An article of commerce known under the name of“manna,” produced in the Arabian desert and in other Oriental regions, has scarcely any points in common with the manna of Scripture save the name. It exudes from shrubs; does not fall from the lower heavens in and with the dew; it is obtained at the utmost only about four months of the year; is most abundant in wet seasons—fails in the dry; is somewhat useful as a condiment and a medicine, but can never take the place of bread; and never has been known in such quantities as would supply bread for the hosts of Israel.
How long the pot of manna was preserved in the ark of the covenant can not be known definitely. We have the fact that the Lord directed its preservation there (Ex. 16: 32–34); and the further fact that when the ark was placed in the new temple of Solomon there was nothing in it save the two tables of stone (1 Kings 8: 9). It was doubtless kept long enough to subserve all the valuable purposes of a memorial to the generations of Israel. It has been embalmed in the Christian consciousness of the Christian age by its symbolical use in the teachings of our Lord in which it represents his flesh which he gave for the life of the world—the far more real bread of life from heaven (John 6: 31–35, 47–58).
Water Supplied by Miracle.
The subsistence of the Israelites during forty years in the desert of Arabia involved not only a supply of bread but of water also. On two distinct occasions—the first at Rephidim, close to Horeb, during the last half of the second month from Egypt; and the second at Kadesh, in the northern border of the great desert,and during the first month of the fortieth year from Egypt,[38] water was supplied them by miracle.
So great a multitude of people, including their animals, must have required a large supply of water.Nothing therefore is more probable than that the supply should often be short, and sometimes utterly fail. At Rephidim the people most unreasonably chode with Moses as if he alone was responsible for bringing them out of Egypt and for the lack of water, and as if their sufferings were so great as altogether to eclipse all the blessings of that great deliverance. Moses had no help but in the Lord his God. In answer to prayer the Lord provided for a miracle, to be well attested by the presence of a body of the elders of the people. “Take them with thee,” saith the Lord, “and take also thy rod wherewith thou smitest the river” (the Nile) “and go. I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.”——The names given were significant—“Massah” of their tempting the Lord by their unbelief; Meribah, of their chiding and strife as to Moses.
The scenes at Kadesh (Num. 20) were almost forty years subsequent, and consequently involved another generation. The spirit of their complaint was quite the same however—chiding Moses most unreasonably, petulantly wishing they had died before the Lord as so many of their brethren who had fallen under God’s judgments in the wilderness since the unbelieving report of the spies and the consequent wrath of God upon the people. Sadly we must note here that this unreasonable and even cruel reflection upon Moses stirred his indignation, excited him unduly, and found expression in ill-advised words from his lips. The Lord had told him to take Aaron his brother, to gather the people together before the rock, and then speak to the rock before their eyes and it should give forth water. When the eventful moment came, Moses, instead of saying—Ye have sinned against the Lord your God, yet in his mercy he will give you rivers of water from this rock upon the word of command from his servant—said as in the record—“Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock”? In circumstances where man should be nothing and God all in all—man only a consciously unworthy instrument, and God the Supreme and ever to be honored Power, it was one of the sad infirmities of the best of men to put himself so prominently forward and thrust the Great God so ungratefullyinto the back-ground. Then, moved by the same excited passion, instead of speaking to the rock, he smote it with his rod, not once only but twice. Yet the Lord did not rebuke him with failure, but despite of his bad spirit, gave forth water abundantly. The rebuke upon both Moses and Aaron came shortly after in the form of an absolute prohibition upon their entering the land of promise. They had so dishonored the Lord in this case at Kadesh that he must needs express his disapprobation by denying to both of them the long-desired consummation of entering the goodly land.——If the Lord’s rebuke of Moses seem severe, let it be considered that his sin was very great because he had been admitted into so near communion with God—such communion as had never been granted to any other man. If the guilt of sin be as the light sinned against, we are not likely to overestimate the guilt of his. The Lord speaks of it as rebellion (Num. 27: 14). And manifestly his sin was so public as well as so flagrant that it became vital to the honor of God’s name and government to rebuke it unmistakably.
The exclusion from Canaan fell sorely upon the heart of Moses. He prayed earnestly that God would reverse this decree, but in vain. The Lord shut off all hope, saying, “Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter” (Deut. 3: 23–27). Sorrowful are the words of Moses: “I must die in this land; I must not go over Jordan” (Deut. 4: 21).
The question arises naturally: Were these two cases—at Rephidim and at Kadesh—the only supplies by miracle during those forty years? One of them occurred during the first year of the forty; the other, during the last: was the whole intervening period barren of all miraculous supply? Or were these two cases put on record rather as specimens than as exhaustive history?——Yet another question comes up: How long did the supply in each of these two cases continue? Rephidim was adjacent to Sinai, and the hosts of Israel remained before and near that mountain many days. Did the supply from the Rephidim rock hold good during this entire period? Did it follow them along their journey in the wilderness still further?
To these questions the first answer is—that the history is silent as to the duration of the supply in eithercase. Moses might have told us definitely, but he has not.——Beyond this it only remains to take note of the allusions to this supply, made elsewhere in the Scriptures, and to suggest the probabilities of the case.——The writer of Ps. 78 sings: “He clave the rock in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers” (vs. 15, 16). In Ps. 114: 8, we read—“Who turned the rock into a standing water; the flint, into a fountain of water.” These words imply a great abundance for the time and seem to assume an ample supply so long as the hosts of Israel remained in those places. They do not necessarily imply that the waters followed them as a river in their journey onward from Rephidim or from Kadesh.——The allusions in Isa. 43: 19, 20, and 48: 21 are decisive as to the temporary supply but indefinite as to its duration.——The words of Paul (1 Cor. 10: 4) should be noted. “Our fathers all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ).”——In this passage, drinking of the Rock can be nothing else than drinking of the waters that issued from the rock. The only question of importance exegetically is—whether the words “followed them” refer to the waters or to the presence of Christ as in the pillar of cloud and of fire. The former seems the more obvious and natural reference, and, in so far, favors the view that these waters, furnished miraculously, did follow them to some extent on their journey—perhaps in the way of fresh supplies provided for them in a similar manner. It can not be doubted that the hosts of Israel had water through all their journeyings; they could not have subsisted long without it. The natural supply must have been vastly greater in that age than in this if it sufficed for this great host at all other points of their journey save at Rephidim and at Kadesh. The fact of a constant supply of bread by miracle favors the assumption of water miraculously provided whenever the supply from natural sources failed to meet their necessities. This is perhaps the utmost we can say in the way of probabilities.
The Battle With Amalek.