Bread Every Morning

The Story

A month after leaving Egypt, Israel was deep in the wilderness, and the food they had brought with them was running out. Hundreds of thousands of people, with no farms, no markets, and nothing growing around them.

The people turned on Moses and Aaron. “Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt,” they said, “when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full.” Suddenly slavery looked better in their memory than it had been.

God heard their complaining, and He answered it with bread. “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you.”

The next morning, when the dew lifted, the ground was covered with small, flaky white pieces like frost. The people looked at it and asked, “What is it?” In Hebrew, “manna.” It tasted like wafers made with honey.

But there were instructions. Gather only what you need for today. Don’t save any for tomorrow. Some people tried to store extra anyway, and by morning it was full of worms and stank. On the sixth day, they were to gather twice as much, so they could rest on the Sabbath. And that day’s extra didn’t spoil.

For forty years, every single morning, the manna came.

Reflection