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Rabbinic tradition in tractate Yoma describes the manna as food that could taste like what each person liked. Earlier Jewish tradition, such as the Wisdom of Solomon, already described the manna as changing for individual tastes.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 16:21
Deuterocanon
19 At another time even in the midst of water it burns more intensely than fire, that it may destroy the produce of an unrighteous land. 20 Instead of these things, you gave your people angels’ food to eat, and you provided ready-to-eat bread for them from heaven without toil, having the virtue of every pleasant flavor, and agreeable to every taste. 21 For your nature showed your sweetness toward your children, while that bread, serving the desire of the eater, changed itself according to every man’s choice. 22 But snow and ice endured fire, and didn’t melt, that people might know that fire was destroying the fruits of the enemies, burning in the hail and flashing in the rains; 23 and that this fire, again, in order that righteous people may be nourished, has even forgotten its own power.
Yoma 75a
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
It was also said with regard to the manna: “And its taste was as the taste of a cake [shad] baked with oil [hashamen]” (Numbers 11:8). Rabbi Abbahu said: Shad means breast. Just as a baby tastes different flavors from the breast, since the taste of the milk changes somewhat depending on what foods his mother eats, so too with the manna, every time that the Jewish people ate the manna, they found in it many different flavors, based on their preferences. There are those who say that the word is written as shed and means literally a demon. How so? Just as a demon changes into different forms and colors, so too, the manna changed into different flavors.
Date: 450–550 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... According to Greek philosophy, the four constitutive elements of the world are fire, water, air, and earth. We have to ask a question: Is it the Hellenization of Hebrew tradition? For some it is; for others it is only a modernization. It must be noted that in Wisdom ultimately it is God who gave Solomon knowledge of the activity of the elements. J. Reider suggests that the Book of Wisdom also drew its source from the rabbinic interpretation of the Old Testament. The last ten chapters especially resemble the Midrash. He points out a few passages to suggest Midrashic influence: Wisdom 16:7 and Talmud R. H. 29a; Wisdom 16 and Yoma 75a etc. Especially the twenty-one attributes of wisdom in Wisdom 7:22-23, Reider insists, have their parallel in Sifre for Haazinu #306: 'For I will proclaim the name of the Lord' (Deuteronomy 32:3), i.e. Moses mentioned the name of the Lord only after twenty one words ..."
Kim, Benedict Sung-Hae
A Comparative Study of the Concept of Wisdom in the Book of Wisdom and the Tao Teh Ching
(p. 68) Marquette University, 1969
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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