MURMURING FOR FOOD.
Exo 16:1-14.
The Israelites were now led farther away from all the
associations of their accustomed life. From the waters and the palms
of Elim they marched deeper into the savage recesses of the desert,
haunted by fierce and hostile tribes, such as presently hung upon
their rear-guard and cut off their stragglers (Deu 25:18). Nor had
they quite emerged from the shadow of their old oppressions, since
Egyptian garrisons were scattered, though sparsely, through this
district, in which gems and copper were obtained. Here, cut off from
all natural modes of sustenance, the hearts of the people failed
them. Such is the frequent experience of renewed souls, when
privilege and joy are followed by trouble from without or from
within, and the peace of God is broken by the strife of tongues, by
mental perplexities, by temptations, by physical pain. It is quite
as wonderful that paltry disturbances should mar for us the life
divine, when once that life has become a realised experience, as
that men who moved under the shadow of the marvellous cloud could be
agitated by fear for their supplies. And of this our experience,
what befel Israel is not a mere type or symbol, it is a case in
point, a parallel example. For it also meant the breaking-in of the
flesh upon the spirit, the refusal of fallen nature to rise above
earthly wants and cravings even in the light of trust and
acceptance, the self-assertion of the baser instincts, and the
sacrifice to them of the higher life. We recognise the herd of
slaves, from whence it must perplex the unbeliever to remember that
the seed of immortal heroism and prophetic insight and apostolic
service was yet to ripen, in their poor desire, if they must perish,
to perish well fed rather than emancipated (Exo 16:3). Most people,
we may fear, would choose to live enslaved rather than to die free
men. But there is a special meanness in their regret, since die they
must, that they had not died satiated, like the firstborn whom God
had slain: "Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in the
land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots and when we ate bread
to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to
kill this whole assembly with hunger." And today, among those who
scorn them, how many are far less ambitious of dying holy and pure
than rich, famous or powerful, having glutted their vanity if not
their appetite. In the sight of angels this is not a much loftier
aim; and the apostle reckoned among the works of the flesh,
emulation as well as drunkenness (Gal 5:19-21).
Tertullian draws a striking contrast between Israel, just now
baptized into Moses, but caring more for appetite than for God, and
Christ, after His baptism, also in the desert, fasting forty days.
"The Lord figuratively retorted upon Israel His reproach" (Baptism,
xx.)
We are not to suppose that but for their complaining God would
have suffered them to hunger, although Moses declared that the
reason why flesh should be given to them in the evening, and in the
morning bread to the full, is "for that the Lord heareth your
murmurings." But there would have been some difference in the time
of the grant, to ripen their faith, some more direct manifestation
of His grace, to reward their patience, if unbelief had not
precipitated His design. Thus the disciples, when they awakened
Jesus in the storm, received the rescue for which they clamoured,
but forfeited some higher experience which would have crowned a
serener confidence: "Wherefore did ye doubt?" Israel receives what
is best in the circumstances, rather than the ideal best, now made
unsuitable by their impatience and infidelity. But while the Lord
discontinued the test of need and penury, which had proved to be too
severe a discipline, He substituted the test of fulness. For we read
that the removal of their suspense and anxiety by the gift of manna
from heaven was "to prove them whether they will walk in My laws or
no" (Exo 16:4). And in so doing it was seen that worldly and
unthankful natures are not to be satisfied; that the disloyal at
heart will complain, however favoured. For "the children of Israel
wept again and said, Who will give us flesh to eat? We remember the
fish which we did eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers and the
melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlick: but now our
soul is dried away; there is nothing at all: we have nought save
this manna to look to" (Num 11:4-6). Onions and garlick were more
satisfactory to gross appetites than angels' food.
At this point we learn that what is called prosperity may indeed
be a result of spiritual failure; that God may sometimes abstain
from strong measures with a soul because what ought to mould would
only crush; and may grant them their hearts' lust, yet send leanness
withal into their souls. Perhaps we are allowed to be comfortable
because we are unfit to be heroic.
And we also learn, when prosperous, to remember that plenty,
equally with want, has its moral aspect. The Lord tries fortunate
men, whether they will be grateful and obedient, trusting in Him and
not in uncertain riches, or whether they will forget Him who has
done so great things for them, and so perish in calm weather--
"Like ships that have gone down at sea
When heaven was all tranquillity."
There is an experiment being tried upon the soul, curious, slow,
little-suspected, but incessant, in the giving of daily bread.
In promising relief, God required of them obedience and
self-control. They were to respect the Sabbath, and make provision
in advance for its requirements. And this direction, given before
the Mount of the Lord was reached, has an important bearing upon the
question whether the Fourth Commandment was the first institution of
a holy day--whether, except as a Church ordinance, the duty of
sabbath-keeping has no support beyond the ceremonial law. "For that
the Lord hath (already) given you the Sabbath, therefore He giveth
you on the sixth day the bread of two days" (Exo 16:29).
While conveying the promise of relief, Moses and Aaron rebuked
the people, whose murmurs against them were in reality murmurs
against God, since they were but His agents, and He had been visibly
their Leader. And the same rebuke applies, for exactly the same
reason, to many a modern complaint against the weather, against what
people call their "luck," against a thousand provoking things in
which the only possible provocation must come directly from heaven.
It is because our religion is so shallow, and our consciousness of
God in His world so dim and rudimentary, that we utter such
complaints idly, to relieve our feelings, and hear them spoken
without a shock.
Such dulness is not to be removed by sounder views of doctrine,
but by a more vivid realisation of God. The Israelites knew by what
hand they should have fallen if they had died in Egypt; yet in fact
they forgot their true Captain, and upbraided their mortal leaders.
So do we confess that afflictions arise not out of the ground, yet
lose the impress of divinity upon our daily lives, while we ought,
like Moses, to "endure as seeing Him who is invisible."
As our Lord was in the habit of asking for some confession, or
demanding some small co-operation from those He was about to bless,
so the smoking flax of Hebrew faith is tended: it is a promise, and
not the actual relief, which calms them. There is a curious
difference in the manner of the communications now made to the
people. First of all the two brothers unite their energies to hush
their outcries: "At evening ye shall know that Jehovah is your
leader from Egypt, and in the morning ye shall behold His glory; and
what are we, that ye murmur against us?" Then Moses affirms, with
all the energy of his chieftainship, that in the evening they shall
eat flesh, and in the morning bread to the full. Again he asks them
"What are we?" and more sternly and directly charges them with
murmuring against Jehovah. And this is a good example of the true
meaning of his "meekness." He is fiery enough, but not for his own
greatness; rather because he feels his littleness, and that the
offence is entirely against God, does he resent their conduct;
absence of self-assertion is his "meekness," and thus we read of it
when Miriam and Aaron spake against him, declaring that they were
commissioned as well as he (Num 12:3). Finally, when order was
restored, and some mysterious manifestation was at hand, he resumed
the solemn and formal usage of conveying his orders through his
brother, and in cold, compact, impressive words, said unto Aaron,
"Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near
before the Lord, for He hath heard your murmurings." All this is
very dignified and natural. And so is--what after ages could
scarcely have invented--the impressive reticence of what follows.
"They looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the
Lord appeared in the cloud."
Were they not then intended to "come near"? and was it as they
turned their faces to draw nigh that the Vision revealed itself and
stopped them? And what was the untold sight which they beheld? The
narrative belongs to a primitive age; it is quite unlike the
elaborate symbolisms of Ezekiel and Daniel, or even of Isaiah, but
yet this undescribed, mystic and solitary glory is not less sublime
than the train which covered the Temple-floor, while, hovering above
it, reverent seraphim veiled their faces and their feet, or the
terrible crystal and the wheels of dreadful height, or the throne of
flame whence issued a fiery stream, and before which thousands of
thousands and myriads of myriads stood (Isa 6:2; Eze 1:22, Eze 1:18;
Dan 7:9-10). But the point to observe is that it is different, more
primitive, an undefined and lonely vision of awe well fitted for the
desert wilds and for the gaze of men whose hearts must not be misled
by the likeness of anything in heaven or earth; the glory of the
Lord appearing in the cloud (most probably, but not of necessity,
the cloud which guided them), and in the direction whence they were
so fain to turn away.
No later inventor would have known how to say so little, much
less to make that little harmonise so exactly with the lessons meant
to be suggested by the wild and solemn solitudes into which they
were now plunged.
And now the Lord Himself repeats the promise of relief, but first
solemnly announces that He is not heedless of their ill-behaviour
while He tolerates it. The question is suggested, although not
asked, How long will His forbearance last?
Well for them if they learn the lesson, and "know that I am
Jehovah your God," mindful of their needs, entitled to their fealty.
In the evening, therefore, came a flight of quails; and in the
morning they found a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost,
upon the ground.
MANNA.
Exo 16:15-36.
The manna which miraculously supplied the wants of Israel was to
them an utterly strange food, the use of which they had to learn.
Thus it was another means of severing their habitual course of life
and association of ideas from their degraded past. And while we may
not press too far the assertion that it was the "corn of heaven" and
"angels' food" (i.e. "the bread of the mighty"-- Psa
78:24-25, R.V.), yet the narrative shows, even without help from
later scriptures, that it was calculated to sustain their energies
and yet to leave their appetites unstimulated and unpampered. For
they were now called to purer joys than those of the senses--to
liberty, a divine vocation, the presence of God, the revelation of
His law and the unfolding of His purposes. Failing to rise to these
heights, they fell far, murmured again, and perished by the
destroyer, not merely to avenge the petulance of an hour, but for
all that it betrayed, for treason to their vocation and radical
inability to even comprehend its meaning. In the language of modern
science, it answered to Nature's rejection of the unfit.
Their calling was thus, though under very different forms, that
which the apostles found so hard, yet did not quite refuse: it was
to mind the things of God and not the things of men.
It is well known that the manna of the Israelites bore some
resemblance to a natural product of the wilderness, still exuded by
certain plants during the coolness of the night, and formerly more
plentiful than now, when all vegetation has been ruthlessly swept
away by the Bedouin. But the differences are much greater than the
resemblance. The natural product is a drug, and not a food; it is
gathered only during some weeks of summer; it is not liable to
speedy corruption, nor could there be any reason for preserving a
specimen of this common product in the ark; it could not have
sufficed, however aided by their herds and flocks, to feed one in a
hundred of the Hebrew multitudes, even during the season of its
production; nor could it have ceased on the same day when they ate
the first ripe corn of Canaan.
And yet the resemblance is suggestive. Unbelievers find, in the
links which connect most of our Scripture miracles with nature, in
the undefined and gradual transition from one to the other, as from
a temperate day to night, an excuse for denying that they are
miraculous at all. But the instructed believer finds a confirmation
of his faith. He reflects that when Fancy begins to toy with the
supernatural, she spurns nature from her: the trammels under which
she has long chafed are hateful to her, and she flies from them to
the utmost extreme.
It could not be thus with Him by whom the system of the world was
framed. He will not wantonly interfere with His own plan. He will
regard nature as an elastic band to stretch, rather than as a chain
to break. If He will multiply food, in the New Testament, that is no
reason why His disciples should fare more delicately than Providence
intended for them: they shall still eat barley loaves and fish. And
so the winds help to overthrow Pharaoh and to bring the quails; and
when a new thing has to be created, it approaches in its general
idea to one of the few natural products of that inhospitable region.
Now let it be supposed for a moment that the supply of manna had
never ceased, so that until this day men could every morning gather
a day's ration off the ground. Such continuance of the provision
would not make it any the less a gift; but only a more lavish boon.
And yet it would clearly cease to be regarded as miraculous, an
exception to the course of nature, miscalled her "laws," since men
do strive to subvert the miracle by representing that such manna,
however scantily, may still be found. And this may expose the folly
of a wish, probably sometimes felt by all men, that some miracle had
actually been perpetuated, so that we could strengthen our faith at
pleasure by looking upon an exhibition of divine power. In truth, no
marvel could excel that which annually multiplies the corn beneath
the clod, and by the process of decay in springtime feeds the world
in autumn. Only its steady recurrence throws a veil over our eyes;
and it is a vain conceit that the same web would not be woven by use
between man and the Worker of any other marvel that was perpetuated.
Already the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, for all who
have eyes to see.
It is also to be observed that the manna was not given to teach
the people sloth. They were obliged to gather it early, before the
sun was hot. They had still to endure weary marches, and the care of
their flocks and herds.
And, in curious harmony with the manner of all the gifts of
nature, the manna sent from heaven had yet to be prepared by man:
"bake that which ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will
seethe." Thus God, by natural means and by the sweat of our brow,
gives us our daily bread; and all knowledge, art and culture are His
gifts, although elaborated by the brain and heart of generations
whom He taught.
Moreover, there was a protest against the grasping, unbelieving
temper which cannot trust God with tomorrow, but longs to have much
goods laid up. That is the temper which forfeits the smile of God,
and grinds the faces of the poor, to make an ignoble "provision" for
the future. How often, since the time of Moses, has the unblessed
accumulation become hateful! How often, since the time of St. James,
the rust of such possession has eaten the flesh like fire! Men would
be far more generous, the difference between wealth and poverty
would be less portentous, and the resources of religion and charity
less crippled, if we lived in the spirit of the Lord's prayer,
desirous of the advance of the kingdom, but not asking to be given
tomorrow's bread until tomorrow. That lesson was taught by the
manner of the dispensation of the manna, but the covetousness of
Israel would not learn it. The people actually strove to be
dishonest in their enjoyment of a miracle. It is no wonder that
Moses was wroth with them.
Among the strange properties of their supernatural food not the
least curious was this: that when they came to measure what they had
collected, and compare it with what Moses had bidden,[31]
the most eager and able-bodied had nothing over, and the feeblest
had no lack. Every real worker was supplied, and none was glutted.
This result is apparently miraculous. St. Paul's use of it does not,
as some have supposed, represent it as a result of Hebrew
benevolence, sharing with the weak the more abundant supplies of the
strong: the miracle is not cited as an example of charity, but of
that practical equality, divinely approved, which Christian charity
should reproduce; the Christian Church is bidden to do voluntarily
what was done by miracle in the wilderness: "your abundance being a
supply at this present time for their want, that their abundance
also may become a supply for your want, that there may be equality;
as it is written, He that gathered much had nothing over, and he
that gathered little had no lack" (2Co 8:15).
It is quite in vain to appeal to this passage in favour of
socialistic theories. In the first place it applies only to the
necessities of existence; and even granting that the state should
enforce the principle to which it points, the duty would not extend
beyond a liberal poor rate. When contributions were afterwards
demanded for the sanctuary, there is no trace of a dead level in
their resources: the rulers gave the gems and spices and oil, some
brought gold, with some were found blue and linen and skins, and
others had acacia-wood to offer (Exo 35:22-24).
In the second place, this arrangement was only temporary; and
while the soil of Canaan was distinctly claimed for the Lord, the
enjoyment of it by individuals was secured, and perpetuated in their
families, by stringent legislation. Now, land is the kind of
property which socialists most vehemently assail; but persons who
appeal to Exodus must submit to the authority of Judges.
Socialism, therefore, and its coercive measures, find no more
real sanction here than in the Church of Jerusalem, where the
property of Ananias was his own, and the price of it in his own
power. But yet it is highly significant that in both Testaments, as
the Church of God starts upon its career, an example should be given
of the effacing of inequalities, in the one case by miracle, in the
other by such a voluntary movement as best becomes the gospel. Is
not such a movement, large and free, the true remedy for our modern
social distractions and calamities? Would it not be wise and
Christ-like for the rich to give, as St. Paul taught the Corinthians
to give, what the law could never wisely exact from them? Would not
self-denial, on a scale to imply real sacrifice, and fulfilling in
spirit rather than letter the apostle's aspiration for "equality,"
secure in return the enthusiastic adhesion to the rights of property
of all that is best and noblest among the poor?
When will the world, or even the Church, awaken to the great
truth that our politics also need to be steeped in Christian
feeling--that humanity requires not a revolution but a pentecost--that
a millennium cannot be enacted, but will dawn whenever human bosoms
are emptied of selfishness and lust, and filled with brotherly
kindness and compassion? Such, and no more, was the socialism which
St. Paul deduced from the equality in the supply of manna.
SPIRITUAL MEAT.
Exo 16:15-36.
Since the journey of Israel is throughout full of sacred meaning,
no one can fail to discern a mystery in the silent ceaseless daily
miracle of bread-giving. But we are not left to our conjectures. St.
Paul calls manna "spiritual meat," not because it nourished the
higher life (for the eaters of it murmured for flesh, and were not
estranged from their lust), but because it answered to realities of
the spiritual world (1Co 10:3). And Christ Himself said, "It was not
Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven, but My Father giveth
you the true Bread from heaven," making manna the type of sustenance
which the soul needs in the wilderness, and which only God can give
(Joh 6:32).
We note the time of its bestowal. The soul has come forth out of
its bondage. Perhaps it imagines that emancipation is enough: all is
won when its chains are broken: there is to be no interval between
the Egypt of sin and the Promised Land of milk and honey and repose.
Instead of this serene attainment, it finds that the soul requires
to be fed, and no food is to be seen, but only a wilderness of
scorching heat, dry sand, vacancy, and hunger. Old things have
passed away, but it is not yet realised that all things have become
new. Religion threatens to become a vast system for the removal of
accustomed indulgences and enjoyments, but where is the recompense
for all that it forbids? The soul cries out for food: well for it if
the cry be not faithless, nor spoken to earthly chiefs alone!
There is a noteworthy distinction between the gift of manna and
every other recorded miracle of sustenance. In Eden the fruit of
immortality was ripening upon an earthly tree. The widow of
Zarephath was fed from her own stores. The ravens bore to Elijah
ordinary bread and flesh; and if an angel fed him, it was with a
cake baken upon coals. Christ Himself was content to multiply common
bread and fish, and even after His resurrection gave His apostles
the fare to which they were accustomed. Thus they learned that the
divine life must be led amid the ordinary conditions of mortality.
Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in the likeness of sinful
flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing of a new life, a
strange and unknown energy, to man.
And here, almost at the beginning of revelation, is typified, not
the homely conditions of the inner life, but its unearthly nature
and essence. Here is no multiplication of their own stores, no gift,
like the quails, of such meat as they were wont to gather. They
asked "What is it?" And this teaches the Christian that his
sustenance is not of this world. They were fed "with manna which
they knew not ... to make them know that man doth not live by bread
only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth
man live" (Deu 8:3). The root of worldliness is not in this
indulgence or that, in gay clothing or an active career; but in the
soul's endeavour to draw its nourishment from things below. And
spirituality belongs not to an uncouth vocabulary, nor to the robes
of any confraternity, to rigid rules or austere deportment; it is
the blessedness of a life nourished upon the bread of heaven, and
doomed to starve if that bread be not bestowed. Let not the wealthy
find an insuperable bar to spirituality in his condition, nor the
poor suppose that indigence cannot have its treasure upon earth; but
let each man ask whence come his most real and practical impulses
and energies upon life's journey. If these flow from even the purest
earthly source--love of wife or child, anything else than communion
with the Father of spirits, this is not the bread of life, and can
no more nourish a pilgrim towards eternity than the husks which
swine eat.
There is no mistaking the doctrine of the New Testament as to
what this bread may be. By prayer and faith, by ordinances and
sacraments rightly used, the manna may be gathered; but Jesus
Himself is the Bread of life, His Flesh is meat indeed and His Blood
is drink indeed, and He gives His Flesh for the life of the world.
Christ is the Vine, and we are the branches, fruitful only by the
sap which flows from Him. As there are diseases which cannot be
overcome by powerful drugs, but by a generous and wholesome dietary,
so is it with the diseases of the soul--pride, anger, selfishness,
falsehood, lust. As the curse of sin is removed by the faith which
appropriates pardon, so its power is broken by the steady personal
acceptance of Christ; and our Bread and Wine are His new humanity,
given to us, until He becomes the second Father of the race, which
is begotten again in Him. An easy temper is not Christian meekness;
dislike to witness pain is not Christian love. All our goodness must
strike root deeper than in the sensibilities, must be nourished by
the communication to us of the mind which was in Christ Jesus.
And this food is universally given, and universally suitable. The
strong and the weak, the aged chieftain and little children, ate and
were nourished. No stern decree excluded any member of the visible
Church in the wilderness from sharing the bread from heaven: they
did eat the same spiritual meat, provided only that they gathered
it. Their part was to be in earnest in accepting, and so is ours;
but if we fail, whom shall we blame except ourselves? In the mystery
of its origin, in the silent and secret mode of its descent from
above, in the constancy of its bestowal, and in its suitability for
all the camp, for Moses and the youngest child, the manna prefigured
Christ.
Every day a fresh supply had to be laid up, and nothing could be
held over from the largest hoard. So it is with us: we must give
ourselves to Christ for ever, but we must ask Him daily to give
Himself to us. The richest experience, the purest aspiration, the
humblest self-abandonment that was ever felt, could not reach
forward to supply the morrow. Past graces will become loathsome if
used instead of present supplies from heaven. And the secret of many
a scandalous fall is that the unhappy soul grew self-confident:
unlike St. Paul, he reckoned that he had already attained; and
thereupon the graces in which he trusted became corrupt and vile.
The constant supply was not more needful than it was abundant.
The manna lay all around the camp: the Bread of Life is He who
stands at our door and knocks. Alas for those who murmur for grosser
indulgences! Israel demanded and obtained them; but while the flesh
was in their nostrils the angel of the Lord went forth and smote
them. Is there no plague any longer for the perverse? What are the
discords that convulse families, the uncurbed passions to which
nothing is sacred, the jaded appetite and weary discontent which
hates the world even as it hates itself? what but the judgment of
God upon those who despise His provision, and must needs gratify
themselves? Be it our happiness, as it is our duty, to trust Him to
prepare our table before us, while He leads us to His Holy Land.
The Lord of the Sabbath already taught His people to respect His
day. Upon it no manna fell; and we shall hereafter see the bearing
of this incident upon the question whether the Sabbath is only an
ordinance of Judaism. Meanwhile they who went out to gather had a
sharp lesson in the difference between faith, which expects what God
has promised, and presumption, which hopes not to lose much by
disobeying Him.
Lastly, an omer of manna was to be kept throughout all
generations, before the Testimony. Grateful remembrance of past
mercies, temporal as well as spiritual, was to connect itself with
the deepest and most awful mysteries of religion. So let it be with
us. The bitter proverb that eaten bread is soon forgotten must never
be true of the Christian. He is to remember all the way that the
Lord his God hath led him. He is bidden to "forget not all His
benefits, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thy
diseases ... Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things." So foolish
is the slander that religion is too transcendental for the common
life of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] The "omer" of this passage is
not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture: it is known to have been the
one-hundredth part of the homer with which careless readers
sometimes confuse it, and its capacity is variously estimated, from
somewhat under half a gallon to somewhat above three-quarters.