Exodus 16:22-36
22 And so it was, on the sixth day, that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23 Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.’” 24 So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25 Then Moses said, “Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”
27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. 28 And the LORD said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? 29 See! For the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
31 And the house of Israel called its name Manna. And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
32 Then Moses said, “This is the thing which the LORD has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it, to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” 33 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations.” 34 As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. 35 And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. 36 Now an omer is one-tenth of an ephah.
When Israel obeyed the grace of God in taking only what they needed off the ground where the bread from heaven was deposited for them to gather, they found that on the sixth day there was enough for them to take up an extra day’s worth for the Sabbath to follow that they might find rest as God did after He created the universe and the earth out of which He made mankind. The same Creator made this manna from heaven to sustain them until the day He sent His Son as their and our bread from heaven (John 6:31-32, 33, 50-51) to partake of and live forever, apart from the bondage of sin and its consequences. Until then, they had physical sustenance given from above that they still had to work for to gather and prepare to make a meal for forty years in the desert places they traveled. Some still did not understand and looked around on the seventh day for manna but came up short (Romans 3:23) as we all do when seeking to earn our acceptance and sustaining grace from the Lord. They refused to enter into rest in God’s work for them (Hebrews 4:9-10) and were still attempting to earn their deliverance and sustenance on their own efforts. Jesus is the bread of life, our daily bread, who saves us from sin’s bondage and sustains us until we meet face to face with Him at last (Job 19:25-27). The people were corrected for their error and finally rested on the partial realization that they needed to rest in God and His work to sustain them on that day as the others, just as they trusted Him to deliver from Egypt out of their enslavement. They even kept a small amount of manna as a reminder for future generations of God’s faithful work of faithfulness for them and future generations at the word of Moses. Do we likewise look back at our deliverance from sin and death in the wilderness of the lost world we have been rescued from and do we lean on Him and His grace, resting in the word and work of Christ on the cross and out of death’s grave as our sustaining grace? Jesus is our sustaining grace, our bread from heaven, whom we partake of daily as we rest in His work and not our own, while working what is good in thankful return.
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