Exodus 16:15

Hebrew Bible

12 “I have heard the murmurings of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘During the evening you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be satisfied with bread, so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.’” 13 In the evening the quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning a layer of dew was all around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew had evaporated, there on the surface of the wilderness was a thin flaky substance, thin like frost on the earth. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” because they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you for food. 16 “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Each person is to gather from it what he can eat, an omer per person according to the number of your people; each one will pick it up for whoever lives in his tent.’” 17 The Israelites did so, and they gathered—some more, some less. 18 When they measured with an omer, the one who gathered much had nothing left over, and the one who gathered little lacked nothing; each one had gathered what he could eat.

John 6:49

New Testament

46 (Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God—he has seen the Father.) 47 I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

 Notes and References

"... Jesus has fed a multitude in a way that recalls a Christian celebration of the Eucharist, but this feeding has taken place at Passover time, when the gift of the manna was recalled. The disciples are commanded to gather the fragments of this original meal. The author uses language which recalls the practice of the Exodus people, gathering the manna each day, and eating it until they have had their fill (see Exodus 16:8, 16, 18, 21). Unlike the Markan account, Jesus shows no interest in gathering the fragments (see Mark 6:43). However, in the desert, Moses commands that the manna was not to be stored. Any manna that was collected and put away perished (Exodus 16:20-21). But the bread provided by Jesus will not perish. Jesus' gift to people who come to him in search of bread (see verse 5) must not be lost, and the disciples are to see to its preservation: 'Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost' ..."

Moloney, Francis J. "The Function of Prolepsis in the Interpretation of John 6" in Culpepper, R. Alan (ed.) Critical Readings of John 6 (pp. 129-148) Brill, 1997

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