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Exodus

About this book
Chapter 16

1 When they journeyed from Elim, the entire company of Israelites came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their exodus from the land of Egypt. 2 The entire company of Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full,⁠ for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger!”⁠ 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out and gather the amount for each day, so that I may test them. Will they walk in my law or not? 5 On the sixth day they will prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather every other day.” 6 Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your murmurings against the Lord. As for us, what are we, that you should murmur against us?” 8 Moses said, “You will know this when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord.” 9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole community of the Israelites, ‘Come before the Lord, because he has heard your murmurings.’” 10 As Aaron spoke to the whole community of the Israelites and they looked toward the wilderness, there the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud, 11 and the Lord spoke to Moses, 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. 19 Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses; some kept part of it until morning, and it was full of worms and began to stink, and Moses was angry with them. 21 So they gathered it each morning, each person according to what he could eat, and when the sun got hot, it would melt. 22 And on the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers per person; and all the leaders of the community came and told Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a time of cessation from work, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Whatever you want to bake, bake today; whatever you want to boil, boil today; whatever is left put aside for yourselves to be kept until morning.’” 24 So they put it aside until the morning, just as Moses had commanded, and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25 Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the area. 26 Six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” 27 On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather it, but they found nothing. 28 So the Lord said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to obey my commandments and my instructions? 29 See, because the Lord has given you the Sabbath, that is why he is giving you food for two days on the sixth day. Each of you stay where you are; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.⁠ 31 The house of Israel called its name “manna.” It was like coriander seed and was white, and it tasted like wafers with honey.⁠ 32 Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it to be kept for generations to come, so that they may see the food I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.’” 33 Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put in it an omer full of manna, and place it before the Lord to be kept for generations to come.” 34 Just as the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the ark of the testimony for safekeeping. 35 Now the Israelites ate manna 40 years, until they came to a land that was inhabited; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.⁠ 36 (Now an omer is one-tenth of an ephah.)

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 16:15 and Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3.169

Hebrew Bible · Classical

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Summary

Exodus 16 describes manna that appears after the morning dew as food for the Israelites. Philo identifies the food with God’s Word, which spreads like dew through the soul and leaves no part of it unfed.

Passages

Exodus 16:15

Hebrew Bible
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.’”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3.169

Classical
He explains this point further when he says, “in the early morning when the dew ceased it appeared all round the camp, and there, upon the face of the wilderness a fine thing as it were coriander seed, white like hoar-frost on the ground. And when they saw it, they said one to another, ‘What is this?’ for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, ‘This bread, which the Lord has given us to eat, is this word, which the Lord has prescribed’” (Exod. xvi. 13 ff.). You see what kind of thing the soul’s food is. It is a word of God, continuous, resembling dew, embracing the whole soul and leaving no part of it without a share in itself. But this word does not show itself everywhere, only on the wilderness of passions and wickednesses, and it is fine and delicate both to conceive and be conceived, and surpassingly clear and transparent to behold, and it is as it were coriander seed. Tillers of the soil say that if you cut a coriander seed and divide it into countless pieces, each of the portions into which you cut it, if sown, grows exactly as the whole seed would have. Such too is the word of God, able to confer benefits both as a whole and through every part, indeed any part you happen upon. A resemblance between the word of God and the pupil of the eye may also be intended. For as the pupil of the eye is a very small part of it and sees the zones of the universe in their completeness, and the boundless ocean, and the vast expanse of air and of the infinite heaven, all that is bounded by the rising and the setting sun, so the word of God also has keenest sight, and is able to survey all things, [text missing] by which they shall clearly see all that is worth beholding. Accordingly it is also white; for what could be brighter or more far-shining than the divine word, through communion with which even other things dispel their mist and their gloom, eagerly desiring to become sharers in the light of the soul?
20–50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Philo, Allegorical Interpretation

References

“... "You see of what sort the soul's food is. It is a word of God, continuous, resembling dew, embracing all the soul and leaving no portion without part in itself* (Alleg. Interp. 3,169, see even 162-172). The same thought appears with small variations:162 Manna is the heavenly food God gives to the soul (Fug. 138; Mut. 259-260; Deus 155),163 and the erring people, of course, prefer "the onions and the garlic, which give great pain and trouble to their eyes and make them close, or the other ill- smelling things" of Egypt to it (Her. 79-80). Manna means the heavenly wisdom that God gives to people who seek virtue, and as seen above, Philo is clearly aware of a broad tradition interpreting the biblical story about manna. ...”
Erkki Koskenniemi, The Old Testament Miracle-Workers in Early Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 140.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Exodus 16:15 and Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3.169

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