Do we trust God to provide for our needs?
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Exodus 16 and 17
The famous story of the Hebrews learning about manna from heaven is just part of a wider passage in which God teaches His people to trust in His daily provision and obey His instructions. Many do, but some still doubt and disobey and grumble. We are challenged to do better than the Hebrews -- to take the Lord's Prayer to heart.
It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. (16:15)
Getting Started: Things to Think About
This week's passage is the famous "manna in the wilderness", and I'm going to lean into the food part for my discussion ideas. You could just as easily lean into "God's miraculous provision" for your opening ideas.
Food You Got Tired Of
There are three versions of this topic you might consider (based on your group). What's a food you ate so often that you started to not like it? For a lot of my friends growing up (and in college), it would have been rice or ramen. Real simple.
I ate the same thing for lunch pretty much every school day of my life, turkey sandwich with American cheese, a bag of pretzels, and a dill pickle. But I never got tired of it, so it doesn't qualify for my topic. But it does lead into another idea:
What's a food that you can eat every day that secretly horrifies the people around you? (I'm looking at you, potted meat.) When I was a kid, I ate a lot of raw hot dogs. I don't really understand it today.
It makes me think of the second movie I took Shelly to see: The Matrix. It has the standard sci-fi- trope of the crew members regularly eating a grossly bland concoction that "has all the nutrients a body needs" (screenshots below). But as a sci-fi nerd, I enjoyed how the conversation devolved into a philosophical debate about how things could taste like chicken if nobody knew what chicken tasted like.
A final version might be, What's a food your family served (serves?) regularly that you just don't like (and you can't say anything about it without causing a major incident)? This is always so awkward -- "I know we eat this all the time, but I just don't like it." People will counsel you that if you don't tell people what you like and don't like, they'll never know. And while that may be true, I can tell you from experience that it may not be worth it.
(Of course, people complaining to God that they didn't like manna is different -- it's not like they could hide their dislike from Him!)
By the way, I suggested "food dislikes" as a discussion idea back in August when we studied Acts 10, which is why I don't suggest it this week.
Bland Food You Have a Secret Recipe to Make Really Good
There's probably a better way to word my idea. According to Exodus 16:17, manna tasted like "wafers made with honey", which suggests it couldn't have tasted that bad. But Numbers 11 makes it very clear that the Israelites eventually got tired of manna and complained to God about how they wanted to eat something else.
So, related to the "I'm tired of the same old same old" topic above, you might have a "life hack" that keeps you and your family from complaining about meals or foods that you tend to eat regularly.
There's a strange niche of reality tv in which a chef takes your bland groceries or leftovers and turns them into gourmet masterpieces. It's not a small niche:
Please Take Care of My Refrigerator
Raid the Fridge
Chef & My Fridge
Best Leftovers Ever
Save the Leftovers
And I'm sure there's plenty more. Why do we have so many of these shows? Because we all get tired of what's in our fridge and wish there were a magical way to make it taste better!
Some of you have a special way to take food that the rest of us think is bland and turn it into something you think tastes great. What's your go-to way to turn bland into yum?
[Mine is simple: roasted garlic and shredded parmesan. And Dr. Pepper. It makes anything taste better.]
This Week's Big Idea: What Is Manna?
We may as well start here. And I hate to tell you that it's a self-defeating question. While there is debate about this (because of the overlap between ancient Hebrew and ancient Aramaic), a trustworthy consensus exists that connects "manna" with the ancient word for "what" (men). When the people asked, "What is it?" they said "man hu", so it's pretty likely that "manna" is a play on "what is it?". The point is that manna was unlike anything the Hebrews had ever seen or tasted, and after they migrated to the Promised Land, they would never see or taste anything like it again.
Here are some relevant descriptions:
I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. (16:4)
there were fine flakes on the desert surface, as fine as frost on the ground (16:14)
It resembled coriander seed, was white, and tasted like wafers made with honey. (16:31)
7 The manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of bdellium [gum resin]. 8 The people walked around and gathered it. They ground it on a pair of grinding stones or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot and shaped it into cakes. It tasted like a pastry cooked with the finest oil. (Num 11)
Because it's called "bread from heaven", people think of manna as, er, bread. But it's clearly not. It was more like a seed, something the people would grind into grain and then turn into cakes. Here's my hot take for the week: all of the modern attempts to recreate manna are wrong --
You might have heard this theory: manna was insect secretions (ew). Insects like plant lice do in fact secrete a thin, flaky resin that (apparently) tastes sweet. Some modern entomologists have encouraged the name "manna" for these secretions, and some Bible scholars have latched onto it. The problem with that, as I see it, is the intent to take a miracle and turn it into something natural. Do insects make such secretions? I guess. Do they make such secretions every morning (except for Saturdays, and twice as much on Fridays) in the amount needed to feed 2 million people, following them wherever they camp? Um, no.
All of that to say -- feel free to investigate the "recipes for manna" that are online and even make some for your group. But I don't see any way we can remotely replicate what the Hebrews ate in the wilderness. It "looked like" flakes, coriander seed, and resin --
And it tasted like "cakes made with honey". We can replicate that appearance, and we can approximate that taste, but that doesn't mean we have recreated manna.
By the way, I'm sure that you (like me) are wondering about bdellium. Here's Wikipedia:
Bdellium /ˈdɛliəm/ (also bdellion or false myrrh[1]) is a semi-transparent oleo-gum resin extracted from Commiphora wightii plants, and from Commiphora africana trees growing in sub-saharan Africa. According to Pliny the best quality came from Bactria. Other named sources for the resin are India, Pakistan, Arabia, Media, and Babylon.
Okay then.
Where We Are in Exodus
Last week, we read about the passage through the Red Sea. Pretty exciting! And then the people broke out into songs of victory.
And then things turned south (figuratively and literally). There's not a lot of water in the Sinai, so the people started complaining about that, and when they found water, it was undrinkable, so they complained about that. And then God gave them water, along with this warning (that the people clearly missed):
If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you. (15:26)
This seems rather generous, especially considering how much stricter God deals with such complaints in the future. Remember that the people have not actually received and accepted the covenant yet. Once they formally hear who God is and what God will do for them, and they agree to be party to this covenant with God, God will hold them accountable for their doubts and complaints.
They continue traveling and eventually come to a desert, where their food and water supplies run out. And they complain. [Important note: I would also complain if I were led somewhere without food or water! I have a responsibility to provide for my family! But the word used on the people over and over again is "grumbled". This is "complaint mixed with doubt", and even though the people are grumbling to/about Moses, they're really grumbling about God.]
As I said before, we do not know what these place names represent: Elim, Sinai, Desert of Sin (note: "Sin" is not a reference to the English word "sin" but rather related to "Sinai"). I think they are moving south in the modern Sinai Peninsula.
Exodus 16:2 seems to mean that they have been walking for about a month-and-a-half when this week's passage happens. Think about situations in your life you have complained about -- how long after they started before you became really bothered by them? We were out of power from the hurricane for a little more than two weeks, and I was getting really annoyed. Could I have made it to the 6-week mark? All I know is that my complaints would have gotten really loud and ugly. So, I try to be sympathetic to these Hebrews.
The Hebrews do say a strange thing:
“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!” (16:3)
This is pretty unbelievable, don't you think? They are so upset about their situation that they aren't being honest about their previous situation. Have you ever done that?
Part 1: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Exodus 16:11-15)
11 The Lord spoke to Moses, 12 “I have heard the complaints of the Israelites. Tell them: At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will eat bread until you are full. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.” 13 So at evening quail came and covered the camp. In the morning there was a layer of dew all around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew evaporated, there were fine flakes on the desert surface, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was. Moses told them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.
In the background of this week's lesson, I want you to keep the Lord's Prayer (the "model prayer") -- in mind
Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
This is clearly an allusion to the manna in the wilderness. So, when we're studying about manna and your group members are struggling to connect it with their daily life, realize that Jesus thought of "daily bread" as representative of all of our daily needs -- not just food.
Indeed, John realized that Jesus even said this! John recounted an exchange with some Jewish doubters:
“What miracle are you going to perform? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” 32 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 Then they said, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. (John 6)
First, remember that their question was in the immediate aftermath of Jesus feeding the thousands from a few loaves of bread, so their question was quite disingenuous -- much like the complaints of the Hebrews in Exodus 16! But second, realize that the miraculous provision of manna in the wilderness was actually just another way that God pointed to a future provision in Jesus -- provision of salvation.
So, yes, when we talk about manna in this passage, it is about the physical provision of sustenance. But it also points us to something more.
All of that said, let's get back to the passage.
First of all, don't be confused by this addition of quail. This is separate from the manna. To me, the confusion is more about how often they ate quail. The NIV has,
You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning (16:8)
But the CSB has,
The Lord will give you meat to eat this evening and all the bread you want in the morning (16:8)
The first Bible I read was the NIV, When I got to this event, I was confused by the wording. If the Hebrews ate manna every morning, wouldn't 16:8 suggest that they also ate quail every evening? But they didn't, so what gives? Well, the CSB translation is equally valid -- God only said He would give them quail "this evening" (i.e., one time). At that, the quail were only to tide the Hebrews over until the morning, when the first "batch" of manna would arrive.
Let's talk about the other time quail gets mentioned: Numbers 11.
The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. 19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”
That event happens in the future; the people were tired of manna. They wanted some meat. (My fellow Lord of the Rings nerds will recall a similar complaint the orcs had; Tolkien had plenty of biblical allusions in his books.) They were going to get meat until it came out of their nostrils. (What a fantastic line. Exasperated parents, you have a friend in God!)
The point is that the other time God gave them meat, it was an act of judgment. Here in Exodus 16, it is an act of grace.
Aside: Quail and Manna -- both miraculous
Above in my section on manna, I told you about some natural explanations for the manna (insect secretions). I rejected them because they downplayed the miraculous nature of the provision of manna. But wait, the meat God provided to the Hebrews was just a flock of quail that flew into the camp. Isn't that a simple natural explanation? Well, no. Massive flocks of quail don't live in the Sinai desert. Remember that this is enough quail to feed 2 million people! God brought this flock of quail to the Hebrews. And they came in from distance, which means that God had to start bringing them days before He said anything to the Hebrews! Still a miracle.
Back to the passage.
I talked about manna, so just scroll back up if you want to learn more.
Verse 15 is interesting. We think that the Hebrews ended up calling this stuff "manna" as a play on their question, "What is it?" (man hu). But Moses seemed to take offense at that. It's possible that the Hebrews intended the name "manna" as a pejorative. (Have you ever called cafeteria food "mystery meat"? If so, did you realize that the lunch ladies often took offense at that?) So Moses was telling them, "This isn't 'what is it?', but this is the miraculous bread from heaven God is graciously giving you."
Put like that, manna takes on a different meaning and importance, doesn't it?
Discussion on this passage will be along the lines of, "Have you ever downplayed God's care/provision in your life?" I know I have; I've taken for granted some of the greatest blessings God has given me. When we use commonplace language to describe those blessings, we probably forget how miraculous or powerful they are.
Aside: Biblical Skepticism
Because quail are only mentioned one other time (in Numbers 11), biblical skeptics are quick to latch onto the differences. I think it's very obvious that these are two separate events, but more on this below.
Part 2: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (Exodus 16:16-19)
16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of it as each person needs to eat. You may take two quarts per individual, according to the number of people each of you has in his tent.’” 17 So the Israelites did this. Some gathered a lot, some a little. 18 When they measured it by quarts, the person who gathered a lot had no surplus, and the person who gathered a little had no shortage. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat. 19 Moses said to them, “No one is to let any of it remain until morning.”
God had earlier explained what was going on here:
I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. This way I will test them to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. (16:4)
In this way, God could both graciously provide for His people while also testing/building their obedience. The next few verses explain that some people tried to keep too much, and it spoiled, and some people went out on the Sabbath to collect, and there was none.
Please don't let anybody lose much sleep over the exact definition of "an omer" or an "ephah", or how many quarts it is the equivalent of, or if it is dry measure, or any of that. The only thing that matters is each gathered as much as he needed to eat, regardless of appetite or weight or age or anything. It doesn't matter how much that is because the whole thing is supposed to be obviously a miracle.
This is where I would suggest that y'all dive into the Lord's Prayer again.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
What lesson do you think God was giving the Hebrews by only letting them have enough bread for one day at a time? And what lesson can that lesson teach us about what we are praying in the Lord's Prayer?
I personally think that the lesson behind the manna is so incredibly valuable to us today and helps us distinguish between needs and wants. which in turn helps us understand how God responds to our prayers. And to me, it helps me understand this promise from Jesus that so many people have misunderstood and attempted to abuse:
12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. (John 14)
Earlier in Exodus, God demonstrated His mighty power over Pharaoh's army and over nature itself. But now, God demonstrates that He can care for the day-to-day needs of His people. He is not either Yahweh Sabaoth or Yahweh Jireh -- He is both.
But just as the people had to trust God enough to follow His path through the Red Sea, now they need to learn to trust Him in their day-to-day lives.
But there's still more -- the name of the song is both "trust" and "obey", right? If you say you trust God, you also have to follow whatever rule He has set for you. If the Hebrews truly trusted God, they would also do what He said.
The Verses We Skip
The next part of the lesson picks up with 17:1. In the meantime, we learn that some of the Hebrews tried to gather more food than they needed, and they also tried to gather food on the Sabbath.
God uses that as a lesson to introduce His people to the idea of a Sabbath:
“This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, and set aside everything left over to be kept until morning.’” 24 So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it didn’t stink or have maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you won’t find any in the field. 26 For six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.” 27 Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and instructions? 29 Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
There's also an interesting reference to the jar of manna that is eventually kept in the Ark of the Covenant. But they don't have the Ark of the Covenant yet, right? Well, simply put Moses wrote this after they had built the Ark, so he could say exactly where the manna was kept. God didn't explicitly tell them to put it in the Ark.
Finally, we learn that God would stop providing manna when the people entered the Promised Land.
Part 3: And Also Our Water (Exodus 17:1-6)
17 The entire Israelite community left the Wilderness of Sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So the people complained to Moses, “Give us water to drink.” “Why are you complaining to me?” Moses replied to them. “Why are you testing the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water and grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you ever bring us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with these people? In a little while they will stone me!” 5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take the staff you struck the Nile with in your hand and go. 6 I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.” Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Oy. So the people are getting miraculous provisions of food. But water? "God isn't powerful enough to give us water. We're all going to die out here!"
About the Place Names and Numbers 20
Guess what? We don't know where these places are (Rephidim, Horeb, Massah, Meribah). According to Ex 19:2, Rephidim is very close to Mt. Sinai. What skeptics like to harp on is that a similar event takes place in Numbers 20:1-13, also in the Wilderness of Sin, and also at the "Waters of Meribah". Like with the quail, I think it's pretty obvious that these are two different events. These complaints related to the water and to the quail actually did happen both in Exodus 16/17 and Numbers 11/20. Moses included them at the beginning and the end of the Torah as "bookends of rebellion". If the people would continue to make the same mistakes, it did not bode well for the future of God's people!
The lesson for us is obvious -- are we continuing to doubt God in the same ways over and over again? Or are we growing in our trust and obedience? That's a great tie-in to the calendar coincidence this we are studying this passage on the first Sunday of the new year...
Back to the passage.
The word for "complained" in 17:2 is stronger than in the previous chapter. The NIV uses "quarreled" here. The word has the connotation of an accusation that one party has wronged the other. The people are not just grumbling about their situation -- they are accusing Moses (and thus God) of mistreating them. It's a very serious thing (they're ready to stone Moses over it), and God reacts strongly to it. BUT -- the people have not agreed to the covenant yet, so God still treats them with "kid gloves", unlike in Numbers 20.
[Note: if you read Numbers 20, you'll see that that's the passage where Moses loses his right to enter the Promised Land. Moses was still a flawed human, not a Savior.]
Just like at the Red Sea, God allows Moses to participate in the miracle so as to reinforce his leadership role among the people. (And again, when he does this again in Numbers 20, he lets it get to his head.)
So, there you go! We haven't even gotten to Mount Sinai yet, and God already has His people learning
to follow Him (literally -- pillar of cloud)
to obey His instructions
to get into a cycle of weekly Sabbath
to trust His provision
That's pretty amazing! Yes, the people still doubt and grumble, but don't we still doubt a grumble today, and that with the Holy Spirit living inside of us?
In what ways is God calling you to trust Him right now/this year? How will you respond? How can your Bible study group help?