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Exodus 16
In one point their faith was sorely tried. We have seen it tried in thirst; we next behold it tried in hunger. A military man, who has witnessed the difficulty of providing a regular supply of victuals, even in a peopled country, for a large body of men, whether by purchase or by enforced contribution, can better than any other person appreciate the faith required from Moses, when he undertook to lead into “the waste howling wilderness,” where no provisions existed, or could be obtained by force or purchase, a people whose numbers exceeded, by threefold, the largest army which the ambition or pride of man ever brought together. We have often had occasion to reflect upon this fact, and have always returned to it with new and increased astonishment, at the “largeness of heart” it is possible for God to bestow on man—in that he gave such incredible capacity of faith to Moses, as enabled him to believe, that the immense host which he had led from amid the fatness of Egypt, would, by the power of God’s bountiful right hand, be sustained in comfort in the wilderness. He acted not blindly. He knew well what he was doing. He had spent forty of the best years of his life in that very region; and he knew, better than any, the absence there of any appreciable resources for the support of such a multitude. He was quite sure when he led them forth, that without a miracle, inconceivable in its extent, and standing in its duration, the whole multitude must perish, after he and his had probably been sacrificed to the rage and disappointment of the people, who would inevitably conclude, that they had been beguiled to their ruin. It seems to us, that this is second to no act of faith which the sacred history relates.
It was soon put to a severe test. In about a month from their leaving Egypt, they came to the next important encampment after Elim, in the wilderness of Sin. But this time the provisions they had brought with them from Egypt, appear to have been wholly exhausted—and as, in all this time, they had found little or no provision in the country through which they had passed, nor saw the prospect of any in the still more wild region that lay before them, they began to speculate on the impossibility of finding subsistence for their myriads under such circumstances. The more they considered it, the more gloomy their views became. They thought of their wives and little ones, and their hearts failed them. For their sakes probably, more than for their own, they began to lament that they had committed themselves to this wild adventure, and to regret that they had left the abundance of Egypt. It is the nature of man to underrate past evils, and to overrate past advantages, in comparison with the present. So now, the Israelites thought much of the abundance of Egypt, while its slavery and its toil faded from their view; and they were keenly alive to the privations of their present position, while regardless of the manly freedom they had attained, and of the high hopes that lay before them. In fact they thought too much. They were not required to think, but only to believe. It was to try and to educate their faith that they were suffered to endure this distress. It had been as easy for God to anticipate and prevent their wants as to satisfy them when they were expressed. But so He deals not with the children to whom He is teaching the great lessons of his school. A man, it seems, limits his duty to the feeding of his slaves; but he tries, he trains, he disciplines his children—and God dealt with them as with his children.
Although, as we have said, these thoughts were natural, they are not, on that account, to be excused. Seeing what they had seen, no persons could be less excused for distrust or lack of faith. If they would think, they should have thought of what the Lord’s high hand had marvellously wrought on their behalf, and from that experience have gathered hope and confidence.
The real wants of this people have probably been underrated by the consideration that they might, if they had thought proper, have lived upon their apparently numerous flocks and herds. But we have already had occasion to observe, that a pastoral people do not live upon the flesh of their flocks and herds, but upon the produce of them, and only slay their cattle for food on high or hospitable occasions; and besides, were the case otherwise, we are to recollect that their flocks and herds were not the common property of all, but were undoubtedly the private property of a comparatively small number of persons, the great body of the people being destitute of even this resource. And supposing, as an extreme case, that the owners of these flocks and herds had given them up to the wants of the multitude, the supply, however large, could not have lasted long, nor would such provision alone have been wholesome to a people who had been so much used to vegetable, as well as animal food, in Egypt. Their cry was, therefore, for both bread and meat; and they looked back with regret upon the time when, in that rich land, they not only sat by the “flesh-pots,” but when they did “eat bread to their full.” A miraculous supply of both was promised to them, not without a mild reproof for their murmurings and distrust, which, as Moses justly warned them, although ostensibly leveled at himself and his brother, were really directed against the Lord, who had made them his peculiar care.
The promised flesh came in the shape of a vast flock of quails, which being wearied, probably with a long flight, flew so low that they were easily taken in immense numbers by the hand. This bird, of the gallinaceous kind, is something like a partridge. The larger species is of the size of a turtledove, and is still found abundantly in the spring in the deserts of Arabia-Petrea and the wilderness bordering Palestine and Egypt, coming up at the time from the countries of the Arabian Gulf. The miraculous ordination here, therefore, was that they came at the appointed time—that they passed directly over the Hebrew camp, and that they there flew so low as to be easily taken. They were taken in such numbers as not only to serve for the present, but for some time to come. But how to preserve them for future use? The Israelites knew how that was to be accomplished. It is known that the Egyptians, from among whom they came, lived much upon wild-fowl as well as upon tame. The latter could be killed as wanted; but the former, being but occasionally caught in large numbers, required to be preserved for future use. This was done by drying them in the sun, and, perhaps, slightly salting them, and in the Egyptian monuments there are actual representations of birds, slit like fish, and laid out to dry. Great numbers of various birds, and among them quails, are still, in the season of passage, caught in Lower Egypt, especially towards the sea, and are still efficiently, though somewhat rudely, preserved. The manner of doing it now is by stripping off the feathers with the skin, and then burying them in the hot sand for a short time, by which process the moisture is absorbed, and the flesh preserved from corruption. One of these modes, most probably the former, is what the Israelites followed on another like occasion, and doubtless on this, “They spread them all abroad for themselves around the camp.”—Num_11:32. Note: The particulars of this second supply are more circumstantially related. We have, therefore, taken some of the details to illustrate the first supply, that the reader may have, in one view, all the facts belonging to this miraculous provision.
The very next morning the face of the ground around the camp was seen to be covered with “a small round thing, as small as the hoar-frost on the ground.” The people did not comprehend it, and asked one another, “What is this?” The Hebrew of which being Man-hu caused the name of Manna to be given to it. Moses was able to answer the question. He told them that this was the substance which, in the place of bread, God destined for their substantial food—their staff of life. It was, he told them, to fall every morning, except on the Sabbath-day; but on the day preceding that a double quantity would fall, as a supply for the two days. On other days none was to be left until the morning; and when some avaricious or distrustful persons gathered more than the day’s consumption required, they found that “it bred worms and stank.” Was it not, therefore, a miraculous circumstance that, although it would not ordinarily keep for more than one day, the double supply gathered on the Friday was good for two days? We incline to that opinion, the rather as it appears to be corroborated analogically by the fact, that a vessel filled with this very manna, which dissolved in the heat of the sun if left upon the ground, and which corrupted if preserved in the shade, was retained as a memorial of this transaction to future generations. Nevertheless, this matter is open to the remark that Moses directs them to boil or to bake on the previous day what was required for the consumption of the Sabbath; and although this may be, and is usually, understood to denote that this was to prevent the customary operations of dressing it on the Sabbath-day, yet it may signify that they usually ate it undressed, as gathered, but that which they gathered the day before the Sabbath was directed to be cooked in order to its preservation. There is some corroboration to this view in the fact that the people seem to have used it in both ways, from the manner in which the taste of it, as eaten raw, and as taken dressed, is distinguished. Eaten as gathered, it tasted like cakes made of meal and honey, but when dressed, it acquired the taste of fresh oil—a flavor highly agreeable to the Israelites. Note: Compare Exo_16:13; Num_11:6; Num_11:8. In shape it was like coriander seed, but in color it was white. In Num_11:6, the people are said to have usually prepared it by first grinding it in a mill, or pounding it in a mortar, and then baking it in, or rather on, pans, into cakes. This primitive mode of baking is still used in the East, and consists of baking the cakes upon a plate of metal, propped horizontally at a proper height, and heated by a small fire underneath. This is a peculiarly desert mode of baking cakes, the whole of which we, in recollection of this passage, have often watched with much stronger interest, than the mere desire of allaying our hunger with the bread thus prepared could inspire.
There is a kind of tree or shrub—a species of tamarisk, found in this and other regions, which yields at certain times, and in small quantities, a kind of gum, to which the name of manna has been given, in the belief that it resembled, or really was, the manna by which the Israelites were fed. If any human infatuation could surprise a thoughtful and observant mind—and especially if any folly of those who deem themselves wiser than their Bible, could astonish—it might excite strong wonder to see grave and reverend men set forth the strange proposition, that two or three millions of people were fed from day to day, during forty years, with this very substance. A very small quantity—and that only at a particular time of the year, and that time not the time when the manna first fell—is now afforded by all the trees of the Sinai peninsula; and it would be safe to say, that if all the trees of this kind, then or now growing in the world, had been assembled in this part of Arabia-Petrea, and had covered it wholly, they would not have yielded a tithe of the quantity of gum required for the subsistence of so vast a multitude. Indeed, it remains to be proved, that it would be at all salutary or nutritive as an article of constant and substantial food. To us, this explanation, which attempts to attenuate or extinguish the miracle—by supposing this natural product to have been at all times and in all places sufficient—to have fallen regularly around the camp, in all its removals, and to have been regularly intermitted on the seventh day, is much harder of belief than the simple and naked miracle—much harder than it would be to believe that hot rolls fell every morning from the skies upon the camp of Israel. A miracle we can understand, however difficult of comprehension; but that which attempts to elucidate a miracle on natural grounds, must make no demands upon our faith—must be full and satisfactory—must be consistent and coherent in all its facts.