Exoduschapter 16
36 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · The Law
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.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Exodus Overview.
Exodus is given as the work of Moses, who writes here as the leader of a hungry people a month out of Egypt. Its first hearers were a people who had eaten this bread every morning of the wilderness years. They kept the seventh day as a day of rest, and this chapter shows them where that practice began in their own history. The chapter turns the book from rescue to the long training of the desert. Listen for the rules that come with the gift, and for who keeps them. Listen for the word test, and for the one day that differs from the others.
Context
- Who
- Israel in the wilderness, who were still eating this bread when the chapter was read to them
- What
- Exodus 16 is the account of the quail and the manna given in the Desert of Sin, with the rules for gathering the manna and the first Sabbath Israel kept.
- Where
- The Desert of Sin, between Elim and Sinai, which is unlocated, with the coastal plain near El Markha and the sandy tract of Debbet er Ramleh inland as the main proposals.
- When
- The fifteenth day of the second month after the departure from Egypt, with the exodus dated to the fifteenth century BC or to the thirteenth century BC by the two main datings, both held, and Exodus 12:40 to 41 and 1 Kings 6:1 bearing on the question.
- Why
- It teaches Israel to depend on the LORD for each day's bread and to keep the seventh day as rest before the law is given at Sinai.
Historical context
The chapter is told of the whole congregation, with Moses and Aaron standing between the people and the LORD.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
It is dated in the text to the fifteenth day of the second month after the going out. The early dating puts it about 1446 BC from the four hundred and eighty years of 1 Kings 6:1 read literally, while Kenneth Kitchen and James Hoffmeier date the exodus to the thirteenth century from the store cities of Exodus 1:11, and the chapter names no Pharaoh and no year.
The place is the Desert of Sin, named in the chapter as lying between Elim and Sinai.
The occasion is hunger a month into the march, and the bread that was given every morning for forty years after it.
A first hearer knew the complaint was about a real thing, since a slave state fed its workers and Egyptian ration lists record bread, beer, onions and fish issued to labourers. He knew the quail, which cross the Sinai in great numbers in spring and autumn and arrive tired enough to be taken by hand, as travellers ancient and modern record. He knew an omer as a dry measure, which the chapter defines for him as a tenth of an ephah. He also knew what it meant that the food failed to keep overnight on six days and kept on the seventh, because the rule was enforced by what did and did not fall.
The name of the bread comes from the question the people asked when they first saw it, and the chapter describes it as white like coriander seed, tasting of wafers made with honey, lying with the dew and melting in the sun.
Significance
The Sabbath is kept here in practice before it is given at Sinai in law, and the week is taught by the ground rather than by a command alone.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For forty years a whole nation ate food it had not grown. Israel was being taught one day's portion at a time where its living came from.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi dates the chapter and counts the meals. The encampment of verse 1 is named, he says, because the dough carried out of Egypt ran out that day, and he reckons sixty-one meals from it before the manna fell (Rashi on Exodus 16:1:1). At verses 7 and 8 he draws a distinction between the two requests. Bread was asked for out of need, so it came in the morning with the light of favour. Meat was asked for out of plenty, so it came at evening (Rashi on Exodus 16:7:1 and 16:8:1). At verse 17 he describes the measuring as the miracle of the chapter. Whoever gathered much had no more than an omer a head, and whoever gathered little had no less (Rashi on Exodus 16:17:1). At verse 20 he names the men who left it overnight as Dathan and Abiram (Rashi on Exodus 16:20:1). At verse 21 he carries the saying that what melted in the field ran in streams, and that the nations tasted the manna through the deer that drank there (Rashi on Exodus 16:21:1). The text is the Rosenbaum and Silbermann Rashi of 1929 to 1934, in the public domain. Ibn Ezra stands by reference at five places, and this is the one chapter of the span where the corpus also carries Malbim (Malbim on Exodus 16:24:1).
What the rabbis say
The rabbis take up the murmuring for bread at Bamidbar Rabbah 12:7 and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 38:1. On the quails they taught at Arakhin 15b:2, and on the daily gathering at Arakhin 15b:1. On the omer and its measure they taught at Chullin 135b:11. On the double portion of the sixth day they taught at Berakhot 39b:9, and on the baking and boiling of it at Avodah Zarah 39a:8. The Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai carries this chapter at eight places, from 16:1 to 16:25.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Exodus 16:1:1, 16:7:1, 16:8:1, 16:17:1, 16:20:1 and 16:21:1, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934 (public domain); Malbim, Malbim on Exodus 16:24:1, cited by ref alone under the corpus licence rule; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Exodus 16:12:1 and 16:19:1, cited by ref alone under the corpus licence rule; The Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin 15b:1 and 15b:2, Chullin 135b:11, Berakhot 39b:9 and Avodah Zarah 39a:8, cited by ref; The Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 12:7, Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 38:1, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 16:1 to 16:25, cited by ref.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Grumbling for the Fleshpots of Egypt
Exodus 16:1-2
Numbers 33:3 dates the departure from Egypt to the fifteenth day of the first month, so the fifteenth of the second month is a month to the day since they walked out. Whatever food came out of Egypt has run out on schedule. This is the third of four complaints in four chapters, after the sea at 14:11 and the bitter water at 15:24, and the fourth comes at Rephidim in 17:2.
Exodus 16:1
“The the wilderness of Sin - The desert tract, called Debbet er Ramleh, extend nearly across the peninsula from the Wady Nasb in a south-easterly direction, between the limestone district of Et Tih and the granite of Sinai. The journey from the station at Elim, or even from that on the Red Sea, could be performed in a day: at that time the route was kept in good condition by the Egyptians.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Exodus 16:1
“This passage represents the Israelites as advanced into the great plain, which, beginning near El-Murkah, extends with a greater or less breadth to almost the extremity of the peninsula. In its broadest part northward of Tur it is called El-Kaa, which is probably the desert of Sin [ROBINSON].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron: The whole congregation grumbles, and Aaron shares the blame. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown admit the sin and still see why people who had walked by sight all their lives found it hard to walk by faith in the desert. The foremen had blamed both men the same way at 5:21.
Exodus 16:2
“They invidiously charge Moses with a design to starve them when he brought them out of Egypt; whereas what he had done was both by order from God and with a design to promote their welfare. Note, It is no new thing for the greatest kindnesses to be misinterpreted and basely represented as the greatest injuries. The worst colours are sometimes put upon the best actions.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3 more voices on this verse
Exodus 16:2
“But this is too common with the wicked, (because they do not trust that God is reconciled to them,) to neglect prayer, and to cry out in confusion, to utter their curses, and to rush, like mad dogs, furiously here and there. This was the case of the Israelites in the wilderness of Sin.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Exodus 16:2
“The whole congregation - murmured - This is an additional proof of the degraded state of the minds of this people; See Clarke’s note on Exo 13:17. And this very circumstance affords a convincing argument that a people so stupidly carnal could not have been induced to leave Egypt had they not been persuaded so to do by the most evident and striking miracles. Human nature can never be reduced to a more abject state in this world than that in which the body is enthralled by political slavery, and the soul debased by the influence of sin.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 16:2
“Murmured - The want of food was first felt after six weeks from the time of the departure from Egypt, see Exo 16:1: we have no notice previously of any deficiency of bread.”
The memory has been rewritten in a month. Exodus 2:23 has these people sighing by reason of the bondage and crying out, and here the same bondage is remembered as flesh pots and bread to the full. They also charge Moses with an intention, that he brought them out to kill the whole assembly with hunger, which is the accusation the sea drew from them at 14:11.
Exodus 16:3
“By the hand of the Lord - This evidently refers to the plagues, especially the last, in Egypt: the death which befell the Egyptians appeared to the people preferable to the sufferings of famine. Flesh pots, and ... bread - These expressions prove that the servile labors to which they had been subjected did not involve privations: they were fed abundantly, either by the officials of Pharaoh, or more probably by the produce of their own fertile district.”
3 more voices on this verse
Exodus 16:3
“If Moses only had brought them out of Egypt, he could not thus have fed them; they must therefore own that that was the Lord's doing, because this was so, and both were marvellous in their eyes; yet, long afterwards, they needed to be told that Moses gave them not this bread from heaven, John vi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Exodus 16:3
“Although this manner of speaking first referred to that people, nonetheless we see it now daily fulfilled in our life and profession. For everyone who has first renounced this world and then returns to his former pursuits and his erstwhile desires proclaims that in deed and in intention he is the same as they were, and he says, "It was well with me in Egypt."I fear that there will be found as many such people as we read there were multitudes of sinners in the time of Moses.”
John Cassian · written before 435 · CONFERENCE 3.7.6-7patristic
Exodus 16:3
“And though we may lament they should tempt God in the wilderness and freely admit their sin in so doing, we can be at no loss for a reason why those who had all their lives been accustomed to walk by sight should, in circumstances of unparalleled difficulty and perplexity, find it hard to walk by faith.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Exodus 16:4-5
The phrase bread from heaven occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and Psalm 78:24 repeats it before John 6:31 puts it in the mouth of a crowd asking Jesus for a sign. At John 6:32 and 6:33 he answers that Moses gave them not that bread from heaven and sets the true bread against it, which makes this verse one of the places where the New Testament takes up an Exodus line itself. The provision is also described as a test, a certain rate every day that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, and no law has yet been given at Sinai.
Exodus 16:4
“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 (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:4
“IT seems to us that it must have been a very difficult thing to supply food for the hundreds of thousands, I shall not be incorrect if I say the millions who were in the wilderness. But, difficult as that was, the commissariat was not so difficult as the education. To train that mob of slaves into a nation under discipline—to lift up those who had been in bondage and make them fit to enjoy national privileges—this was the Herculean task that Moses had to perform.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2332: “Lessons From the Manna” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
when they prepare what they bring in: The verb prepare points to cooking, and at verse 23 the people bake and boil the sixth day's portion. Albert Barnes notes that the manna could be ground, baked and boiled like grain, and he takes that as a mark that it differed from the natural product. The rule arrives before the Sabbath has a name.
Exodus 16:5
“It shall be twice as much - They should collect and prepare a double quantity.”
Exodus 16:6-7
The answer is split across a day, flesh at evening and sight in the morning. The phrase glory of the LORD occurs for the first time in Scripture at verse 7, and it returns on the mountain at 24:16 and on the finished tabernacle at 40:34. Moses and Aaron will not take the complaint as their own, asking what are we, that ye murmur against us.
Exodus 16:6
“Ye shall know that the Lord hath brought you out - After all the miracles they had seen they appear still to suppose that their being brought out of Egypt was the work of Moses and Aaron; for though the miracles they had already seen were convincing for the time, yet as soon as they had passed by they relapsed into their former infidelity. God therefore saw it necessary to give them a daily miracle in the fall of the manna, that they might have the proof if his Divine interposition constantly before their eyes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
in the morning you will see the LORD’s glory: Adam Clarke notices that the LORD's glory seems to stand apart from the LORD here, for in the morning the glory is what has heard the grumbling of the people. Justin Martyr counts the Glory among the titles of the Son, with Wisdom, Angel and Logos. The Berean leaves the He open.
Exodus 16:7
“Ye shall see the glory of the Lord - Does it not appear that the glory of the Lord is here spoken of as something distinct from the Lord? for it is said He (the glory) heareth your murmurings against the Lord; though the Lord may be here put for himself, the antecedent instead of the relative.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:7
“I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun).”
Justin Martyr · written before 165 · Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter LXIpatristic
Exodus 16:8-9
Moses says twice in one verse where the murmuring has actually landed, that it is not against us, but against the LORD. The complaint was addressed to two men in the camp and it is answered by God directly. Aaron's summons then puts a grumbling crowd in the posture of an assembly, come near before the LORD, before anything has been given them.
Exodus 16:8
“In the evening flesh to eat - Viz., the quails; and in the morning bread to the full, viz., the manna. And what are we? - Only his servants, obeying his commands. Your murmurings are not against us - For we have not brought you up from Egypt; but against the Lord, who, by his own miraculous power and goodness, has brought you out of your slavery.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:8
“Many there are of whom we say that they are better fed than taught; but the Israelites were thus fed, that they might be taught. He led him about, he instructed him ( Deut. xxxii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Then Moses said to Aaron: Moses speaks to the congregation through Aaron, as he had spoken to Pharaoh through him, and Adam Clarke traces the pattern to 7:1, where Aaron is named Moses's prophet. He has heard your grumbling now stands for the third time.
Exodus 16:9
“Come near before the Lord - This has been supposed to refer to some particular place, where the Lord manifested his presence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 16:10-11
The glory appears in the cloud that has gone before them since 13:21, so the pillar they have followed for a month turns out to have something inside it. They are told to look toward the wilderness, which is the direction of the emptiness they had just complained about. The same glory settles on Sinai at 24:16 and fills the tabernacle at 40:34, and in every case it arrives in a cloud.
Exodus 16:10
“As Aaron spake - So he now became the spokesman or minister of Moses to the Hebrews, as he had been before unto Pharaoh; according to what is written, Exo 7:1, etc.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Then the LORD said to Moses: Matthew Henry reads the glory and the word that follows it as God's own answer, given to still the grumbling and to put honour on Moses and Aaron. Verse 12 confirms the promise Moses made at verse 8.
Exodus 16:12-13
The stated purpose of the food is knowledge, ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which is the sentence the plagues kept saying to Egypt at 7:5 and to Israel at 6:7. Quails come up at evening and cover the camp, and dew lies round about the host in the morning. Numbers 11:31 to 11:33 records quails a second time and there the same provision ends in a plague, which is the difference between the two books: in Exodus a complaint is answered with food, and in Numbers it is answered with judgment.
What Is It? Bread from Heaven
That evening quail came and covered the camp: Albert Barnes notes that quail come up from the south in great numbers in spring, most of all near the Red Sea, and he sets the miracle in their arrival on the evening the LORD had named. John Gill cites Josephus, who says the tired birds came down on the camp and were taken by hand. The second month of verse 1 falls in spring.
Exodus 16:13
“And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up,.... From the coasts of Egypt, from the Red sea, over which they flew; and being evening, and weary with flying so long, lighted and settled where the Israelites encamped. Josephus (l) says, about the Arabian gulf there are more of this sort of birds than any other, which flying over the sea, and being weary, and coming nearer the ground than other birds, and lighting among the Hebrews, they took them with their hands as food prepared for them of God.”
2 more voices on this verse
Exodus 16:13
“Quails - This bird migrates in immense numbers in spring from the south: it is nowhere more common than in the neighborhood of the Red Sea. In this passage we read of a single flight so dense that it covered the encampment. The miracle consisted in the precise time of the arrival and its coincidence with the announcement.”
Exodus 16:13
“Though it may be exhaled by the heat and afterwards fall with the dew, it is a medicine, not food--it is well known to the natives of the desert, while the Israelites were strangers to theirs; and in taste as well as in the appearance of double quantity on Friday, none on Sabbath, and in not breeding worms, it is essentially different from the manna furnished to the Israelites.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Exodus 16:14-15
The description comes before the name, a small round thing as small as the hoar frost on the ground. What the people say to one another is a question, and the text says outright that they wist not what it was, so the food is called after the puzzle it caused. The word manna occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and Moses answers with a source rather than a substance, this is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat, which is the answer John 6:32 takes up.
Exodus 16:14
“Behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing - It appears that this small round thing fell with the dew, or rather the dew fell first, and this substance fell on it. The dew might have been intended to cool the ground, that the manna on its fall might not be dissolved; for we find from Exo 16:21, that the heat of the sun melted it. The ground therefore being sufficiently cooled by the dew, the manna lay unmelted long enough for the Israelites to collect a sufficient quantity for their dally use.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:14
But if there are some who have come out of Egypt and, following the pillar of fire and cloud, are entering the wilderness, then he comes down from heaven to them and offers them a small, thin food, like to the food of angels; so that "man eats the bread of angels."
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 1:4patristic
they asked one another, “What is it?”: The people's question is man hu in Hebrew. Albert Barnes connects man with man-hut, the Egyptian name for the sweet white grains of the tamarisk in the Sinai peninsula. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown class that desert manna as a medicine and set it apart from Israel's bread by its taste, by the sixth-day double and by the Sabbath.
Exodus 16:15
"This is the bread that God gave" to you "to eat." Hear who this bread is: "The word," Scripture says, "which God has ordained." This then is the ordination of God; this food nourishes the soul of the wise. It illuminates and it sweetens, resplendent with the gleam of truth and soothing, as if with a honeycomb, by the sweetness of different virtues and the word of wisdom. For "good words are sweeter than a honeycomb," as it is written in Proverbs.
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 64.2patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:15
“It is manna - “Man” or “man-hut,” i. e. white manna, was the name under which the substance was known to the Egyptians, and therefore to the Israelites. The manna of the Peninsula of Sinai is the sweet juice of the Tarfa, a species of tamarisk. It exudes from the trunk and branches in hot weather, and forms small round white grains. In cold weather it preserves its consistency, in hot weather it melts rapidly. It is either gathered from the twigs of tamarisk, or from the fallen leaves underneath the tree. The color is a greyish yellow.”
Exodus 16:16-18
The measure is an omer a head, reckoned by appetite and by the number of persons in a tent rather than by standing. Verse 18 reports the outcome, that he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. Paul quotes that line at 2 Corinthians 8:15 when he asks one church to even out a collection for another, so the gathering is unequal and the result is not.
Exodus 16:16
“An omer for every man - I shall here once for all give a short account of the measures of capacity among the Hebrews. Omer, עמר from the root amar, to press, squeeze, collect, and bind together; hence a sheaf of corn - a multitude of stalks pressed together.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Some gathered more, and some less: Albert Barnes reads some more and some less as a first failure, with part of the people ignoring the ration of an omer a head. He calls it the first trial of the manna. Verses 20 and 27 record two more failures.
Exodus 16:17
“Some more, some less - It is evidently implied that the people were in part at least disobedient and failed in this first trial.”
When they measured it by the omer: Adam Clarke explains the even result by the size of each household, since every man gathered for the number who ate in his tent. Measured by the omer, large and small families came out level.
Exodus 16:18
“He that gathered much had nothing over - Because his gathering was in proportion to the number of persons for whom he had to provide. And some having fewer, others more in family, and the gathering being in proportion to the persons who were to eat of it, therefore he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Cross references
Exodus 16:18
- Quoted in2 Corinthians 8:15As it is written: “He who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall.”
'He that gathered much had nothing over' (manna equality, 'as it is written')
Exodus 16:19-20
The one rule attached to the bread is that it cannot be stored, so a people anxious about tomorrow are handed exactly one day at a time. Some keep it back anyway and it breeds worms and stinks, which is the first recorded disobedience after the sea. Moses was wroth with them, and the text records nothing further done about it.
Exodus 16:19
“Let no man leave of it till the morning - For God would have them to take no thought for the morrow, and constantly to depend on him for their dally bread. And is not that petition in our Lord’s prayer founded on this very circumstance, Give us day by day our daily bread?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
But they did not listen to Moses: Adam Clarke names curiosity and covetousness as the motive. He reads the maggots and the smell as God making disobedience unpleasant, so that the people turn back and trust Him. They did not listen to Moses echoes 6:9, where the Israelites did not listen to him on account of their broken spirit and cruel bondage.
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. How gracious is God! He is continually rendering disobedience and sin irksome to the transgressor; that finding his evil ways to be unprofitable, he may return to his Maker, and trust in God alone.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 16:21-22
The window is short, since what is left on the ground when the sun waxes hot melts away. On the sixth day twice as much comes up and the rulers of the congregation come and tell Moses about it, which means the people had not been told what God said to him at verse 5. The double portion arrives before anyone knows what it is for.
Exodus 16:21
“It melted - This refers to the manna which was not gathered.”
A Double Portion Before the Sabbath
Adam Clarke calls the sixth-day gathering a convincing miracle, since manna that fell by nature would have been there on the seventh day as on the other days. Two omers per person is exactly double the ration of verse 16.
Exodus 16:22
“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 (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 16:23-24
The word sabbath occurs here for the first time in Scripture, four chapters before the fourth commandment at 20:8 tells Israel to remember it. Genesis 2:2 and 2:3 have God resting on the seventh day, blessing it and sanctifying it, and never use the noun. The order matters, because by the time Sinai says remember the sabbath day the people have weeks of bread that fell on six mornings and not on the seventh, and the older commentators take the manna as the sabbath taught by practice before it is given as law.
Exodus 16:23
“Here is a plain intimation of the observing a seventh day sabbath, not only before the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai, but before the bringing of Israel out of Egypt and therefore from the beginning.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
it did not smell or contain any maggots: The same bread that became infested with maggots and began to smell at verse 20 is kept until morning here without either. Adam Clarke credits the LORD with keeping it pure on that one night each week. Here the keeping obeyed what Moses had commanded.
Exodus 16:24
“And they laid it up until the morning, as Moses bade,.... What was left of two omers a man, what they had neither baked nor boiled: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein, which was the case, when it was left or laid up on other days; and it showed that there was an interposition of divine Providence in the keeping of it to this day, and clearly confirmed it to be the will of God that this day should henceforward be to them the rest of the holy sabbath.”
Exodus 16:25-26
What was laid up overnight and did not stink is the day's food, so the sixth day's work feeds the seventh day's rest. The instruction is also negative, that to day ye shall not find it in the field, so the rest holds because nothing is there rather than because anyone resisted going out. Six days ye shall gather it, and on the seventh there shall be none, which is the shape Genesis 2:2 gave the week.
Exodus 16:25
“Eat that today - The practical observance of the Sabbath was thus formally instituted before the giving of the law. The people were to abstain from the ordinary work of every day life: they were not to collect food, nor, as it would seem, even to prepare it as on other days.”
on the seventh day, the Sabbath: Here the seventh day and the Sabbath are named as one. John Wesley reads the chapter as a sign of a seventh-day Sabbath kept from the beginning, before Israel left Egypt. Albert Barnes holds that its practical observance was formally instituted here, before the law was given at Sinai.
Exodus 16:27-28
Some go out on the seventh day anyway and find nothing, so the question is settled by an empty field rather than by a penalty. God's reply names commandments and laws in the plural at a point before Sinai, and readers have long divided over what those were. Some take them as the instructions given in this chapter, others as commands known from the fathers, and the verse itself does not say.
Exodus 16:27
“There went out some of the people - This was an act of willful disobedience. It is remarkable, being the first violation of the express command, that it was not visited by a signal chastisement: the rest and peace of the “holy Sabbath” were not disturbed by a manifestation of wrath.”
Albert Barnes hears in How long a reference back to verse 4, where the LORD said the manna would test whether they would follow His instructions. He calls each miracle part of an education in faith. The rebuke is spoken to Moses in the plural.
Exodus 16:28
“How long - The reference to Exo 16:4 is obvious. The prohibition involved a trial of faith, in which as usual the people were found wanting. Every miracle formed some part, so to speak, of an educational process.”
Exodus 16:29-30
The day is described as something given, and the double portion on the sixth day is given because the rest is given. The restriction that follows, abide ye every man in his place, is read by most commentators as staying out of the field rather than staying indoors, and the later rabbinic sabbath limit on how far a man may walk is drawn from this verse. Verse 30 reports the people resting on the seventh day, which is the first rest the narrative records of anyone but God.
Exodus 16:29
“Abide ye every man in his place - The expression in Hebrew is unique and seems almost to enjoin a position of complete repose: “in his place” is literally under himself, as the Oriental sits with his legs drawn up under him. The prohibition must however be understood with reference to its immediate object; they were not to go forth from their place in order to gather manna, which was on other days without the camp. The spirit of the law is sacred rest. The Lord gave them this Sabbath, as a blessing and privilege.”
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:29
“Moreover in regard to the celebrated sabbath, a careful reader will see that the command, "You shall sit each one in your dwellings; let none of you go out from his place on the sabbath day," is an impossible one to observe literally, for no living creature could sit for a whole day and not move from his seat.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 4.3.2patristic
So the people rested on the seventh day: The verb for rested is shabat, the root of the noun Sabbath and the verb used of God at Genesis 2:2. Albert Barnes calls the day a blessing and a privilege the LORD gave them. The rebuke of verse 28 had its effect.
Exodus 16:30
“So the people rested on the seventh day. Did not attempt to go out of their tents in quest of manna, as on other days, and observed it as a day of rest from labour, and so they continued to do in successive generations.”
An Omer of Manna Kept
Exodus 16:31-32
The house of Israel keeps its own question as the name of the food, which the people had already used of it at verse 15. The description is domestic, like coriander seed, white, with the taste of wafers made with honey, and Numbers 11:7 and 11:8 describe it again as the colour of bdellium tasting of fresh oil, by which point the people are tired of it. An omer of it is to be filled and kept so that a later generation can see the bread rather than be told about it.
Exodus 16:31
“The Word of God becomes all these things to each and every one according as the capacity or the desire of the participant requires. In just the same way the manna also, although it was one food, yielded its flavor to each person after his desire. So he does not offer himself only as bread to those who hunger and as wine to those who thirst, but he presents himself also as fragrant apples to those who crave delights.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 3:8patristic
The words for the generations to come were said three times of the Passover in chapter 12, and here they attach the same memory to a jar of food. Psalm 78:25 calls it the bread of angels. Origen of Alexandria read that food as the Word coming down from heaven to those who have left Egypt.
Exodus 16:32
“The Israelites Murmur for Bread. 1 And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:32
“To be kept for your generations - See Clarke’s note on Exo 16:9.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 16:33-34
The pot is laid up before the Testimony, and the word testimony occurs here for the first time in Scripture. Neither the ark nor the tabernacle exists yet, so commentators read verse 34 as recording where the pot ended up rather than where it was first set down. Hebrews 9:4 names the golden pot that had manna among the things kept in the ark.
Exodus 16:33
“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.”
ConnectionsRevelation 2:17
Aaron placed it in front of the Testimony: John Gill explains the name Testimony by the tablets of the law the ark would hold, the witness to God's will that 25:16 tells Moses to place inside it. Adam Clarke hears in the word a witness to Christ.
Exodus 16:34
“As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony, to be kept. That is, before the ark of the testimony; when that was made, as it was in a little time after this, called the testimony, because it contained in it the law, which was a testimony or testification of the mind and will of God unto Israel, see Exo 25:16 the apostle says, the pot of manna was in the ark, Heb 9:4 that is, on one side of it; see Gill on Heb 9:4.”
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 16:34
“Laid it up before the testimony - The עדות eduth or testimony belonged properly to the tabernacle, but that was not yet built. Some are of opinion that the tabernacle, built under the direction of Moses, was only a renewal of one that had existed in the patriarchal times. See Clarke’s note on Exo 16:9. The word signifies reference to something beyond itself; thus the tabernacle, the manna, the tables of stone, Aaron’s rod, etc., all bore reference and testimony to that spiritual good which was yet to come, viz., Jesus Christ and his salvation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 16:35-36
The supply runs the whole wilderness period, and Joshua 5:12 records the morning it stopped, the day after they ate of the old corn of the land at Gilgal. Bread fell from heaven for exactly as long as there was no other bread. The chapter then defines an omer as the tenth part of an ephah, which is a line written for readers who no longer measured that way.
Exodus 16:35
“Did eat manna forty years - This does not necessarily imply that the Israelites were fed exclusively on manna, or that the supply was continuous during forty years: but that whenever it might be needed, owing to the total or partial failure of other food, it was given until they entered the promised land.”
an omer is a tenth of an ephah.): Adam Clarke puts the omer at about six English pints, and he thinks the verse belongs after verse 18, where the gathering was measured. Ruth 2:17 gives about an ephah as one day's gleaning.
Exodus 16:36
“Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah - About six pints, English. See Clarke’s note on Exo 16:16. The true place of this verse seems to be immediately after Exo 16:18, for here it has no connection. 1. On the miracle of the manna, which is the chief subject in this chapter, a good deal has already been said in the preceding notes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A wilderness provision narrative built around a test, with the rules of gathering as its subject, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The grumbling, named five times in eleven verses | The complaint is named at verses 2, 7, 8, 9 and 12, and twice Moses says that the grumbling is against the LORD rather than against him and Aaron. The repetition makes the complaint the subject of the chapter's first half, and it is the complaint that the provision answers. | Exodus 16:2, Exodus 16:7, Exodus 16:8, Exodus 16:12 |
| The rules of gathering, set down one at a time | An omer for each person, gather what you need, keep none overnight, gather twice as much on the sixth day, and find none on the seventh. Five rules stand between verses 16 and 26, and each is broken by somebody before the chapter ends. Albert Barnes reads verse 27 as the first recorded act of wilful disobedience after the law of the manna was given.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, on Exodus 16:27. | Exodus 16:16, Exodus 16:19, Exodus 16:22, Exodus 16:26 |
| What is it, the question that became the name | Verse 15 says the Israelites asked one another what it was, because they did not know, and verse 31 says the house of Israel called the bread manna. The name of Israel's food for forty years is the question they asked on the first morning. | Exodus 16:15, Exodus 16:31 |
| Then you will know that I am the LORD your God | Verse 6 says that by evening they will know who brought them out of Egypt, and verse 12 says that after the meat and the bread they will know that he is the LORD their God. The provision is given with a stated purpose, and the purpose is knowledge rather than food. | Exodus 16:6, Exodus 16:12 |
The chapter stands one month past the sea and it is the first of the great wilderness provisions. It sets the shape the others follow: a shortage, a complaint aimed at Moses, an answer aimed at the LORD, a provision, and a rule attached to the provision.
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
The pattern inside the chapter is a daily test. Nothing can be stored. The food fails overnight for six days and keeps overnight on one, and the exception is the whole lesson. Barnes and Matthew Henry both read the seventh-day rule as the Sabbath kept in practice before Sinai, and John Wesley writes that the passage is a plain intimation of a seventh-day Sabbath observed before the law was given on the mountain.
The chapter also gives one of the Bible's clearest pictures of enough. Verse 18 says the one who gathered much had nothing over and the one who gathered little had no shortfall, and Adam Clarke explains it by the size of the household each man gathered for.
The New Testament's use
Paul quotes verse 18 word for word at 2 Corinthians 8:15, where he applies it to the collection for the poor in Jerusalem and to the principle that the one with much should have nothing over. Jesus takes up the chapter at John 6:31 to 35 and again at 6:48 to 51, where the bread from heaven that the fathers ate is set against the bread that gives life. Paul reads the manna as spiritual food at 1 Corinthians 10:3. Hebrews 9:4 places the golden jar of manna inside the ark. Revelation 2:17 promises hidden manna to the one who overcomes. The chapter is used across four New Testament writers.
The debated point
Whether the manna had a natural source is contested and the disagreement is old. Adam Clarke reads verse 4 as settling it, on the ground that a substance rained from heaven was no production of the desert. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown record the proposal that the substance exuded in the region by heat and falling with the dew is the same thing, and answer that the natural substance is a medicine rather than a food, which they take as fatal to the identification. Both positions are in the store's own pool of voices for this chapter. The points that the chapter itself supplies against a purely natural account are the quantity, the six-day pattern, the failure to keep overnight, the keeping overnight on one day, and the forty years.
Where to go deeper
The bread itself is set out at manna and the wider subject at bread. The seventh day is set out at Sabbath rest. The country is set out at the wilderness, and the chest the jar was placed before at the ark of the covenant.
Keep studying
Studies5
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, on Psalm 95 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, on Exodus 16:28; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Exodus 16:2 and Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on the Song of Songs 3:8, 253.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 61; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on the Song of Songs 1:4.