Exodus 16

Exodus 16

The Israelites complaining, God providing, and the Israelites disobeying is the pattern that is being established for the Exodus.  This time, the complaining has to do with the lack of food, which I suppose is somewhat legitimate given that they were living in the desert.  However, the complaining was combined with a longing for the “good old days” of slavery in Egypt; really, it’s only been two months!  God provides food, in the form of quail in the evening and bread in the morning.  The bread is called “manna”, which means “What is it?”, it is also similar to the Egyptian word for “food”.  In providing manna, God is also testing the obedience of the Israelites, in that He tells them not to keep it overnight, except on the sixth day because the seventh day was to be a Sabbath and there would be no manna on that day.  Of course, some of the Israelites disobeyed and tried to keep the manna overnight, but it became full of maggots and began to smell bad.  In doing this, God was reestablishing the idea of six days of work and one day of Sabbath, or rest, from the creation account in Genesis.  For the forty years the Israelites were in the desert, God continued to provide manna.

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