Exodus 16:4

Exodus THE BREAD OF GODExodus 16:4 - - Exodus 16:12 . Unbelief has a short memory. The Red Sea is forgotten in a month. The Israelites could strike their timbrels and sing their lyric of praise, but they could not believe that to-day’s hunger could be satisfied. Discontent has a slippery memory. They wish to get back to the flesh-pots, of which the savour is in their nostrils, and they have forgotten the bitter sauce of affliction. When they were in Egypt, they shrieked about their oppression, and were ready to give up anything for liberty; when they have got it, they are ready to put their necks in the yoke again, if only they can have their stomachs filled. Men do not know how happy they are till they cease to be so. Our present miseries and our past blessings are the themes on which unbelief harps. Let him that is without similar sin cast the first stone at these grumbling Israelites. Without following closely the text of the narrative, we may throw together the lessons of the manna. I. Observe God’s purpose in the gift, as distinctly expressed in the promise of it. ‘That I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law or no.’ How did the manna become a test of this? By means of the law prescribed for gathering it. There was to be a given quantity daily, and twice as much on the sixth day. If a man trusted God for to-morrow, he would be content to stop collecting when he had filled his omer, tempting as the easily gathered abundance would be.

Greed and unbelief would masquerade then as now, under the guise of prudent foresight. The old Egyptian parallels to ‘make hay while the sun shines,’ and suchlike wise sayings of the philosophy of distrust, would be solemnly spoken, and listened to as pearls of wisdom. When experience had taught that, however much a man gathered, he had no more than his omer full, after all,-and is not that true yet?-then the next temptation would be to practise economy, and have something over for to-morrow. Only he who absolutely trusted God to provide for him would eat up his portion, and lie down at night with a quiet heart, knowing that He who had fed him would feed. When experience had taught that what was saved rotted, then laziness would come in and say, ‘What is the use of gathering twice as much on the sixth day? Don’t we know that it will not keep?’ So the whole of the gift was a continual training of, and therefore a continual test for, faith. God willed to let His gifts come in this hand-to-mouth fashion, though He could have provided at once what would have obviously lasted them all their wilderness life, in order that they might be habituated to cling to Him, and that their daily bread might be doubly for their nourishment, feeding their bodies and strengthening that faith which, to them as to us, is the condition of all blessedness. God lets our blessings, too, trickle to us drop by drop, instead of pouring them in a flood all at once upon us, for the same reason.

Exodus 16:4 . Man being made out of the earth, his Maker has wisely ordered him food out of the earth, <19A414> Psalm 104:14 . But the people of Israel typifying the church of the firstborn that are written in heaven, receiving their charters, laws, and commissions from heaven; from heaven also they received their food. See what God designed in making this provision for them; that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no — Whether they would trust and serve him, and be ever faithful to so good a master.

(4) I will rain bread from heaven for you. —This first announcement at once suggests that the supply is to be supernatural. “Bread from heaven” was not simply “food out of the air” (Rosenmüller), but a celestial, that is, a Divine supply of their daily needs. A certain rate every day.—Heb., a day’s meal each day—sufficient, that is, for the wants of himself and family for a day. That I may prove them.—Human life is a probation. God proves and tries those most whom He takes to Himself for His “peculiar people,” and the trial is often by means of positive precepts, which are especially Calculated to test the presence or absence of a spirit of humble and unquestioning obedience. Our first parents were tested by a positive precept in Paradise; the family of Abraham were tested by a positive precept—circumcision on the eighth day; the Israelites were tested, both in the wilderness and afterwards throughout their career as a nation, by a number of positive precepts, whereof this concerning the manna was one. Christians are tested by positive precepts with respect to common worship, prayer, and sacraments—the object being in all cases to see whether men “will walk in God’s law or no.” Men are very apt to prefer their own inventions to the simple rule of following at once the letter and the spirit of God’s commandments.

Then 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 {c} day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. (c) To signify that they should patiently depend on God's providence from day to day.