The Manna

“And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.”Exodus 16:15 · KJV

“I am that bread of life.”John 6:48 · KJV

“Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.”John 6:49 · KJV

Bread fell from the sky every morning for forty years. Israel called it manna, and the name is a question: the Hebrew *man hu* means “what is it?” (Exod 16:15). They ate the question for forty years.

It had to be gathered daily and it bred worms if hoarded (16:20), except before the Sabbath, when it kept, one of the quiet miracles nobody notices. A jar of it was laid up in the ark (16:33). Jesus took the picture: “I am that bread of life... your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead” (John 6:48-49). And a jar of hidden manna is still promised, to the one who overcomes: “will I give to eat of the hidden manna” (Rev 2:17). The question in the wilderness has a name now.