In this lesson, students learn about the blessing of daily bread.
Devotion
Matthew 6:11 Give us today our daily bread.
It seems redundant for Jesus to tell us to pray today for our daily bread. But as our creator, He knows that we can easily become over anxious for our daily bread. In other places, He tells us not to worry about the future or be concerned about the past. Every day, He will take care of us, so we don't ever need to be concerned. He tells us that since He died for us, He surely will take care of our daily needs.
But what would happen if we would forget to pray for our daily bread. Would He let us starve? Silly Christian, of course not. He sustains everybody in the whole world with their daily bread. He even takes care of the animals that way. They don't pray for daily bread. So why do we pray? We pray so that WE remember that He provides for all our needs. Not just bread. We eat lots of different foods, so when we pray for bread we mean all our food.
But we also should remember all the other things He provides for us. We should thank Him constantly for taking care of us. In this unit of our course, there are twelve lessons on what we pray as daily bread.
Are there people in the world who are starving? Of course there are. Each day 25,000 people die of starvation. That's a thousand each hour. They starve not because God doesn't provide enough food, but because other people take from them or keep from them the food God provides. We pray that He would remove those foes from their lives so they, too, can enjoy His blessing.
Your parents get paid so they can buy food for you. Seldom do they get paid each day. More likely, it is weekly, or even monthly. It is good that we have refrigerators that are able to store food so that we don't have to buy food every day. Shopping every day for food seems like drudgery for us. But it isn't for the LORD. He gives us each day our daily bread.
The lesson
16 On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt, the entire Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Wilderness of Sin,[a] which is between Elim and Sinai. 2 The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat around pots of meat and ate as much food as we wanted, but now you have brought us out into this wilderness to have this whole community die of hunger.”
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Watch what I will do. I will rain down bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether they will follow my instructions or not. 5 On the sixth day they will prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “At evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the Glory of the Lord, because he has heard your constant grumbling against the Lord. Who are we that you should grumble against us?”
8 Moses said, “Now the Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and as much bread as you want in the morning, because the Lord has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”
9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling.’” 10 As Aaron spoke to the entire Israelite community, they turned toward the wilderness, and suddenly the Glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.
11 The Lord spoke to Moses: 12 “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Say to them, ‘At evening you will eat meat, and in the morning you will eat bread until you are full. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”
13 So in the evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning a layer of dew surrounded the camp. 14 When the layer of dew was gone, there were thin flakes on the surface of the wilderness, thin as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?”[b] because they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given to you as food to eat. 16 This is what the Lord has commanded: All of them are to gather as much of it as they need to eat. You are to take an omer[c] per person based on the number of people each of you has in your tents.”
17 The Israelites did this, and some gathered more, some less. 18 When they measured it with an omer, the one who gathered more did not have too much, and the one who gathered less did not have too little. All of them gathered as much as they needed to eat. 19 Moses said to them, “No one is to leave any of it until morning.” 20 However, they did not listen to Moses. Some of them left part of it until morning, and it became full of worms and stank. So Moses was angry with them.
21 They gathered it each morning. All of them gathered as much as they needed to eat. When the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers for each person, and all the leaders of the community came and reported to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: Tomorrow is a complete rest, a holy sabbath[d] to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, but set aside for yourselves all the rest of it to be kept until morning.”
24 So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. 25 Moses said, “Today eat whatever is left over, for today is a sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find any around the camp.[e] 26 Six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”
27 On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather it, but they did not find any. 28 The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you people refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions? 29 Look, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day he will give you two days’ worth of bread. All of you are to stay where you are. None of you are to leave your places on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
31 The house of Israel called it manna.[f] It looked like white coriander seed, and it tasted like wafers made with honey. 32 Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: A full omer[g] of it is to be kept throughout your generations so that they may see the bread which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
33 Moses said to Aaron, “Take a container, and put a full omer of manna in it. Place it before the Lord, to be kept throughout your generations.” 34 To obey the Lord’s command to Moses, Aaron placed an omer before the Testimony,[h] to be preserved. 35 The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to a land that was inhabited. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. 36 (An omer, by the way, is one-tenth of an ephah.)
Exodus 16:1 Sin is a geographic name like Sinai. It does not refer to Israel’s sin.
Exodus 16:15 The Hebrew for What is it? sounds like the word for manna.
Exodus 16:16 An omer is a container that holds approximately two quarts. Since the term here means both the container and the amount that it holds, and an omer is compared with an ephah, another ancient measurement, the translation retains the Hebrew term rather than converting it to a present-day measurement. See verse 36.
Exodus 16:23 The Hebrew word shabbat means a day of rest. Here the Hebrew reads a shabbaton, a holy shabbat to the Lord.
Exodus 16:25 Literally in the field
Exodus 16:31 Manna sounds like the Hebrew for What is it? See verse 15.
Exodus 16:32 An omer is a container that holds about two quarts. See the note on verse 16.
Exodus 16:34 The Testimony is another name for the Ten Commandments and for the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Ten Commandments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TLSjwur8h4 beginning to about 6:00
Questions.
Today's Manna according to this article, manna is either sap or insect secretions. Obviously not the same stuff the Children of Israel ate since it came six days a week and not the seventh.