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Exodus 16:22–30
“See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day” (v. 29).
Scripture’s teaching on the providence of God makes it plain that He is active in creation not only when He performs miracles but also in the ordinary rhythms of life such as the laws of nature and the cycle of work and rest whereby we labor to secure our needs. He works all things according to His will, giving us the power to gain the things we need (Eph. 1:11; see Deut. 8:18). This means that what we have comes no less from His hand when we obtain it through ordinary means than when it comes by evident supernatural actions outside the regular patterns of nature. Matthew Henry comments, “The same wisdom, power, and goodness that now brought food daily out of the clouds, are employed in the constant course of nature, bringing food yearly out of the earth, and giving us all things richly to enjoy.”
During Israel’s time in the wilderness, the people received food through the miracle of the manna, and in this feeding God was testing them and preparing them for obedience. They would have to believe His word that He would give bread every day and not keep any of it overnight except on the sixth day of the week (Ex. 16:4–5, 16, 19, 22). This trained them to trust in the Lord and to look for Him to meet their daily needs. Moreover, the rules God established for gathering and saving the manna helped them learn to keep the Sabbath, as we see in today’s passage.
On the sixth day of the week, the Lord told the Israelites to gather twice as much manna as they had on the preceding five days. One omer of manna was to be consumed per person on day six and one would be left over for day seven, when no manna would be provided so that the people would have a day of rest from their labor. Any cooking of the manna that the people kept for the Sabbath day had to be done on the sixth day so that they would not have to do the work of cooking either, and unlike on the other days of the week, the extra food kept overnight on the sixth day for consumption on the Sabbath did not spoil (Ex. 16:22–26).
Again, not all the people believed and obeyed God’s commands regarding the manna, with some of them going out on the Sabbath day to collect bread but finding none (Ex. 16:27–30). Just as the spoiled leftover manna on days one through five served as an object lesson to show Israel their need to obey God, the lack of manna on day seven gave an object lesson demonstrating the people’s need to rest.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Under the new covenant, the Sabbath of God is the Lord’s Day, when we are to rest from our ordinary labor. Although we do not keep the Christian Sabbath in exactly the same way as the old covenant Sabbath, we can draw principles from old covenant practice. For instance, today’s passage teaches us the wisdom of preparing as much as we can on Saturday so that we can rest on the Lord’s Day.
For Further Study
- Exodus 20:8–11
- Exodus 35:1–3
- Numbers 15:32–36
- Hebrews 4:9