Desert beginnings

Today's readings are in Exodus 16, 17, 18.

The children of Israel with Moses as their leader have journeyed about one month from Egypt. They are a clan of 1.5 to 2.0 million people - no small group to be camping out in the desert. They move from the north of the Sinai peninsula towards the south - using desert oasis spots for more extended stays. It doesn't take long though and they are grumbling, complaining about what they don't have - not looking at what they do have.

"The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

How easily they forgot that just a couple of months before they were being treated as slaves by the Egyptians. Even in the complaints God acts on their behalf. First a shower of quail for meat to eat, and then the miracle of the bread - manna.

"The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey...The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan."

God's provision was this "bread from heaven". Interesting isn't it, since Jesus is the bread of life God sent from heaven also. This manna came day by day and needed replenishing...Jesus came once and for all - the living bread that when anyone eats of it they never hunger.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad