Lesson 14 - Exodus 16

[Music] last week we just started in our study of Exodus chapter 16 this week we're going to continue that study and talk about the provision of the manna to sustain Israel but unlike the Sunday School version of the story there's so much more to this episode than meets the eye so let's begin by reading this rather long chapter in its entirety Exodus chapter 16 if you have a complete Jewish Bible it starts on page 77 Exodus chapter 16 follow along with me they traveled on from a lien and the whole community of the people of Israel arrived at the scene desert between a aleem and Sinai on the fifteenth day of the second month after leaving the land of Egypt there in the desert the whole community of the people of Israel grumbled against Moshe and Aharon and the people of Israel said to them we wish ad and I had used his own hand to kill us off in Egypt there we used to sit around the pots with the meat boiling we had as much food as we wanted you've taken us out into this desert to let this whole assembly starve to death and out and I said to Moses here I will cause bread to rain down from heaven for you the people are to go out and gather a day's raishin every day by this I will test whether they were observe my Torah or not on the sixth day when they prepare what they brought in it will turn out to be twice as much as they gather on the other days Moshe and Aharon said to all the people of Israel this evening you will realize that it has been ad and I who brought you out of Egypt and in the morning you will see authorized glory for he has listened to your grumblings against out and I what are we that you should grumble against us Moshe added what have I said will happen what Adonai gives you meet this meat to eat this evening and your fill of bread tomorrow morning at and I has listened to your complaints and grumblings against him what are we your grumblings are not against us but against out an eye and Moses said to Aaron say to the whole community of Israel come closer to the presence of Adonai freeze heard your grumblings and as a on spoke to the whole community of the people of Israel they looked towards the desert and there before them the glory of odd and I appeared in the cloud not and I said to Moshe I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel say to them at dusk you will be eating meat in the morning you will have your fill of bread then you will realize that I am mad and I your God that evening quails came up and covered the camp while in the morning there was a layer of do all around the camp and when the dowhat evaporated there on the surface of the desert was a fine flaky substance as fine as frost on the ground and when the people of Israel saw it they asked each other man who which means what is it because they didn't know what it was and Moses answered them it's the bread which ad and I has given you to eat here is what out and I has ordered each man is to gather according to his appetite each is to take an Omer per person for everyone in his tent the people of Israel did this some gathered more some less but when they put it in an Omer measure whoever had gathered much had no excess whoever had gathered little had no shortage nevertheless each person had gathered according to his appetite and Moshe told them no one is to leave any of it until morning but they didn't pay attention to Moses some kept the leftovers until morning it bread worms it rotted which made Moses angry at them so they gathered it morning after morning each person according to his appetite but as the Sun grew hot it melted on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread to OMERS per person and all the community leaders came and reported to Moses he told them this is what odd and I has said tomorrow is a holy Sh ABAT for our own eyes bake what you want to bake boil what you want to boil and whatever is left over set aside and keep for the morning they said it all they set it aside until morning as Moses had ordered and it didn't rot or have worms and Moses said today eat that because today is the Shabbat for out and I today you won't find it in the field gather at six days but the seventh day is Shabbat on that day there won't be any however on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather and they found none out and I said to Moses how long will you refuse to observe my meats vote my commandments and teachings look at and I has given you the Shabbat the Sabbath this is why he is providing bread for two days on the sixth day each of you stay where you are no one is to leave his place on the seventh day so the people rested on the seventh day the people called the food mung it was like coriander seed white it tasted like honey cakes and Moses said here is what I deny has ordered let two quarts of mung be kept throughout through all your generations so that they will be able to see the bread which I fed you in the desert when I brought you out of Egypt and Moshe he said to a harrowing take a jar and put it in two quarts of Mon and set it aside before I deny to be kept throughout all your generations just as that and I ordered mo che our own set it aside before the testimony to be kept the people of Israel ate Mon for forty years until they came to an inhabited land they ate mon until they arrived at the borders of the land of Canaan three million three million Israelites are hungry they've been gone from Egypt for nearing two months the food supply is running out they come to Moses they want to know why he'd bring him out into the desert wilderness just to jot just to die from starvation Moses takes this complaint to you home a the Lord responds and God tells the Hebrews that he's gonna feed them and he's gonna rain bread down on him from heaven now the Hebrew word for bread has left them but let them also is a general word that means food just like the old-fashioned term breaking bread together technically it meant to take a loaf of bread and and break it or cut it and share it but most often it's simply meant to eat a meal together bread here just means food in general not literal bread then God starts to set up and teach an important principle to the Israelites by means of his commandments concerning the bread the food that he was going to supply them and they were to gather all the manna they needed to satisfy their appetites but only enough for one day at a time and each day they were to do this except on the sixth day then they were to gather a double portion the two days supply well hear the story about the bread from heaven detours a little and it picks it up in a few verses so rather than skip around we is going to follow the flow of the Bible something rather interesting is said in verse 6 it says upon Moses and Aaron repeating the Lord's commandments concerning the gather of the manna they say that this is so you shall know it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt actually what it says is so he shall know it was Yehovah who brought you out of Egypt as I've mentioned on numerous occasions well more than 9 out of 10 times in the Torah you will see the words odd and I or Lord or God but in fact in original hebrew it's you dave ave that is the lord's formal personal name now the issue I'd like to point out it's not about his name it's that obviously the Israelites had real doubts as to who it was that was responsible for their leaving Egypt we've already seen a couple of bit of incidents where difficulties arise immediately the Hebrews blame Moses in other words the people who were superstitious and believed in magic and sorcery like most people from that era weren't really convinced that it was a this God Jehovah who had orchestrated the plagues back in Egypt parted the waters of the Red Sea and so on even with the cloud that led them by day the fire that emitted from that cloud at night the people doubted Moses was the visible human presence and so Moses caught all the grief therefore as it says so clearly in this first part of the lesson from the mana was to teach Israel that it was Yehovah not Moses who rescued Israel from Egypt this is a lesson that Israel will not fully grasp for decades now the instruction that Moses and Aaron receive from God about the food God would supply they now pass on to the people of Israel and in verse 7 Moses and Aaron remind the people that while they may think that all their griping and murmuring and complaining is directed at their human leaders in fact it is jehovah who they are expressing their displeasure with and Yehovah hears them Moses goes on to tell Israel that God knows their needs and will of course supply it he tells them that it's sunset what sunset mark the beginning of a new day God will give the meat to eat then in morning still the same day give them bread food satisfy their hunger and in verses 9 and 10 Moses then instructs Aaron to call for the entire community of Israel to come near to the presence of God they obeyed and as they looked out into the desert wilderness that lay ahead of them they saw the glory of God in the cloud now this phrase the glory of God is the English translation of the Hebrew words kavod y'avait is this Kev ode yell Vey some new divine experience for Israel to look upon the cloud and see the glory of God of course not it's been that same cloud that same presence of God that has been leading them that has been protecting them from the Pharaoh's army and had been fully available for their vision every single day all day since they left Egypt so why did Moses have to tell these people to stop look up and come near to God's presence because while God's presence is available to us we must choose to come near to him what is it we hear preacher after preacher admonished to do keep our eyes upon Christ who is our present day glory of God Israel had either taken their eyes off the cloud of glory or not fully recognized that the cloud was the presence of God so they became disheartened disoriented the same thing happens to us you know we get so used to the idea of Yeshua being with guiding us such that he becomes like an old piece of furniture or just another feature of the landscape and so he goes unnoticed in our lives God's presence had never left Israel it was the people would just quit looking upon it it was sunset verse 13 says when a vast hoard of quail suddenly fluttered down upon the startled camp of Israel now reminding us a little of Egypt when God used natural elements of his creation in extraordinary ways to smite Pharaoh and his people you Hova uses the quail in a supernatural way to bless his people quail migrating across the Sinai and the Arabian ferment peninsulas at that time of year is normal that they would swoop down for a rest and mass having grown exhausted from their long flight was not an uncommon occurrence that they would do it at God's command in such a vast quantity at the exact spot it was needed that was the supernatural aspect of this miracle now one can only imagine the Hebrews wandering off what a day they had just experienced called by Moses to come near to the kavod Ave the glory of a obey they had once again experienced the Lord's awesome presence in their lives and they had become comforted but before dark God also brought the meat from the sky and they went to bed with their bellies full and then they arose they arose in the morning from a restful sleep that only comes from being fully satisfied the Rising Sun well that revealed an even greater miracle because a pond in the desert sands was something that looked like delicate frost it was everywhere verse 13 says the Hebrews looked upon it and asked one another what is it in Hebrew who from which we have derived the word mana mana now Moses tells them that it is the bread the LEM meaning food in this case from heaven that God had promised to send them to sustain them the passage also explains that the coming of the mana each day was associated with do now taken together with the description in numbers eleven nine that says when the dew fell on the camp at night the manna would fall upon it we get a more complete picture there would be a fall of do and then the manna would flutter down upon it and then another layer of do would fall over the manna apparently this there's a man of sandwich it the least it kept the manna clean and fresh Oh Moses issues and interesting instruction concerning the manna each man is to gather as much as he thinks is needed to fully satisfy himself yet at the same time they were told to gather an Omer which is about a half gallon for each person I want to make a quick note for you have heard the term Omer used in a different way because as associated with the biblical feasts of Passover and unleavened bread and Omer is more correctly associated with being a sheaf so in in in the ritual of bringing in the first over now we're talking about Chev load it simply means bringing in the first sheaf of grain stocks from the harvest only here in Exodus the is the Omer some kind of measurement of volume perhaps it's equal to the amount of grain that can be plucked off of a typical sheaf of green stocks not sure anyway when the Hebrews went out and gathered the Mon who a very strange thing happened whether they gathered more than an Omer or less than an Omer in their baskets when they put it into an oversized jar everybody had the same amount now the meaning of this has been the source of many interesting commentaries but at the bottom of it is what the Israelites would have learned from this mystery there was no need to hoard there was no need to rush out to be the first one to gather or to worry if there would be enough provision available from God for all of them in God's economy his bounty is endless and you know I'll tell you something else equality is not about giving everybody exactly the same it's about giving the each person fully what they need verse 19 brings with it another reminder from Egypt Passover to be specific the Hebrews are to gather each day only enough mana to eat that day and they are to dispose of the remainder leaving nothing overnight do you remember that same instruction for the Passover RAM they were to eat their fill but they were just to dispose of the remainder before morning unfortunately many of the Israelites ignored that part of the teaching and to their disgust they found the leftover manna rotted another wise inedible kind of funny in them we tend to look at God's instructions and Commandments and we follow the parts of them that makes sense to us then we just kind of ignore the parts that don't now I'm not suggesting that a mechanical legalism by any means is a better Avenue to follow but here we see God's position on obedience and we see how divine blessing can be ruined by man's rebellion or worse by our personal determination of which of God's commandments and ordinances are important and which ones aren't well in verse 22 they were instructed on the sixth day they were to gather double the normal amount of manna and in verse 23 that the reason for this is that the seventh day is a Sabbath of holiness to Yoho way and therefore nuns to be gathered on the Sabbath they were given permission to prepare the man who however they wished they could boil it whatever but it had to be done before the end of the sixth day and by the way God was not going to rain down any manna on the seventh day we have here the first re-establishment of Sabbath for the Hebrew people in other words while indeed sabbath-keeping would be part of the formal law given by Yahweh to Moses upon Mount Sinai the Sabbath had already been established first in creation now here in regards to the gathering of manna prior to the law being given well after the experience of gathering the extra mana not using it up and finding it all full of worms and maggots the next morning one can only wonder what was going through the people's minds upon this instruction most did as they were told and as they entered the Sabbath sure enough whatever they had prepared the previous night while it was still fresh and edible and yet after all that had happened some people still got up on Sabbath morning took their baskets and they went out expecting to gather in him manna as usual naturally there was nothing to find now this behavior absolutely infuriated Moses so he said fine you're all under house arrest on Sabbath stay where you are do not leave your tent on Sabbath stay home now I want you to notice something very important throughout the Old Testament there will be no call to communal worship that is an assembly of worship on Sabbath Sabbath is depicted as one thing and one thing only the day of rest and the command of Moses for people to stay where in their tent homes on Sabbath that's the model for this now we can probably spend an entire session doing nothing but discussing all the pertinent meanings and commands God has ordained concerning the sabbath of setting our regular labor aside not gathering our sustenance on the Sabbath or even of Moses ordering the Israelites to stay home if we were to study the way Shabbat Hebrew for Sabbath is observed by traditional Jews we would find every effort is made to maintain the intent of God's commandments concerning the Sabbath however we're not gonna stop here and do that a little later on in Exodus and more in Leviticus we'll go into the Sabbath and further depth and I tell you from the heart I'm insured just what to present to you about the Sabbath because it is complex and it is full of reverent for our holy God that has been almost completely obscured by an anti-jewish doctrine based Church now let me just say something briefly about it for now to give you some food for thought because while the Sabbath is important to God it's also very thorny issue for a lot of Christians now whether you believe that some or none or all of the traditional 613 commandments of the Mosaic government pertained to Christians the fact is that the keeping of the Sabbath as holy as one of the Ten Commandments that forms the pillar of the church I mean I don't think anybody here would disagree with that point at all and I also don't think that we take the matter of the Sabbath seriously enough nowhere in the Bible is God rescinded the command of the Sabbath nowhere in the bible does it say that for our modern generation or since the advent of christ that it's okay to work seven days a week or to ignore the Sabbath many church leaders have taken Paul's meaning Colossians 2 to mean that the institution of the Sabbath can be made into anything man wants to which by the way makes no sense whatsoever to understand it that way and this is what happens when Bible passage is taken out of context in order to try to validate a predetermined agenda or a doctrine now remember this in the Sermon on the Mount another pillar of the church Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 no way as he come to abolish the Torah or as many Bibles say the law in the prophets further that not the slightest detail or not a jot or tittle a uterus stroke is going to pass from the Torah until all are from the law until all heaven and earth passes away the Sabbath is a rather significant element of the Torah wouldn't you say also remember it's well documented fact that some parts of the early church continued to follow the biblical rule the Sabbath as Saturday right on up until Emperor Constantine ordered the Sabbath abolished and then replaced it by something called the Lord's Day which was to become the new day in which the Gentile church would come together to worship now this new day of worship the Lord's Day was designated to be the first day of the week Sunday which was already the traditional day of national worship for the dominant religion of the Roman Empire the mish rain Sun worshipers which is why by the way sunday is called Sunday this day was chosen as a political compromise between the Sun worshipers and the Christians now let me quote directly for you from a couple of edicts hand down in the early 300s ad when this all happened and by the way the ancient official documents I'm quoting from you can find in the local library or you can get it on the internet google it first the very first so-called Sunday law ordered and enacted by Constantine during his second meeting with the council the church bishops in Nicaea was in 321 I 83 21 ad and here is a quote directly from that document on the venerable day of the Sun the sacred day of the Sun God Sunday let the magistrates and people resting in the cities rest rather residing in the cities rest and let all workshops be closed in the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuit because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain sowing or vine planting lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost given the seventh day of March 3:21 Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time what happened these several councils of Nicaea and Laodicea was that the Gentile Christian Church was officially established and the Jewish Christian Church was officially abolished some 16 years after these first Sunday laws were enacted the following edict was handed down from another of these Roman Church councils called the Council of Laodicea and I quote Christians shall not Jew dies by being idle on sabato the Sabbath but shall work on that day but the Lord's Day Sunday they shall especially honor and as being Christians shall if possible do no work that day if however there found Judaizing and observing Sabbath they shall be excommunicated there you have it understand that in this context Judaizing simply referred to Christians doing anything that Jews traditionally did so for example if Jews honored the biblical feasts Christians should not if Jews baptized by immersion Christians should not if Jews lit candles in a challah bread on the Sabbath Christians should not and since Jews honored the Sabbath then Christians should not the principle that was begun in the fourth century and now firmly entrenched and the modern church was this if the Jews do it Christians shouldn't Christian's who did anything Jews did in relation to honoring God were considered to be Judaizers and this would result in being excommunicated from the church I know this is not an easy subject but at the risk of offending you I must say that the reason it's not so easy is because we love our traditions and we prefer our doctrines to what God's scriptures tell us that's why so we run around twisting and allegorized the Bible in order to have it mean what our religious authorities have decided they wanted to mean there are plenty of passages in the Bible believe me that are difficult and their understanding is not so straightforward but the passages on Sabbath aren't like that they are plainly spoken they're unequivocal now allow me to give you the view of the Catholic Church the original Church of Rome concerning Sunday rather than Sabbath worship and by the way Catholics lay claim to constantine as one of theirs now why I'm about to read you comes from the official publication of the Catholic press the official catholic newsletter newspaper it was written a little over a hundred years ago I quote sunday is a catholic institution and its claim to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles from beginning to the end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week Saturday to the first Sunday isn't that an interesting comment I hope you understand what I just quoted to you the Catholic Church who claims the establishment of Sunday as the day of communal worship for Christians says outright nowhere in the Holy Scriptures Old Testament are new is there is single passage of scripture that would allow the first day of the week worship and rest to be substituted for the god ordained seventh-day none doesn't exist that statement is factually true at least in the sense of rest but the reality is and hear this please the Bible ordains no particular day of worship at all so why was that statement made and communicated to the world why would the Catholic Church say such a thing because it sounds is it it's condemning itself for Sunday worship by openly admitting the truth that scripturally there's nothing to indicate any day other than the seventh Saturday as the Sabbath you see what I quoted to you was a was part of an ongoing argument against Protestants who of course deny the all-important doctrine of the Catholic Church that the Pope has special authority that given to him directly from God to change to add to or to subtract from the Scriptures so when yet another article continuing this debate again from the official Catholic press we get this and again this is a direct quote product stand ISM in disregarding the authority of the Roman Catholic Church has no good reason for its sundy theory and ought to logically keep Saturday is the Sabbath kind of mind-blowing to hear this isn't it in other words the Catholic Church openly admits there's no scriptural authority at all for abolishing or moving the Sabbath Saturday night to Sunday however since in their view the Pope has the authority from God to change anything that he believes God is directing him to change then the act of the Roman Catholics Constantine and the Roman bishops in abolishing the Sabbath and instead observing Sunday as a new and different day of rest and worship called the Lord's Day it's okay and it's logical the Catholics view Constantine as a pope and conversely since Protestants broke away from the Catholic Church several centuries ago and since Protestants deny the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church as empowered by God to alter scriptural Commandments then the question is on what basis can Protestants possibly say they can change the Sabbath the implied answer is there isn't any and in another Catholic press article it's well to remind Presbyterians Baptists Methodists all other Christians that the Bible does not support them anywhere and their observance of Sunday Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church and those who observe that day observe a commandment of the Roman Catholic Church I hope that hits you where it ought to I mean do you understand that the Catholic Church completely acknowledges that Sunday observance is not a biblical command rather it's a command of the Roman Catholic Church government I hope that bothers you a little bit that in fact a whole lot now believe me I understand how uncomfortable it is to scrutinize traditions and doctrines that have been mainstays of the Christian Church but discomfort is just not a good enough reason to skirt the issue or worse to just disregard the plain scriptural truth let me frame this just a little differently how about we solve this how about if each Christian denomination just votes to decide which day they want to Sabbath how about a seed of Abraham determines by majority rules that Tuesday third day of the week you know what that would be a good Sabbath for us would you be very comfortable with that for most of us not very comfortable at all because hopefully we'd ask ourselves by what difficulty can we do that but if we took Paul to mean what is most often taught that he said about the Sabbath that is that men can make Sabbath pretty much any day they want then why can't we just move it around and do whatever we feel like with it as a matter of fact why not just make the Sabbath different every week change it from year to year so we're fair and equitable have four Sabbath's running together at the end of the month we can have more time off it sounds good doesn't it how about just no Savas at all be workaholics yes see some of you kind of frown in some a little laughing that's the problem with trying to defend these traditional Gentile churches dubious positions that we can change the Sabbath and observe it any way we please if you decide that's really so then that means we can do anything that suits us and we all instinctively know that can't be the case and indeed that's not what Paul said it's not what he suggested and it's not what he meant now I'm not advocating moving all church services to Saturday although I think could be very healthy if every Church had Saturday services like we have because there is no such thing as a god commanded day of worship doesn't exist Jews and Gentiles have decided each upon their own and in both cases these are man-made doctrines not commandments of God the reality is that every day is a good day to worship God but every day is not Shabbat every day is not the seventh day every day is not the seventh day every day is not the day that God ordained in Genesis is the Sabbath which is reinforced here in Exodus at Mount Sinai and all throughout the Bible including by the way the New Testament let's all remember that Yeshua himself Jesus Christ observed the seventh day Shabbat but as individuals or as families we can certainly honor God's Sabbath the seventh day and still participate in the Lord's Day if we want to do that like we're doing right now there's nothing wrong with that just understand what we're doing right now is a tradition but what the Jews do on Saturday at synagogue that's also a tradition it's not the Bible to do that we can honor the day God ordained a Sabbath by taking God's intent to what rest be with our families on the seventh day so I'm not here to condemn any denomination or to tell you to abandon sund'ys but I am saying that Shabbat is an important enough issue that as Christians we can't do whatever we wish just because traditionally we always have well in verse 32 God has commanded that a jar of man who mana be set aside as visible proof for all future generations of this miracle of God's provision during years real time of the wilderness so where is this jar of manna today well when they find the Ark of the Covenant they'll probably find the jar of manna because the ark almost certainly contains the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments Aaron's budding staff and the jar of manna however the meaning for verse third of verse 34 about placing the manna before the testimony it says that's just another name for the law or the Torah the testimony is is not to place it inside the Ark but rather to place it in front of the ark even so you can bet that when they do find the ark the pot of manna will probably be in it because the evidence is that whenever the ark traveled the manna and Aaron's rod were placed inside of it now as we near the end of chapter 16 I want to point out something of a general nature that students of the Torah need to know Moses did not personally write all the five books of Torah which are often called the five books of Moses when someone asked me who wrote the Torah I commonly say Moses but only is a broad general response the rabbi's have always recognized that other recorded parts of the Torah were written in retrospect after Moses was dead and gone we get an example of this here because the words of verse 35 say they ate manna all 40 years in the wilderness and until they came to settle in the land of Canaan so for those of you who might say wait a minute how can these verses be speaking of stone tablets and an ark that haven't even been created yet because they still haven't arrived at Mount Sinai remember the Torah is not in perfect chronological order let me put it another way Moses did not write a daily journal Moses didn't write down a few sentences about what happened today and then some more tomorrow and so on and so forth like a news report until the Torah was completed no most of the events instructions we see in the Torah were written by Moses and others after the fact his history so that it was coherent it was understandable for future generations well chapter 16 closes by giving us the interesting piece of information that Israel ate manna for 40 years God provided them with that heavenly food for their entire time in the wilderness but the moment they entered the Promised Land it quit coming just as quickly as it began well next week we'll take up Exodus chapter 17 [Music] you see [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

Views: 6,148

Rating: 4.9689922 out of 5

Keywords: Bible Study, Exodus, Egypt, Moses, Torah, Israel, Commandments, Seed of Abraham, Torah Class, Old Testament, Tom Bradford

Id: EMUm0QTb-bg

Length: 46min 46sec (2806 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 06 2018