Bread from Heaven, and a People Who Grew Tired of It
A month after God brought Israel out of Egypt, the whole congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness (Exodus 16:1–3). They remembered the flesh pots of Egypt and forgot the whips. God answered their complaining with grace.
“Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.”EXODUS 16:4 · KJV
Manna was a bread-like food God miraculously provided to feed the Israelites in the wilderness. When the dew lifted, there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground (Exodus 16:14). The people said to one another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was (Exodus 16:15).
From the Hebrew man, linked in the text to the people's question man hu, “What is it?” (Exodus 16:15). It was small and round, like coriander seed, white, and it tasted like wafers made with honey (Exodus 16:31). Ground and baked, it tasted as the taste of fresh oil (Numbers 11:7–8).
Each person gathered an omer a day (Exodus 16:16). Leftovers kept until morning bred worms, and stank (Exodus 16:19–20). Manna fell each morning except on the sabbath. On the sixth day they gathered twice as much, and the sabbath portion did not spoil (Exodus 16:22–26). God fed them this way for forty years (Exodus 16:35), and the manna stopped the day after they ate the produce of Canaan under Joshua (Joshua 5:12; see Joshua). An omer of it was laid up before the LORD to be kept for your generations (Exodus 16:33–34; see the Ark of the Covenant).
Numbers 21
Almost forty years later, near the end of the wandering, the Canaanite king of Arad attacked Israel. The people vowed a vow, the LORD delivered the Canaanites into their hand, and they named the place Hormah (Numbers 21:1–3). Then the road turned the long way around Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way (Numbers 21:4).
“And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.”NUMBERS 21:5–6 · KJV
Listen to the complaint. There is no bread, they said, and in the same breath, our soul loatheth this light bread. The Hebrew word behind light appears only here in the Old Testament; it means worthless or contemptible. Bread from heaven was falling outside their tents every morning, and they said there was no bread at all. The Israelites were bitten by deadly snakes as God's judgment on their rejection of His provision.
The people confessed, We have sinned, and Moses prayed. God did not take the serpents away. He gave a remedy.
“Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”NUMBERS 21:7–9 · KJV
Jesus Himself names both types: the manna in John 6:31–35 and John 6:48–51, and the serpent in John 3:14–15. Paul adds that the wilderness generation tempted Christ and were destroyed of serpents, and that all these things happened unto them for ensamples (1 Corinthians 10:9–11). We state those plainly. The New Testament does not name the details: the manna's daily gathering and its spoiling overnight, the brass as judgment, the pole as a curse, and the serpent as our sin. We present them as pictures that point to Christ, and we build no doctrine on them.
Loading the rest of this article
For Deeper Study
- The Study of the TypesAmazon Ada R. HabershonA classic 1898 introduction to the Old Testament types by a writer who loved to find Christ in all the Scriptures.
- Be Counted (Numbers)Amazon Warren W. WiersbeAn accessible exposition of Numbers, the book of Israel's wilderness years, by the longtime Bible teacher.
- Exploring the Gospel of JohnAmazon John PhillipsAn outlined, devotional exposition from a dispensational, premillennial teacher, helpful on the bread of life discourse in John 6.
- Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: JohnAmazon J. C. RyleClassic verse-by-verse reflections by the evangelical Anglican bishop, a Calvinist, whose comments on John 6 carefully reject the sacramental reading.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
As an Amazon Associate, Theologica earns from qualifying purchases.
What Is Typology?
God filled the Old Testament with pictures of His Son: real people, events, and institutions He designed to point forward to Jesus Christ, who fulfills and surpasses them all.
Open Doctrine