Category:Manna

Manna is mentioned in the Bible in the following places:

Exodus 16:12-35

16:12. I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel; say to them, "In the evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God."

16:13. So it came to pass in the evening, that quails coming up, covered the camp: and in the morning a dew lay round about the camp.

16:14. And when it had covered the face of the earth, it appeared in the wilderness small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, like unto the hoar frost on the ground.

'''16:15. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, "Manhu!" which signifies, "What is this!" for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.'''

16:16. "This is the word that the Lord has commanded: Let every one gather of it as much as is enough to eat; a gomor for every man, according to the number of your souls that dwell in a tent, so shall you take of it."

16:17. And the children of Israel did so: and they gathered, one more, another less.

16:18: And they measured by the measure of a gomor: neither had he more that had gathered more; nor did he find less that had provided less: but every one had gathered, according to what they were able to eat.

16:19. And Moses said to them, "Let no man leave of it till the morning."

16:20. And they did not hearken to him, but some of them left until the morning, and it began to be full of worms, and it putrified, and Moses was angry with them.

16:21. Now every one of them gathered in the morning, as much as might suffice to eat: and after the sun grew hot, it melted.

16:22. But on the sixth day they gathered twice as much, that is, two gomors every man: and all the rulers of the multitude came, and told Moses.

16:23. And he said to them, "This is what the Lord has spoken: Tomorrow is the rest of the sabbath sanctified to the Lord. Whatever work is to be done, do it; and the meats that are to be dressed, dress them; and whatever shall remain, lay it up until the morning."

16:24. And they did so as Moses had commanded, and it did not putrify, neither was there worm found in it.

16:25. And Moses said: Eat it today, because it is the sabbath of the Lord: today it shall not be found in the field.

16:26. Gather it six days; but on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord, therefore it shall not be found.

16:27. And the seventh day came; and some of the people going forth to gather, found none.

16:28. And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep My commandments, and My law?

16:29. "See that the Lord has given you the sabbath, and for this reason on the sixth day He gives you a double provision: let each man stay at home, and let none go forth out of his place the seventh day."

16:30. And the people kept the sabbath on the seventh day.

16:31. And the house of Israel named it Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste similar to flour with honey.

16:32. And Moses said, "This is the word which the Lord has commanded: Fill a gomor of it, and let it be kept unto generations to come hereafter; that they may know the bread, wherewith I fed you in the wilderness when you were brought forth out of the land of Egypt."

16:33. And Moses said to Aaron, "Take a vessel, and put manna into it, as much as a gomor can hold; and lay it up before the Lord, to keep unto your generations,"

'''16:34. as the Lord had commanded Moses. And Aaron put it in the tabernacle to be kept.'''

16:35. And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land: with this meat were they fed, until they reached the borders of the land of Canaan.

Numbers 11:6-9 11:6. Our soul is dry, our eyes behold nothing else but manna.

11:7. Now the manna was like coriander seed, of the color of bdellium.

Bdellium. . .Bdellium, according to Pliny, 1.21, c. 9. was of the color of a man's nail, white and bright.

11:8. The people went about, and gathering it, ground it in a mill, or beat it in a mortar, and boiled it in a pot, and made cakes thereof of the taste of bread tempered with oil.

11:9. When the dew fell in the night upon the camp, the manna also fell with it.

Joshua 5:12

5:12. The manna ceased after they ate of the corn of the land, neither did the children of Israel use that food any more, but they ate of the corn of the present year of the land of Canaan.

Psalms 77:24-25 (78:24-25)

77:24. God had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven.

77:25. Man ate the bread of angels: He sent them provisions in abundance.

Psalms 104:40 (105:40)

104:40. They asked, and the quail came: and He filled them with the bread of Heaven.

John 6:31

6:31. “Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.”

Hebrews 9:4

9:4. Having a golden censer and the ark of the testament covered about on every part with gold, in which was a golden pot that had manna and the rod of Aaron that had blossomed and the tables of the testament.

Complaints about the manna: Exodus 16:3 - Israelites complain there was no food and God sent them manna from Heaven.

16:3. The children of Israel said to them, "Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the fleshpots, and ate bread to the full! Why have you brought us into this desert, that you might destroy all the multitude with famine?"

Numbers 11:4-6

Result: God sent quail and a great plague for the people that craved and complained. See Numbers 11:33-34

Numbers 21:8 '''21:5. and speaking against God and Moses, they said: Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, nor have we any waters: our soul now loathes this very light food.'''

Result: People were bitten by fiery serpents or snakes.

Man"na, n. Etym: [L., fr. Gr. man; cf. Ar. mann, properly, gift (of heaven).]

1. (Script.)

Defn: The food supplied to the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness of Arabia; hence, divinely supplied food. Exodus 16:15.

2. (Bot.)

Defn: A name given to lichens of the genus Lecanora, sometimes blown into heaps in the deserts of Arabia and Africa, and gathered and used as food.

3. (Bot. & Med.)

Defn: A sweetish exudation in the form of pale yellow friable flakes, coming from several trees and shrubs and used in medicine as a gentle laxative, as the secretion of Fraxinus Ornus, and F. rotundifolia, the manna ashes of Southern Europe.

Note: Persian manna is the secretion of the camel's thorn (see Camel's thorn, under Camel); Tamarisk manna, that of the Tamarisk mannifera, a shrub of Western Asia; Australian, manna, that of certain species of eucalyptus; Briançon manna, that of the European larch. Manna grass (Bot.), a name of several tall slender grasses of the genus Glyceria. they have long loose panicles, and grow in moist places. Nerved manna grass is Glyceria nervata, and Floating manna grass is G. flu. -- Manna insect (Zoöl), a scale insect (Gossyparia mannipara), which causes the exudation of manna from the Tamarisk tree in Arabia.

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---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Manna - Heb. man-hu, "What is that?", the name given by the Israelites to the food miraculously supplied to them during their wanderings in the wilderness (Exodus 16:15-35). The name is commonly taken as derived from man, an expression of surprise, "What is it?" but more probably it is derived from manan, meaning "to allot," and hence denoting an "allotment" or a "gift." This "gift" from God is described as "a small round thing," like the "hoar-frost on the ground," and "like coriander seed," "of the color of bdellium," and in taste "like wafers made with honey." It was capable of being baked and boiled, ground in mills, or beaten in a mortar (Exodus 16:23; Numbers 11:7). If any was kept over till the following morning, it became corrupt with worms; but as on the Sabbath none fell, on the preceding day a double portion was given, and that could be kept over to supply the wants of the Sabbath without becoming corrupt. Directions concerning the gathering of it are fully given (Exodus 16:16, Exodus 16:33; Deuteronomy 8:3-16). It fell for the first time after the eighth encampment in the desert of Sin, and was daily furnished, except on the Sabbath, for all the years of the wanderings, till they encamped at Gilgal, after crossing the Jordan, when it suddenly ceased, and where they "did eat of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more" (Joshua 5:12). They now no longer needed the "bread of the wilderness." This manna was evidently altogether a miraculous gift, wholly different from any natural product with which we are acquainted, and which bears this name. The manna of European commerce comes chiefly from Calabria and Sicily. It drops from the twigs of a species of ash during the months of June and July. At night it is fluid and resembles dew, but in the morning it begins to harden. The manna of the Sinaitic peninsula is an exudation from the "manna-tamarisk" tree (Tamarix mannifera), the el-tarfah of the Arabs. This tree is found at the present day in certain well-watered valleys in the peninsula of Sinai. The manna with which the people of Israel were fed for forty years differs in many particulars from all these natural products. Our Lord refers to the manna when He calls Himself the "true Bread from Heaven" (John 6:31, John 6:48). He is also the "hidden manna" (Revelation 2:17; compare John 6:49, John 6:51).