for them. In other words, it was not a temper-tantrum that ended as short as quickly as it started. This was not a snit or a bad hair day. This
was a bad hair life! And as one reads the rest of the story of the
Exodus, one really sees how much dwelling in the land of bad hair
days was their life style. With
20/20 hindsight, it is easy to criticize the children of Israel. But
we need to consider how things may have been to them. The people were
afraid. Fear can drive us to say and do dumb things. They were afraid
they would not have adequate food. So the people seemed to think the
old life, the life of slavery was better. And they accused Moses of
being incompetent because he was leading them out of Egypt to die. The hardship of wilderness living made the people feel nostalgia for Egypt.19
Remember, this is not
nostalgia for a wonderful experience in Egypt. The children of Israel
were not living in penthouse condos overlooking the Nile or the
Mediterranean. They had been slaves. And they were longing for
slavery again. I get a picture of a group of liberated slaves reminiscing about the good old days - back when their masters beat them and rubbed salt in their wounds. And this was good! I don't think so!
But our memories are
pretty selective you know. We tend to look back, remembering the
good, not the bad. There
is another picture I get too. This picture is just as sad as slaves
remembering the good old days when their masters beat them and rubbed
salt in their wounds. There are gay, bisexual, and trans-identified
people who experience some tough times when they come out or after
they are out. And they longly look back at the “good old days”
when they lived in the closet and silently ached.
The
1599 Geneva Study Bible states, "It is a hard
thing for the flesh not to complain against God when the stomach is
empty."20
Just the remote chance
that our stomachs could go empty strikes fear. Like the children of
Israel, we tend to cry out the most when we see our financial
security, our livelihood is on the line. Trust in the face of the
loss of our jobs, our possessions, our careers is very difficult.
The Egyptians had many gods. The idea of just one god was not something widely understood in Egypt. The children of Israel knew God performed miracles to rescue them from slavery, but they might not have
understood that the same God who rescued them, who fought for them,
was the God who would supply their daily needs. I am not sure things have changed much for those who follow God since the time the children of Israel were delivered from slavery. Many of us know we worship a God who saves from sin. But we struggle letting
God be anything more than our spiritual Savior. Theologically, we
understand salvation is a gift of God, but our daily lives tend to be
very legalistic. We have problems seeing God as the One who provides for us. Instead of seeing God's grace providing for our daily needs, we are legalistic and we see just the labor of our hands as our daily provider. We look
to our insurance policies, pension plans, bank accounts, jobs and our
own hands - our hard work - as the real things that provide for us.
And those things that provide for us are good, but they are part of
what God has done to meet our needs. God's presence is seen in the
timing of natural events and in the provisions of our daily lives!
Yet in times of hurt, confusion or uncertainty, we do not see God's
hand stretched out, providing aid. According to the Biblical story, the Lord responded to Israel's needs before Moses could cry for help.21
In the story, we do not
see God responding in anger. Nothing about anger is noted here. All
we see is that God responds to the need.22
One commentator feels God
did not rebuke the people because the substance of their concerns
were reasonable, even if the way they voiced their concerns was
wrong.23 The Lord's response to the people's anger, to their fear was one of grace, the grace of daily food. God gave them divine grace, food, daily. And they literally ate God's grace every day. This gives me a lot of hope. Our God is not so petty as to deny us provisions, to deny us grace, even when we lash out in fear and anger, because we are hurting. The
children of Israel may have been asking a why question. Why were they
in the wilderness? Why were their provisions running low? Why did
they not have more food and nicer food? Unfortunately, they did as we
often do and they found the wrong answers to those questions. I
am not convinced that why questions and the answers to those
questions really meet our needs. Warren Wiersbe notes, “Explanations
do not heal broken hearts . . .”24
Fortunately, watching God
provide for our needs, seeing God's faithfulness, and knowing God is
walking through life with us does help heal broken hearts. There
is a really neat poem I would like to close with. I will not read the
entire poem, as it is fairly long. The last portion of the poem is
neat, so I will share that with you.
And when the manna falls, God's
fingertips Descend
and gently Touch
you.25 I
think the task is to see God in the ordinary, to remember that even
our daily bread is God reaching down and touching your face with
love. Fortunately we have a God who reminds us that He is touching
us. Prayer: Lord
give us memories that see You in the history of our lives, eyes that
see You moving to help us, ears that hear Your voice whispering words
of assurance, and skin that feels your touch of love, so we can have
a nose that does not tolerate the smell of injustice and a heart for
those who need You in their lives. Amen. Notes
1H.L.
Ellison. The Daily Study Bible: Exodus.
(Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1982), 89.
2W.
Gunther Plaut. The Torah: A Modern Commentary.
(New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981), 502 and
Ellison, 89. 3Plaut,
502. 4Plaut,
502.
5Ellison,
90. 6Plaut,
502.
7Ellison,
90.
8Ellison,
90. 9Plaut,
502.
10“Manna.”
Catholic Encyclopedia. (Internet web site –
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09604a.htm,
1912).
11“Manna.”
Catholic Encyclopedia. 12Ellison
89-90.
13“Manna.”
Catholic Encyclopedia, says, ”The manna may,
indeed, have been a natural substance, but we must admit a miracle
at
least in the manner in which it was supplied._
14E.
W. Bullinger gives the outline as 1. Murmuring of people, 2. Promise
of Jehovah made, 3. Promise repeated by Moses, 4. Promise fulfilled
through Moses, 5. Promise of Jehovah fulfilled, and 6. Memorial of
Jehovah. The Companion Bible. (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Kregal Pub., 1922), 95.
15Ellison,
88. 16Ellison,
89.
17Rick
Meyers. “Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries.”
e-Sword. (Franklin, TN: Equipping Ministries
Foundation, computer software – www.e-sword.net).
18“Strong's
Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries.” e-Sword.
19Nahum
M. Sarna. The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus.
(Philadelphia: Jewish Pub. Society, 1991), 85.
20_The
1599 Geneva Study Bible _ Exodus 16._ Crosswalk.com (Internet web
site _
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/GenevaStudyBible/gen.cgi?book=ex&chapter=016). 21Sarna,
86. 22Sarna,
86. 23Ellison,
89
24Warren
W. Wiersbe. The Bible Exposition Commentary:
Pentateuch. (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Victor,
2001), 209.
25_Manna._
Cross Currents. (Internet web site _
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2096/is_1_54/ai_n6095125).
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