Bread Arrives with Instructions for Tomorrow

The wilderness of Sin takes its name from the region of Sinai, not from the English word, and may come from Sin, the moon god. The date is exact: the fifteenth of the second month, a month to the day after they left Egypt on the fifteenth of the first (Numbers 33:3).

“Whole congregation” for the first time turns against both leaders together. The murmuring of 15:24 was about water; this is about food, and it comes a month into the journey, when supplies brought from Egypt would have run out.

“Would to God we had died” is literally “who would give our dying”, a Hebrew idiom of wishing. “By the hand of the LORD” means by the plagues, the same death that struck Egypt. “Flesh pots” are cooking pots for meat; slaves were rarely fed that well.

“Rain bread from heaven” uses the verb of the hail in 9:23, where God “rained hail”; the same sky that rained ruin on Egypt now rains bread on Israel. “A certain rate every day” is literally “a day’s portion in its day”, the phrase behind “Give us this day our daily bread”.

“Prepare” is hekhinu, to make ready. The sixth day is set apart for preparation before the Sabbath has even been named, the idea behind the Gospels’ “preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath” (Mark 15:42). The rhythm is laid down before the rule is explained.

“At even, then ye shall know” answers verse 3 point for point. The people said “ye have brought us forth”; Moses says it was the LORD who brought them out. The evening’s sign, the quails, is meant to correct who they think is responsible.

“Glory” is kavod, weight or heaviness, the root of Pharaoh’s heavy heart. The morning’s sign is the bread, yet Moses also promises they will see the glory, which appears in verse 10. “What are we” is literally “and we, what?”

Moses repeats verse 7 with more force, and the word for “murmurings” appears three times. His reasoning is that complaint against God’s servants is complaint against God. The same point is made to Samuel in 1 Samuel 8:7: “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.”

“Come near before the LORD” is the language later used for approaching the sanctuary. No tabernacle exists yet, so the phrase means presenting themselves before the pillar of cloud. Aaron is again the voice, as in chapter 4.

They “looked toward the wilderness”, away from Egypt, the direction they had just wished to return to. The glory of the LORD appears “in the cloud”, the first time the glory is seen by the whole people, before Sinai.

A bare introduction, but the order has changed. Moses had already told the people what would happen in verses 6–8; now God confirms it to Moses. The servant spoke ahead of the word, and the word agreed.

“Ye shall know that I am the LORD your God” is the phrase used of Egypt in the plagues, now given to Israel through food. The same knowledge Egypt gained through judgment Israel will gain through provision.

Quails migrate across the Sinai in spring and autumn and, exhausted, often land in great numbers, where they can be caught by hand. “Came up” and “covered” are simple verbs, with no suggestion of the plague of quails in Numbers 11. “Dew” is tal, part of the manna’s appearance.

“Small round thing” is mechuspas, a word found nowhere else, perhaps “flaky” or “scale-like”. “Hoar frost” is kefor, frost, an image familiar even in the Sinai’s cold nights. The description is careful because no one had seen it before.

“It is manna” translates man hu, which is better read “What is it?”, since man is an old form of mah, what. The King James takes it as a name. The people’s question becomes the name of the food. John 6:31–35 recalls this bread when Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”

An omer is a dry measure of about two litres, perhaps two to four pounds of the substance. As a measure the word appears only in this chapter. “For them which are in his tents” makes the head of each household gather for everyone in it, including those unable to gather.

“Some more, some less” is simple, without blame: those who gathered more had more mouths to feed, or simply gathered more. The people “did so”, the first obedience recorded in the chapter.

“Mete” means measure. Paul quotes this verse in 2 Corinthians 8:15 to urge the churches to share money for the poor in Jerusalem. The Hebrew implies that when measured at home, every portion came out right, whatever had been gathered.

“Leave” is yatar, to keep over. The prohibition is simple: no reserves. The same verb describes the Passover lamb in 12:10, where nothing was to remain till morning.

“Bred worms” is literally “raised worms”, rum, the verb for rising or growing. The worms appear first and the stink after. “Moses was wroth” is qatsaf, and it is the first time his anger at the people is recorded.

“Every morning” is literally “in the morning, in the morning”, the doubling marking daily repetition. What remained on the ground melted in the sun, so the gift could not be collected at leisure. Even laziness had a deadline.

“Rulers of the congregation” are nesi’im, leaders or princes, who come to report as if something had gone wrong. The double gathering, “two omers for one man”, happens naturally, and the leaders do not yet know why.

The first time the word “sabbath”, shabbat, appears in Scripture. The phrase is shabbaton shabbat qodesh, “a rest, a holy sabbath”. “Seethe” means boil. The instruction to cook ahead is the origin of preparing Sabbath food the day before.

The contrast with verse 20 is exact: “it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein”. The order is reversed: in verse 20 worms came first, then stink; here the stink is denied first, then the worms.

“To day” occurs three times in the verse. The emphasis is on the present day, the Sabbath, as a day already begun. Moses speaks of the Sabbath as a gift to eat, not only a day to abstain.

“Six days” and “the seventh” recall creation in Genesis 2:2–3, when God rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath is kept before the Ten Commandments, which is why 20:8 says “remember” the Sabbath rather than introducing it.

The people went out “for to gather”, deliberately, not by accident. “They found none” is two Hebrew words, and the failure needs no comment.

“How long refuse ye” is plural: the rebuke is addressed through Moses to all the people. The phrase echoes God’s question to Pharaoh in 10:3, “How long wilt thou refuse?” Israel is spoken to in the words used for Egypt’s king.

“Abide ye every man in his place” became the basis of later rules limiting travel on the Sabbath, the Sabbath day’s journey of Acts 1:12. “Hath given you” presents the Sabbath as a gift, not a burden.

“Rested” is shavat, the verb from which shabbat comes. The sentence is four Hebrew words, and it is the first time Israel is recorded keeping the Sabbath, before any stone tablet has named it.

Coriander seed is small, round and pale grey or white. Numbers 11:7–8 adds that it was like bdellium, and tasted “as the taste of fresh oil”. “Wafers” is tsappichit, a word that appears only here, perhaps a flat cake. The “house of Israel” names it, a phrase unusual in Exodus.

“Fill an omer” means one person’s daily portion is to be kept for all the generations. “That they may see” makes the memorial visual. Later generations who never tasted manna will see how much fed one person for a day.

“A pot” is tsintsenet, a jar, a word found only here. Hebrews 9:4 describes it as “the golden pot that had manna”, placed in the ark. The Greek of this verse already calls it golden.

“The Testimony” is the tablets of the covenant, later kept in the ark, which does not yet exist. The instruction is carried out at a later time than the chapter describes, when the tabernacle had been built.

Forty years is a round number of a generation. Joshua 5:12 records that the manna stopped the day after Israel first ate the produce of Canaan. “A land inhabited” means a settled land, a place where food could be grown.

An ephah is a dry measure of about twenty litres or three-fifths of a bushel, so an omer is roughly two litres. The note is a gloss, explaining an old measure to later readers who no longer used it.