Manna From Heaven - Exodus 16:14-36

16:14-36 - Whenever I heard of "Manna from heaven" I always imagined there being like chunks of bread just sitting on the ground to be picked up and put into a basket. When describing the manna it is explained as being "a small round hating, as small as the hoar frost on the ground," which "round thing" is defined as "fine, flake-like" in the footnotes. I'm not exactly sure what that means, like is it something you have to scrape off the leaf by your fingernails and lick it? Verse 31 tells us later that "it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey." I guess it was pretty unusual because it was named "manna" by the people because when it showed up, the Hebrews asked "Man hu" which TB says is the Hebrew equivalent of "what is it?" Moses answers them "this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat," and tells the people two things that seem to contradict each other. First they are to "gather of it every man according to his eating," but then also "an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; tale ye every man for them which are in his tents." So he says, "take whatever you need," but then also "take an omer for each person in your household." TB defined an omer as "about 1/2 gallon," which he gives several other examples of the word omer being used to signify 1/2 gallon of measurement in other parts of the Bible. He also tells them to not keep it overnight, to eat what they need then get rid of the rest.

The people went out to gather the manna and ate what they needed, but not everyone got rid of it, and "some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them." I can understand why the Hebrews did not want to throw out their manna from heaven the first few nights. They were hungry and wanted to keep what they had just in case. I can see how it might be seen as a lack of faith and obedience, but I also understand them not throwing it out. Unfortunately for them, overnight, the bread went rancid and turned stinky. They did this routine everyday until the 6th day, then they gathered twice as much so that they could have enough for the Sabbath because it wouldn't be available for them to gather on the Sabbath. Interestingly, the Israelites went out and gathered "some more, some less," But those who underestimated what they would need "had no lack," and those who gathered too much "had nothing over." This is one of those things where God can take anything and give us exactly what we need, nothing more, nothing less.

Being people, having physical bodies, it seems like the body and all it's functions are the most important thing in the world. When you're hungry, tired, sick, have to pee, nothing else matters. But really, that's not the point of this life, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience, not physical beings having a spiritual experience. The IM notes, "the manna was used by God to teach lessons for spiritual instruction as well as physical sustenance... Jesus Christ uses the manna, God-given 'bread from heaven', as a type of Himself, the true bread of life, and contrasts the shadow with the substance: 'your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead, but He could say, "I am the bread of life... which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." This is a pretty abstract concept. The bread of life, living water, what does any of that really mean? Clearly it is referencing substances required for physical living and equating them to what is required for spiritual salvation. Christ as the bread of life, what does that actually mean and how does it effect what we should do in our lives? Let's think about what it would mean to have food be the bread of life. If food keeps our body alive that means that we would devote a significant portion of our time and energy acquiring and consuming food. If Jesus keeps our spirit alive, then we should devote a significant portion of our time and energy doing what He says.

He tells us to be kind to others, then we spend a lot of our time and energy becoming nice to others, and I know that it sounds simple but this is a hard thing to do for a lot of people, myself included. He says to pray, so we pray, he says to turn our focus from ourselves to Him (repentance), so we focus on being what He says and wants. Then our spirit can grow and thrive and be transformed into one that is at peace in our lives, even if we don't understand everything, even if we don't get everything we want. We grow to be at peace with our lives here in this world, and have hope in the next life as well. I've always thought that one of the reasons why God gave the Israelites manna was because they would not obey Him any other way than to make them completely dependent on Him for all their food and subsistence needs. And it turns out that that is exactly what happened because "the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan." We need to incorporate Christ's atonement into our lives in order to have healthy spiritual bodies, just like we need to incorporate food and water into our bodies to have healthy spiritual bodies. How do we incorporate the atonement? We follow Jesus' commandment to repent, that seems so much more ominous than it really is. Repentance just means to turn away from our old behaviors and beliefs and turn toward Jesus' behaviors and beliefs. We leave behind OUR ways, and adopt HIS ways, and the overarching details are the same for all of us, pray, study the scriptures, make and keep ordinances, but the individual details, what we each need to focus on, is what He'll teach us as we go through our own personal journey.