What Is It?

the murmur, the manna, the mandate

Jul 29, 2026

∙ Paid

This is part of my Bread in the Bible series! You can start at the beginning here.

First of all, I want to apologize for pausing on this series for a couple months. I shared more about what was going on in my mind and heart in this piece, but I’m back in the saddle! My plan moving forward is to share a new part of this series every other week until September, then I should be back to my one-a-month rhythm. The next one is already in the queue in my drafts!

It would be remiss of me to move forward through the Old Testament without talking about one of the most famous bread references of all: manna.

“Manna from heaven,” has become somewhat colloquial in its usage, often referring to any unexpected, small blessing from God. But what is manna, why did God start providing it for His people, and how is this passage still relevant for us? I was in an alliterative mood when I first wrote this, which means this devotional will be sponsored by the letter M. So, join me in Exodus 16 where we’ll be talking about the murmur, the manna, and the mandate.

The Murmur

At this point in scripture, it’s been one month since the Israelites left Egypt. They had just left Elim (which, according to Exodus 15:27, was lovely) and they’re on their way to Sinai. But the place they find themselves now is the Wilderness of Sin (which doesn’t sound as lovely).

It didn’t take long before the murmuring started. They were hungry and tired. They had a selective-rose-colored-memory of their past life, and they were hungry. They were convinced Moses and Aaron wanted to kill them, and did I mention they were hungry?

All Israel could see was their present difficulty. They conveniently forgot all God saved them from and they didn’t have enough faith to trust God with their future. In order to justify their murmuring, they twisted the reality of their past to make it seem like it hadn’t been so bad, and they made absurd claims about the intentions of Moses and Aaron.

In response, Moses said to the people of Israel, “God has heard the complaints you’ve made against Him.”

Can you imagine? All this time, the Israelites felt justified in their murmuring against Moses and Aaron, when in reality, they had been murmuring against the Lord. (Cue my brain stitching together a montage of all my recent complaints “against others” while God gives me a moment to connect the dots.)

The Manna

As a child, I always pictured loaves of bread, or maybe even Sister Schubert’s rolls, falling from the sky. Naturally, I was confused by the explanation of the word “manna” literally meaning, “what is this?” How could they not tell it was bread, I would wonder to myself.

It is very likely my young imagination carried me off to visions of bread loaves falling from the sky, causing me to miss when verse 31 describes it as, “like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.”

Once the morning dew had gone up, this flake-like substance was left on the ground for the people to gather. I think it’s worth noting here that God always referred to it as bread, or bread from heaven, but the Israelites always called it manna, or what is it.

When God’s provision comes in our life, we don’t always recognize it immediately for what it truly is.