[And He Walks With Me] Exodus 16
1-3 It is important to remember that God was leading Israel’s movement by the pillar of cloud and fire (Exodus 13:21). Here, God led his people away from the abundance of Elim (see Exodus 15:27 and related note) into the scarcity of the Wilderness of Sin. From a spring for every tribe, plenty of dates, and shade, they moved into the desert where there were no springs, dates, or shade. While many assume God will always lead his people into abundance and comfort, and therefore equate these things with being in the will of the Lord, Scriptures often record him doing exactly the opposite. Yes, God will periodically grant us green pastures and quiet waters, but if anything, such abundance and comfort should be seen only as a momentary respite before God leads us onward. The saint’s ultimate reward and peace will come in Christ’s eternal presence rather than earthly abundance.
The essence of Israel’s complaint is that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. The fence was the decision to leave Egypt, and the argument was that, if they had remained in Egypt rather than follow Moses, they would not have faced the current water shortage. This, of course, completely overlooks the slavery and other things they complained about when they were still in Egypt, but this is the power of the “other side of the fence” argument: it is easy to become myopic, fixate on current needs and challenges, and so overlook the myriad problems and disadvantages on the other side of the fence. For more regarding the Israelites’ complaint against Moses, see notes on Exodus 14:11-14 and 14:30.
4-5 Often, God uses challenging circumstances and instructions to test… whether or not [his people] will follow [his] instructions. It is imperative to remember, however, that such tests are not for his benefit. He sees the heart and knew before the beginning of time whether they would obey. Rather, such tests are to demonstrate to his people how far they have come and how much they have yet to grow. In this case, he placed Israel in a position of scarcity so the people were compelled to rely on him for food. He then established a test to graphically demonstrate how weak their faith really was. Would they trust that he would provide each day and so gather only enough for that day, or would they gather extra just in case he failed them tomorrow? Similarly, would they gather twice as much on the sixth day, trusting that there was a reason behind God’s instructions? Was their faith merely a reaction to what he already did in the past, or was it in anticipation of what he was going to do in the future. If the former, then it was not faith at all but merely a sense of obligation, and that sense of obligation would inevitably fade as God’s wonders faded from memory.
8 Faithful leadership does not guarantee happy followers. Even when the leader is endeavoring to the best of his/her ability to lead with obedience and faith, there will be times when the people following grumble and complain. They may even result in followers leaving. Often, such complaints will name the human leader because the complainers do not want to be seen as impious, but Moses’ observation here is crucial: Your complaints are not against us but against the Lord. While it is certainly easier said than done, godly leaders will choose to not take such things personally or be discouraged by them.
An important question to ask here is whether God would have provided the meat and the bread if they had not complained. Saints must not read into this action a sort of passive aggressive reaction and so conclude that they may manipulate God through periodic tantrums. Rather, this should be seen as a gentle corrective: God always planned to provide his people with what they needed to accomplish his will, and their tantrum merely demonstrated the weakness of their faith. Had they only believed, God had things well in hand. Even so, it is important to recognize that, when their faith was legitimately weak, God did not condemn them or even grow angry with them for it. Later, after they continued to grumble about the lack of food and water, he would grow irritated, but only because they should have by then seen enough to trust. God welcomes legitimate doubt, but there is a threshold where legitimate doubt becomes a stubborn refusal to believe.
17-20 As promised, God provided each person what they needed for each day. Some, however, did not obey. Perhaps they remained reluctant to trust that God would do the same on subsequent days and so left part of it until morning in the hopes they would still have something for tomorrow if the manna failed to appear. Perhaps they were greedy and thought they could get ahead by collecting a little more than they actually needed. They may have feared the Lord and believed in him in Exodus 14:31, but “they still [needed] to learn what this commitment [meant] in practice.”[100] God wanted to build within them both an unswerving commitment to obedience of his command and an unwavering faith in his provision for each day.[101] To facilitate this lesson, God provided negative reinforcement – the leftovers bred worms and stank – to discourage this lack of obedience in the future and so help them learn what faith looks like in action. However, Moses was angry with them. Yes, there is a limit to God’s patience, but often, leaders will lose their patience with the people of God before God does.
22-23 Here, Israel’s obedience is tested again. The previous five days, anything which was kept overnight bred worms and stank (20), but on the sixth day, they were to gather twice as much as they gather on other days (5). The implication was that, on this one night, they could keep some overnight, but just as he did not explain why they should gather only enough for that day (4), God did not at the time provide a rationale for this difference. Rather, he let them decide if they would trust he knew what he was doing and had his reasons. Finally, the people acted on faith, obeyed God’s command, and gathered twice as much food, and after they obeyed, they were given the reason in vs 23. The fact is that God may ask his people to do something without explaining it beforehand. Indeed, he may ask saints to do something without explaining it this side of glory (e.g., Job never learned of the conversation in Job 1-2). We must trust that he has a reason and therefore obey even if we never know what that reason is.
23 This is the first use of the word Sabbath in the Bible. This is remarkable because the observance of the Sabbath is not officially commanded until 20:8-11. Here, it is less a command than it is a gift of grace. The people were complaining about food. Surely, after their bellies were full, they would complain about exhaustion. However, instead of smiting them as ungrateful complainers, God anticipated their need and built in one day where they would need to do nothing so they could rest. Further, it is imperative to notice the timing of this passage. Israel had only just departed Egypt. It had been only a few weeks since the Red Sea crossing. They had not yet arrived at Sinai, received the commandments, wandered in the desert, or crossed into the Promised Land, and they would be living in tents for another four decades. Put another way, they were far from settled, and nothing about their lives was secure or permanent. Yet, they would make a point to rest every seventh day. If one waits to establish healthy rhythms of life until everything about our lives is secure and settled, one will never establish healthy rhythms of life.
24 When the people acted on faith and set [the leftovers] aside until morning as Moses commanded, they were rewarded with yet another firsthand account of God’s faithfulness: it didn’t stink or have maggots in it. Act on faith, and God will prove himself faithful every time.
27-30 The fact that some of the people went out to gather even after Moses explained what was going on is striking. For some, even after God repeatedly demonstrated his faithfulness, it was a lack of faith. They were still not convinced that God would provide every day, and so they aimed to set a little aside for the day when God failed to provide. For others, it was greed. They had enough, but they wanted more. Regardless of the exact motivation, it was disobedience, and God’s response made clear that his patience had limits.
31 The word manna stems from the question the Israelites asked when it first appeared in vs 15: What is it? The Hebrew for this is mān hû’ (מָן הוּא – H4478 + H1931). The only way the people could define it was by comparing its appearance to coriander seed and its taste to wafers made with honey. Yet, coriander was not white, and it did not taste like honey. Therefore, in many ways, this description is baffling. Often, God and his works defy description or definition because there is simply no frame of reference to place them in. The reader can refuse to accept such things on the arrogant assumption that they have seen and experienced all there is to know, and nothing can exist outside of their frame of reference. Alternatively, the reader can accept that God’s ways are higher than [our] ways, and [his] thoughts than [our] thoughts, and the reader may need a bigger frame to encompass him.
32-34 Throughout this chapter, manna has defied characterization. In vs 4, it is suggested that the manna will not last overnight, and in vs 20, this materialized when it bred worms and stank. However, in vs 5, they were instructed to gather twice as much on the sixth day, hinting that (a) it would not be provided that one day per week and (b) the manna collected on the sixth day, and only the sixth day, would last on the shelf for two days. Now, a jar of it was to be preserved throughout your generations so every Israelite would be able to see it for themselves. That is, the same stuff that would last absolutely no more than about 36 hours was going to last for generations. This is a crucial distinction between God and nature. God established nature with laws that are predictable and reproducible. If something spoils in twenty-four hours on Tuesday, it should spoil in twenty-four hours on Friday, too. Yet, God can and does bend, or even break these laws from time to time, and no matter how they try, humans can never predict or reproduce them. This is what makes him and his work supernatural and miraculous.
35 As was the case with each of the plagues, the supernatural nature of manna is further reinforced by its timing. Manna first appeared when Israel entered the Wilderness of Sin (1), a desolate region where virtually no one lived because there was no food to sustain any significant population, continued to appear for forty years while they remained in the wilderness, and stopped when they came to an inhabited land, namely the land of Canaan, where there was food enough to support the people. Moreover, it was never seen again. A critical characteristic of the miraculous is that it always shows up exactly and only when absolutely needed.
[100] Adeyemo 2010, Exodus 15:22-17:7
[101] Adeyemo 2010, Exodus 16:1-36