Exodus 16:32
That they may see the bread
The purpose is stated as showing rather than eating, and the audience named is people who were not there.
Objects of the Bible
The jar of manna
A portion of the one food that rotted if you kept it, kept.
The instruction is short and it contradicts everything said about manna up to that point. Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness. Every other omer bred worms overnight. This one is laid up before the testimony, to be kept, and the account does not explain the exception because the exception is the whole point.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The jar of manna
- 01
- 02
Exodus 16:33-34
Lay it up before the LORD
Aaron is given the job and the pot is set before the testimony, which is the first thing placed there.
- 03
Exodus 16:20
It bred worms, and stank
The rule this exception breaks is stated twelve verses earlier. Manna did not keep, except the portion that was ordered to.
- 04
Hebrews 9:4
The golden pot that had manna
The letter names the material and lists it with the rod and the tables, three objects from the wilderness kept in one box.
Why it matters
The reason given is about seeing rather than eating. A generation that never went hungry in the desert is meant to be able to look at the thing their parents lived on for forty years, and the vessel is described by Hebrews as a golden pot. It sits in the ark alongside the tables of the law and a rod that flowered, which makes an odd collection: a rule that was broken, an argument that was settled, and a meal that was complained about. All three are kept, and all three are about the same forty years.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
