The Manna Principle
Rob Genin
5/16/25
One of the occupational hazards of working with money is the love of money. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “He who loves money never has money enough” (Eccl 5:10). When God rescued his people out of Egypt, he brought them through a desert where food and water were scarce. The scriptures make clear this was intentionally done. God had a purpose to teach His people some key lessons through scarcity and need. He provided them with daily food in the form of a wafer-like bread that was collected on the ground every morning and told Moses, “In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions” (Exodus 16:4). It is fascinating to observe:
The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer (ancient unit of measurement), the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.
Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”
However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
Each morning, everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”
So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”
Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” So the people rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:17-30)
I see several lessons in the experience of the manna.
- God taught His people to depend on Him. The daily bread meant that people needed to connect with and depend on God every day. He is relational, and He wants to care for us continually, not just at one moment in our lives. A relationship with God is not a solitary act of commitment, but a conscious and ongoing decision to follow Him.
- God taught His people that they would have what they need. “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed” (Exodus 16:18). Those who struggled to collect manna always had enough. Those who tried to hoard extra (so they would not need to trust God for tomorrow) found that it got maggots in it. We, too, trying to hoard wealth to escape the need to trust in God, will find that such wealth will rot and rust – or worse, make us rotten.
- God accounted for their need for rest. He miraculously provided enough for two days every sabbath. The supernatural nature of the bread is clearly demonstrated here—they could not hoard it an extra day or it would go bad – but the day before the sabbath they could collect double, and it would not go bad. Any observant Israelite would see both how serious God was about the Sabbath, and also by this supernatural provision that the bread was truly miraculous.
Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Moses explained this to the people of Israel in his final sermon to them:
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deuteronomy 8:2-3).
Jesus’ own prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11), is clearly drawn from Israel’s experience with manna. In this way, Jesus modeled for us that we too should ask for our daily bread. These lessons are every bit as relevant today as they were to ancient Israel. Therefore, we can trust that God is sufficient for our needs, and He will care for us each day. If we do this, the root causes of the love of money (idolatry, greed & fear) will be severed, and we are free to flourish in our work.