Manna · The Types of Christ
Manna
For forty years God fed a whole nation with bread that simply appeared on the ground every morning — and the first time they saw it they said “what is it?”, which is how it got its name. Centuries later Jesus stood up in a synagogue in Capernaum and said the bread had been about Him all along.
What Is It?
— the name, and the whole arc in six rungsמָן
The question became the name
That is where this site gets its name. MannaFest is built on a question about bread from heaven — and the answer, when it finally came, was a Person.
That is not a preacher’s pun. It is two rows of the word floor. The Hebrew מָן man (H4478) is glossed “what?” at Exodus 16:15 and “manna” at Exodus 16:31 — the same word, sixteen verses apart, in the same chapter. Exodus 16:15 records the people asking the question and Moses answering it: this is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat. The rest of this page is the six places Scripture takes that bread.
They said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was - This is a most unfortunate translation, because it not only gives no sense, but it contradicts itself. The Hebrew מן הוא man hu, literally signifies, What is this? for, says the text, they wist not what it was, and therefore they could not give it a name. Moses immediately answers the question, and says, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. From Exo 16:31 we learn that this substance was afterwards called מן man, probably in commemoration of the question they had asked on its first appearance. … It seems to have been created for the present occasion, and, like Him whom it typified, to have been the only thing of the kind, the only bread from heaven, which God ever gave to preserve the life of man, as Christ is the true bread that came down from heaven, and was given for the life of the world.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 16:15
A sixth-century preacher heard the same thing in the nameCaesarius of Arles, Sermon 102
Manna is interpreted as "What is this?" See whether the very power of the name does not provoke you to learn it, so that when you hear the law of God read in church you may always ask and say to the teachers: What is …
Caesarius turns the etymology into an instruction to his congregation: if the name of the bread is a question, then asking is the right posture to bring to the reading of Scripture. That is a preacher’s application rather than a claim about Exodus, and it is a good one.
When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.
The thing itself, and the question. Nobody has a word for it, so they make one out of the asking.
But now our appetite is gone; there is nothing to see but this manna!”
Bread from heaven, every morning, for years — and Israel is sick of it. Scripture records that too.
He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Moses says out loud what the forty years were for. The manna was a lesson before it was a meal.
He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven. Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.
Israel remembers it in song: the corn of heaven, the bread of the mighty ones.
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And this bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh.”
The antitype speaks for Himself. This rung is the page's whole argument: the connection between the manna and Christ is not something the church noticed later — it is a claim Jesus made about Himself, out loud, to people who had eaten the loaves the day before.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone inscribed with a new name, known only to the one who receives it.
And it is still being handed out. The last promise made to the overcomer at Pergamos is hidden manna.
What Actually Fell
— Exodus 16, before any meaning is put on itTHE ARTWORKJames Tissot, at the top of this page, paints the gathering as work: bent backs, baskets, a crowd spread thin across open ground in the early light. That is the right picture for Exodus 16, where the miracle arrives as a morning chore.
A month and a half out of Egypt the food ran out, and the camp turned on Moses. God’s answer came as a routine rather than a rescue. Every morning, after the dew lifted, the ground carried a small round thing like frost. Each household gathered an omer a head and no more. It melted when the sun got hot. Kept overnight it bred worms and stank — except on the sixth day, when a double portion kept clean straight through the sabbath, and on the seventh, when none fell at all. It went on for forty years, and it stopped the year they ate the produce of Canaan.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions. Then on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”The stated purpose is a test — and the sixth-day rule is announced before the first flake falls.
That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.The question, and Moses' answer to it.
This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. You may take an omer for each person in your tent.’” So the Israelites did this. Some gathered more, and some less. When they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall. Each one gathered as much as he needed to eat. Then Moses said to them, “No one may keep any of it until morning.” But they did not listen to Moses; some people left part of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. Every morning each one gathered as much as was needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away.An omer a head; the one who gathered much had nothing over, and the one who gathered little had no lack.
On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food—two omers per person—and all the leaders of the congregation came and reported this to Moses. He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’” So they set it aside until morning as Moses had commanded, and it did not smell or contain any maggots. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. Today you will not find anything in the field. For six days you may gather, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, it will not be there.”The sixth-day double portion — the one day the leftovers keep.
Now the house of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Keep an omer of manna for the generations to come, so that they may see the bread I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” So Moses told Aaron, “Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna. Then place it before the LORD to be preserved for the generations to come.” And Aaron placed it in front of the Testimony, to be preserved just as the LORD had commanded Moses. The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land where they could settle; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.The name, the pot laid up before the LORD, and the forty years — Exodus closes the chapter by telling you how long it lasted.
The commentators on the rules — worms, mornings and the sixth dayClarke and Henry, in full
Adam Clarke on the worms (Exodus 16:20): It bred worms - Their sinful curiosity and covetousness led them to make the trial; and they had a mass of the most loathsome putrefaction for their pains.
Matthew Henry on the gathering (Exodus 16:4): God's bounty leaves room for man's duty; it did so even when manna was rained: they must not eat till they have gathered. (2.) Contentment and satisfaction with a sufficiency. They must gather, every man according to his eating; enough is as good as a feast, and more than enough is as bad as a surfeit.
The artwork
Bouts painted this panel as one wing of an altarpiece whose centre is the Last Supper — the gathering on one side, the bread in Christ's hands on the other. A fifteenth-century painter arranged in wood and paint exactly the connection John 6 makes in words, which is why this plate sits on this page rather than a livelier crowd scene.
Dieric Bouts, The Gathering of the Manna (1464-1467), from the Louvain altarpiece — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The manna they gathered must not be hoarded up, but eaten; those that have received Christ must by faith live upon him, and not receive his grace in vain. There was manna enough for all, enough for each, and none had too much; so in Christ there is a complete sufficiency, and no superfluity.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Puritan
Exodus 16:35
What the Old Testament Says It Was For
— three witnesses, all of them before the New TestamentBefore anybody draws a line from the manna to Christ, the Old Testament draws three lines of its own. Deuteronomy 8 states the point of the whole forty years and does not leave it to be guessed: God let them hunger and fed them with manna so they would learn that man does not live by bread alone. Psalm 78 sings it back as the corn of heaven and the bread of angels. And Numbers 11 is honest about the other side of it — a nation that had bread from heaven every morning and wanted fish, cucumbers and onions instead.
Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.The lesson, stated by the text itself — and the verse Jesus quoted in the wilderness of His own testing.
Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens. He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven. Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.Doors of heaven opened; the corn of heaven; the bread of the mighty.
Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now our appetite is gone; there is nothing to see but this manna!” Now the manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of gum resin. The people walked around and gathered it, ground it on a handmill or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot or shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry baked with fine oil. When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.Israel's own verdict on the miracle: 'our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all besides this manna.'
Ver. 25. Man did eat angel's food. The delicacies of kings were outdone, for the dainties of angels were supplied. Bread of the mighty ones fell on feeble man. Those who are lower than the angels fared as well. It was not for the priests, or the princes, that the manna fell; but for all the nation, for every man, woman, and child in the camp: and there was sufficient for them all, for he sent them meat to the full. God's banquets are never stinted; he gives the best diet, and plenty of it.
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, 1869-1885Reformed Baptist
Psalm 78:25
Henry on Deuteronomy 8 — food they had never seen beforeone paragraph
And thus the manna of heavenly comforts is given to those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, Matt. v. 6 . To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. It is said of the manna that it was a sort of food which neither they nor their fathers knew.
One more datum sits in this chapter and belongs to another study. Exodus 16:23 carries the first occurrence in Scripture of shabbathon (H7677), a sabbath observance — announced not at Sinai but in the middle of the manna. And the measure the manna is gathered by, ʿomer (H6016), is the same word the floor glosses “sheaf” in the firstfruits law of Leviticus 23. Both are noted here and worked out elsewhere.
The Antitype Speaks
— John 6 — and this is the Lord's own claim, not the site's inferenceThe day before, Jesus had fed five thousand people with five loaves. The crowd crossed the lake looking for more of the same, and asked Him for a sign — naming the manna as the standard to beat. What He does with their example is the hinge of this whole page. He does three things with the manna, and all three are in His own mouth.
One · He corrects who gave it
“Moses gave you not that bread from heaven.” The crowd had the giver wrong. Before He says anything about Himself, He puts the manna back in the Father’s hand (John 6:32).
Two · He names the greater bread
The bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world — and then, with no hedge in it: I am the bread of life (John 6:33, 35, 48).
Three · He presses the difference
“Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” The bread that fell kept a nation alive for forty years and then they died anyway. That is the whole distance between the type and the reality (John 6:49, 58).
So they asked Him, “What sign then will You perform, so that we may see it and believe You? What will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “give us this bread at all times.” Jesus answered, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst.The crowd raises the manna; Jesus corrects the attribution and then answers with Himself.
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And this bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh.”'I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.'
Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your fathers, who ate the manna and died, the one who eats this bread will live forever.”The contrast said once more, as the sermon lands.
The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.How He tells His hearers to take the whole discourse: 'the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.'
Moses gave you not, &c.--"It was not Moses that gave you the manna, and even it was but from the lower heavens; 'but My Father giveth you the true bread,' and that 'from heaven.'"
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
John 6:31
He calls Himself the true bread not because the manna was false, but because it was an image and a shadow, and not the truth itself. For the Only-begotten Son of God, having become Man, is in the proper sense "Manna," an astonishing word and …
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on John, 1107Eastern Orthodox
John 6:33
Theophylact’s sentence is the one worth slowing down for. The manna was not false; it was a real thing that really fell and really kept people alive. It was an image and a shadow, and the difference between a shadow and the body casting it is not that the shadow is a lie.
"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me, shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me, shall never thirst." "He that cometh to me," is the same as, "he that believeth in me;" and "shall never hunger," the same thing as "shall never thirst:" by both is signified that eternal fulness, where is no want. Ye desire the bread from heaven; ye have it before you, and ye eat not.
Augustine of Hippo· Tractates on John 25, 430Church Father
John 6:35
Chrysostom: why He put the Father in Moses' placeHomily on John 45
"Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven." Why said He not, "It was not Moses that gave it to you, but I"; but putteth God in the place of Moses, and Himself instead of manna? Because the infirmity of His hearers was great. As is seen from what followeth. For not even when He had spoken thus did He secure their attention, although He said at first, "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracle, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." Now because they sought these (carnal) things, He would have corrected them by His succeeding words, yet not even so did they desist.
Ambrose and Augustine on 'the bread of angels'two Fathers, one psalm
Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries: It has been proven that the sacraments of the church are more ancient; now realize that they are more powerful. In very fact it is a marvelous thing that God rained manna on the ancestors and they were fed by daily nourishment from heaven. Therefore, it is said, "Humankind has eaten the bread of angels."
Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 130: Let us turn back to the one who performed these miracles. He is himself the bread that came down from heaven; but bread that nourishes and never diminishes; bread that can be eaten but cannot be eaten up. This bread was also signified by manna, of which it was said, "He gave them the bread of heaven; people ate the bread of angels. Who can the bread of heaven be, but Christ? But for people to eat the bread of angels, the Lord of angels became a human being. Because if he had not become this, we would not have his flesh; if we did not have his flesh, we would not eat the bread of the altar.
Paul and John Seal It
— 1 Corinthians 10:3 and Revelation 2:17Paul is warning the Corinthians about presuming on privilege, and he reaches for the wilderness to do it. Everybody ate, he says — the same spiritual meat — and God was not pleased with most of them. The word he chooses for the manna he uses again one clause later for the rock, which is why these two studies are siblings on this shelf. And at the far end of the Bible the manna turns up once more, not as a memory but as a promise still open: to the one who overcomes, hidden manna.
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.The manna and the rock in one sentence, both called spiritual — this page owns verse 3, its sibling owns verse 4.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone inscribed with a new name, known only to the one who receives it.The Greek word for manna occurs four times in the whole New Testament, and this is the last of them.
And all ate the same manna, termed spiritual meat, as it was typical, 1. Of Christ and his spiritual benefits: 2. Of the sacred bread which we eat at his table.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
1 Corinthians 10:3
"To him that overcometh I will give the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone." The hidden manna is immortality; the white gem is adoption to be the son of God; the new name written on the stone is "Christian."
Victorinus of Pettau· Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John, 304Church Father
Revelation 2:17
Barnes on 'spiritual meat' — what the adjective is doing1 Corinthians 10:3
And did all eat the same spiritual meat - That is, “manna.” Exo 16:15, Exo 16:35; Neh 9:15, Neh 9:20. The word meat here is used in the old English sense of the word, to denote “food” in general. They lived on “manna.” The word “spiritual” here is evidently used to denote that which was given by the Spirit, or by God; that which was the result of his miraculous gift, and which was not produced in the ordinary way, and which was not the gross food on which people are usually supported.
Augustine, quoting Paul quoting the mannaon John 6:50
(Tr. xxvi. s. 12) This was the bread the manna typified, this was the bread the altar typified. Both the one and the other were sacraments, differing in symbol, alike in the thing signified. Hear the Apostle, They did all eat the same spiritual meat. (1 Cor. 10)
Augustine is not inventing the connection either. He states the type and then cites 1 Corinthians 10 doing the same thing — which is the pattern this whole page follows.
Ticonius on the hidden mannaRevelation 2:17
"To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna." This manna is the invisible Bread which came down from heaven, which indeed was made man, so that "man might eat the bread of angels." And the figure of this was indicated beforehand …
The Greek manna (G3131) appears exactly four times in the New Testament: twice in John 6, once in Hebrews 9, once in Revelation 2. That is the entire New Testament’s use of the word — and every one of the four is doing typology with it.
The Golden Pot
— one paragraph, then the doorMoses was told to fill a pot with an omer of manna and lay it up before the LORD, “to be kept for your generations” (Exodus 16:33-34). Hebrews 9:4, listing what the ark of the covenant contained, puts the golden pot inside it — with Aaron’s rod and the tablets. Bread that spoiled in a day was kept for centuries in the holiest place in Israel. What that furniture means belongs to the ark’s own study and to the tabernacle walkthrough; this page only hands it over.
containing the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. Inside the ark were the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.The pot, the rod and the tablets — the inventory of the ark.
A pot - The word here used occurs in no other passage. It corresponds in form and use to the Egyptian for a casket or vase in which oblations were presented.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832-1869Presbyterian
Exodus 16:33
What the Text Does Not Say
— the silence, and the one place the commentators genuinely differExodus describes what the manna looked like — small, round, white like coriander seed, tasting of wafers and honey — and never once says what it was. That silence is worth naming out loud, because the question people most want answered is the question the chapter declines to answer. Its interest is somewhere else entirely: in the timing, the measure and the sixth day.
Position one
A known desert substance, multiplied and regulated by God. Albert Barnes, on Exodus 16:15, identifies it with the exudate of the tamarisk — the tarfa of the Sinai peninsula — which local Arabs gathered in his own century. The older naturalist commentators read it the same way.
Position two
Not a desert product at all. Adam Clarke says so flatly on Exodus 16:4, and argues it again from the sabbath pattern on 16:22: a natural exudate does not skip Saturdays, does not double on Fridays, and does not last forty years.
Position three
The text does not say, and its interest is elsewhere. Scripture describes the regulation of the manna in detail and its composition not at all. This page does not settle between the first two, and neither does Exodus.
I will rain bread - Therefore this substance was not a production of the desert: nor was the dew that was the instrument of producing it common there, else they must have had this bread for a month before.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 16:4
On the sixth day they gathered twice as much - This they did that they might have a provision for the Sabbath, for on that day no manna fell, Exo 16:26, Exo 16:27. What a convincing miracle was this! No manna fell on the Sabbath! Had it been a natural production it would have fallen on the Sabbath as at other times; and had there not been a supernatural influence to keep it sweet and pure, it would have been corrupted on the Sabbath as well as on other days.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 16:22
Barnes and Clarke are two careful readers looking at the same chapter and landing apart, and neither of them is being careless. Barnes has real desert botany in front of him; Clarke has the calendar in front of him. Both are worth reading, and Exodus adjudicates neither.
One more silence, smaller and often missed: Scripture never says what became of the pot. It is laid up before the LORD in Exodus and listed inside the ark in Hebrews, and after that the record simply stops.
The Voices
— named, with the work to go and readChuck Missler— Pastor Marc’s own formative teacher — read the wilderness provisions as deliberate Christology rather than decoration, and worked Exodus that way through Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Sir Robert Anderson, in Types in Hebrews, takes the furniture of the sanctuary — the golden pot among it — by the argument the letter itself makes. Rabbi Jason Sobel, in Mysteries of the Messiah, reads the wilderness provision from inside its Jewish context. All three are modern and in copyright: they are named and pointed to here, never reproduced.
Spurgeon on reading Israel's history as a picture at allThe Treasury of David, on Psalm 78:2
Ver. 2. I will open my mouth in a parable. Analogies are not only to be imagined, but are intended by God to be traced between the story of Israel and the lives of believers. Israel was ordained to be a type; the tribes and their marchings are living allegories traced by the hand of an all wise providence. Unspiritual persons may sneer about fancies and mysticisms, but Paul spake well when he said "which things are an allegory, "and Asaph in the present case spake to the point when he called his narrative "a parable."
Spurgeon is answering the objection this whole shelf has to answer: is any of this really there, or is it fancy? His reply is that Asaph called his own narrative a parable, and Paul said of another Old Testament story that it “is an allegory” — so the practice of reading Israel’s history as picture has the Bible’s own warrant. It does not follow that every correspondence anyone proposes is warranted, which is why this page keeps saying which readings the text makes and which readings readers have made.
Where Marcus Lands
A nation asked what is it?about bread on the ground, and the question stuck to the bread as its name. Fifteen hundred years later a carpenter’s son from Nazareth answered it — not by explaining the chemistry, but by saying I am. Of every page on this site, this is the one that owes the reader the founder’s own words.