Anyone, anywhere, or even everywhere, people who call themselves believers in God, know the story of the manna. It was a miracle way to feed the wandering Israelites.
I’ve always imagined or heard it was a bland tasting food that was not very interesting and was boring to eat.
But that is not what Scripture says. Scripture actually says, “It was like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey.”
God told them the protocol of the manna, which is about three point seventh of a quart, or one tenth of an ephah, or about thirty five liters.
The instructions were quote, “let one omer be kept throughout the ages, in order that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.”
We all know they gathered manna for six days but had leftovers to eat on the seventh.
But just like today many of those believers didn’t believe. Remember, you didn’t work on the Sabbath. This was God’s orders.
The Sabbath was the Lord’s Day, set aside for only Him.
Moses of course, told them what God’s orders were, and he told them more than once! They should not and would not collect the manna on the seventh day.
But what did they do? Some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather their daily manna – but they found nothing.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Remember, it only took one month for the Israelites to disregard the fact that God had planned and accomplished their complete escape from the Egyptians.
You remember, God annihilated the entire Egyptian army for them.
Humans sure tend to have very short memories.
We certainly know that none of this took God by surprise. But for man’s sake God asked the question, “How long will you men refuse to obey My commandments”?
To this point God has given the Israelites very few commandments. They were to circumcise all males, remember and keep the Passover, and now to observe the Sabbath.
Yet, even after all God has done for them, they keep forgetting to do what God asks.
It’s interesting because, after all this time and all that God’s Word teaches us, man still does not do it God’s way. Humans tend to think they are smarter than God.
But, finally the Israelites learned their lesson on gathering food on the Sabbath. They then remained inactive on the Sabbath.
The Israelites ate manna for forty years
until they came to a settled land,
they ate the manna until they came
to the border of the land of Canaan.
Think about it, God had to be patient and teach the Israelites the lesson of His complete care of them for forty years until they came to the borders of Canaan.
But while they were still wandering they had their third crisis.
They had just left the wilderness of Sin, they encamped at Rephidem, where once again there was no water.
Those Israelites, with their short memory were mad again. They forgot that God gave them water for all their kin. And now they are as mad as a hen. Now they were mad at Moses again. He of course was the one to blame cause once again they forgot God’s name. But let’s not be proud, let us not be smug or we’ll bury ourselves in that hole we dug.
⇛ continue reading Exodus – Part 44
⇛ return to Exodus