Daily Weekly Healthy Habit-Exodus 16-17

Exodus, Sermons

VIDEO. Feeling super–high the Israelites sang victoriously after God’s mighty miraculous deliverance at the Sea of Reeds [No Way Out But God (Exodus 14-15)], for it freed them from 430 years of slavery to Pharaoh and Egypt. But…

  • …what happened after that (Exodus 16-17)? Were all their problems solved?
  • Is everything wonderful after they experienced God’s miraculous grace and blessing? What’s the reality of life?
  • What is the purpose of the 3 restrictions in the gathering of manna?
  • After being delivered from slavery, are they truly free and no longer slaves?
  • Should you live in the “wilderness” [like the Israelites] before entering the Promised Land? Why or why not?
  • Were the people’s increasingly bitter complaints against Moses good for his growth? How?
  • Is there a difference between how Moses and God dealt with the Israelites trilogy of murmurings?
  • Why was God so adamant about obliterating Amalek (Exo 17:14)?

Life‘s challenges. They soon discover that God’s defeat of Pharaoh and their deliverance from slavery in Egypt by no means solves all their problems. They faced challenges, like the early church found it had to deal with persecution, “Christians” falsifying their financial pledges, and one group complaining about another group being neglected when food was distributed (Acts 4-6). Like Israel, it involved down-to-earth problems like complaining about their life, or complaining about their leaders, and not having enough food [cf. U.S.: consumerism, materialism, hedonism, FOMO.].

Murmuring [complaining] trilogy. The Psalms make clear that it is fine to complain against God about things that happen to us, and about the way others are treating us. 3 times the Israelites don’t complain against God but against Moses and Aaron (Exo 15:24; 16:2-3; 17:2-3), for it doesn’t require courage to criticize your human leaders than to criticize God. [Title change from “Obey Daily Without Complaining” to “Murmuring Trilogy” to “Daily Weekly Healthy Habit/Rhythm of Life.”]

How will a people be formed? The wilderness is on the way to the Promised Land. The wilderness, an anti–Egyptian setting for acquiring an anti–Egyptian way of life, contains some land good for pasturing or driving cattle but is largely an arid and uninhabited no-man’s land. In the barren place, the Israelites, wandering about, will be formed as a people before they enter the Promised Land. They need to learn to Obey Daily Without Complaining [my original title]. Ancient Israel–alone among the earth’s nations, then or since–becomes a people before they have a land and before they have an economy.

Still slavish though delivered from slavery. The people still need to be transformed from their slavishness. Otherwise, they’re delivered from slavery externally, yet still be like slaves in their inner person, which rears its ugly head throughout their llives. So, getting the slaves out of Egypt is the easy part, but getting slavishness or being Egyptian out of the Israelites is an eternal project. Even after being delivered out of slavery, we can’t be self-satisfied and say, “Now I’m free,” for the journey continues and the summons–to deliver ourselves from ourselves–is a lasting project. Exodus 15:22-17:16 deals with the following themes for the first time:

  • a trilogy of murmuring/grumbling/complaining of the newly redeemed slaves (Exo 15:24; 16:2-3; 17:2-3), and how this is a challenge to Moses and Aaron’s leadership;
  • the Lord’s provision of water (15:22-27; 17:1-7), bread, quail, rest (Exo 16), and the need to defend themselves from their enemies (17:8-16);
  • the Lord’s continuing visible presence with the people.

Survival requires attention to the necessities of life. In a sense [physical and literal], people cannot live by God alone (Dt 8:3; Mt 4:4). The Israelites need to address 3 basic needs which are precisely essential requirements of peoplehood:

  1. sustenance–3 episodes that loom large in the desert: murmurings about water, then food, then water again (15:22-17:7),
  2. defense against external attack–the battle with Amalek (17:8-16),
  3. internal peace and order–Jethro’s visit (18:1-27): the essential requirements of peoplehood.

Faced with these basic needs, they need to learn the correlative virtues of:

  1. moderation [not too much or too little],
  2. courage [to fight and face enemies],
  3. justice [to live well together].

A test of their trust in the Lord when they lack water and bread (Exo 15:25; 16:4). God promises to heal them on condition that they heed His commandments and keep His statutes and ordinances (Exo 15:26). Had Moses not yielded to to the people’s murmuring (Exo 15:24), had he not immediately cried out to the Lord (Exo 15:25), had he instead encouraged them to trust in the Lord and go a little farther, how well the people’s needs would have been met (Exo 15:27). Deliverance is often at hand if you do not despair and are willing to look for it.

Did they learn anything from the test to trust God? The way they complain about their lack of food suggests that they learned nothing. [“Sin” is the Hebrew name of the wilderness–it’s not the Hebrew word for “sin” (Exo 16:1).] As things get worse, time has given a romantic rosy glow to their life in Egypt compared with the reality Exodus has described (Exo 16:2-3). Although physically liberated, they’re still psychically and morally in bondage. The mind may dream of freedom, but stomach and blood insist on life. When life is jeopardized by lack of food, all else is unimportant. Critical issues of all people:

  • permanent restiveness [stubbornly resisting, uneasy, impatient, fidgety] regarding necessities of life,
  • fear of scarcity, and
  • anxiety about getting enough. Anxiety can lead to
  • grabbing all you can,
  • hoarding what you have,
  • coverting what is your neighbor’s,
  • even selling yourself into bondage for food [as the Israelites here imagine doing (Exo 16:3) and as the Egyptians did in Joseph’s Egypt], and
  • it can lead to rebellion, war, and plunder–ugly methods of gaining subsistence.

“What is it?” [Man hu”] (Exo 16:15). This is the people’s:

  1. 1st nonrhetorical question,
  2. 1st utterance that is not a complaint,
  3. 1st awareness of ignorance,
  4. 1st sign of a nonslavish spark of curiosity–a small moment that may be compared to Moses’ turning aside in wonder to see why the burning bush was not consumed (Exo 3:3). The substance will get its name, manna, from their question, and their question, like Moses’, will get an answer that connects them to the divine (Exo 16:15-18).

3 restrictions placed on the gathering of manna:

  1. Gather only what each person and his household need and can eat in a day (Exo 16:4, 16-18): take only what you and your household needs, but no more. The principle: to each [only] according to his needs; the implicit promise is that there is enough for all.
  2. No overnight storage or waste (Exo 16:19-20).
  3. No gathering on the 7th day (Exo 16:23-26).

I. The principle: Only what you need. This does more than satisfy hunger. It teaches people to examine their desires. In the absense of scarcity, we are thrown back on ourselves. We can curb our excess wants and align our desires with our true needs. We acquire moderation, that wisdom and measure embodied in our trained appetites.

  • An economic and political point. By not collecting more than one needs, God precludes the emergence of those through which some would gain excessive wealth. He also prevents anyone from doing what Joseph and Pharaoh did: storing surplus food and using it to exploit the hungry, even to impose slavery. Some Israelites could easily have ended up imitating their formr masters, having recently been slaves. Or they could succumb to their slavish tendency and give up freedoms for food [future] security. So, the people need to unlearn their slavishness. [An “omer” (Exo 16:16) is like a unity of satisfaction–a measure of fitness between need and supply–and a unity of human equality (Ac 4:32).]

II. Overcome fear and waste. Fearful that God won’t provide for tomorrow, they worry and gather more than they need to save for the next day (Exo 16:20; Mt 6:34). Unwittingly, they embraced the Egyptian practice of storage and hoarding–a practice Joseph introduced into Egypt, and that this directive seeks to have the Israelites unlearn. The hoarding led to waste and greed. They also show contempt for God and His bountiful provision. Thus, the Lord’s prayer teaches us to trust Him each day (Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3).

III. A Day of Ceasing–the 1st time the Israelites hear about the sabbath: a “cessation time,” a day of not doing, a literal “separated day of cessation,” a holy [“separated” or “set apart”] day unto the Lord, a prominent element of the 10 Commandments, where it is a central idea–perhaps the central idea–in the covenant that God and Israel will establish at Sinai, an idea that explicitly links both to Creation and to the deliverance from Egypt (in Deuteronomy)–to the Lord as Creator and as Redeemer.

An anti–Egyptian idea and practice. In Egypt, the slaves toiled ceaselessly without respite. The monotony and inertia flattened the soul, while Egyptians were engaged in acquiring, gathering, storing, hoarding–building storage cities for Pharaoh. Against this background God introduces a caesura [cessation, break] in time, a day of standing down, a day to desist from seeking, gathering, and preparing food, a day to turn one’s attention to other things. These aspects of modest sabbath regulation invite people to turn with gratitude to the Lord, as the gracious source of bounty and provider of vital necessities. Yet, the habit of acquisition, of seeking and taking more and more, dies hard, and not only among ex-slaves.

Keep an omer of manna forever–“throughout your generations” (Exo 16:32-36). To the obligation to commemorate Passover night–the divine gift of liberation–is added here the obligation to commemorate the manna, the divine gift of sustenance. God both frees and feeds His people, and we should never forget it. In a world beyond scarcity and grasping, the choice is not freedom vs. food and drink, but grateful trust vs. foolish pride [it’s mine] or ignorant despair or fear [I don’t have enough. I need more. I want more.].

Provision of manna in the wilderness stands as a correction of agricultural Egypt where:

  • land ownership was centralized,
  • inequalities were everywhere,
  • acquisitiveness knew no respite,
  • excesses were hoarded,
  • the multitudes sold themselves into slavery to survive,
  • neighbor fought with neighbor, and
  • one man ruled over all as if he were god–eventually leading his entire people to destruction.

Getting human beings out of slavery is easy; getting slavishness–and tyranny—out of human beings is hard. For 40 years, economic matters are set aside so that moral and spiritual ones may come to the fore (Exo 16:35). In keeping with its central mission [given later at Sinai] to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, Israel will be the only nation that becomes a people before inhabiting a land or having to provide for their common subsistence.

Grumbling and restiveness [impatience, uneasiness] increased in each of the 3 murmuring episodes, from

  1. murmuring against Moses in the 1st, to
  2. murmuring against Moses and Aaron in the 2nd, to
  3. disputing with Moses in the 3rd, verging on rebellion–to the point that Moses fears being stoned (Exo 17:4).

Though the elite (Korah’s later rebellion) may rebel against authority out of ambition or wounded pride, the multitude will revolt over sustenance, and insist on knowing if the Lord is among them (Exo 17:7).

Why was God so adamant about obliterating Amalek (Exo 14:14)? Amalek was the 1st nation to make war on Israel? God wants the world to know what happens to those who threaten His people? Perhaps so. Amalek attacked Israel not to plunder but to destroy, perhaps avenging its founding father Esau and carrying out his unfulfilled pledge to kill Jacob. Also, when Amalek heard of God’s victory over Egypt, it showed no fear of God, and attacked the Israelites to show its fearlessness and to win a victory over the God of Israel. Pharaoh had waited to attack the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds until he saw them confused, a sign, he thought, that God was no longer with them. But Amalek, on hearing about God’s rescue at the sea, attacks directly. The Amalekites behave on the principle, “We know not the Lord–and even if we did, we would not fear-revere Him.” Those who attack God’s people are enemies of God Himself and ipso facto a direct attack also on Him. God pledges to erase Amalek’s name from the face of the earth, just as the Amalekites had hoped to do with Israel.

Leadership training for Moses, who was raised as an aristocrat. He lacked sympathy with the masses’ insistence on meeting their bodily needs and shows contempt for them. He must learn to accept their limitations and their claim to equal humanity. He needs to learn that being a leader is not just a matter of heroic deeds in times of crisis [at the Sea of Reeds], but also requires attention to the people‘s day-to-day welfare. He hadn’t expected to have to deal with their everyday needs. It wasn’t part of the job description when God gave him his mission at the burning bush.

  1. 1st episode about the bitter water at Marah, Moses cried out to God (Exo 15:25)–perhaps prematurely–given that an oasis with 12 springs and 70 palm trees was a short distance away (Exo 15:27).
  2. 2nd episode at the wilderness of Sin, God intervenes with the promise of meat and bread before Moses says anything (Exo 16:4-5).
  3. 3rd episode about the lack of water at Rephidim, Moses, almost at wit’s end, complains about them to God (Exo 17:4).

God wants His people to trust Him. God used the people’s murmurings to teach them His providence and care–and perhaps also to teach Moses to respect and expect the people’s [reasonable] demands. God did not remonstrate [tale issue] with the people for their murmurings, but only for their failure to keep the rule against gathering on the Sabbath.

God does not simply yield to the people’s demands, nor does He overlook their slavish preference for the goods of the body. But God takes advantage of their needs to elevate their gaze and, by means of obedience, to teach them about His reliable providence and their need to trust in Him.

Learn Who and What God is on the basis of what God says and does. Regarding the Lord-ignorant masses and future, we must watch and wait to see and know–slowly, slowly–that and What He Will Be. Be increasingly in awe of God’s

  • sagacity [foresight, discernment, keen perception, understanding, wisdom, ability to make good judgments],
  • patience,
  • power,
  • grace,
  • truthfulness, and–above all–
  • His philanthropic beneficence.

Our ancestors all followed the guidance of the cloud column, and they all went through the Sea of Reeds as a kind of baptism, says Paul (1 Cor 10:2). They all drank the water and they all ate the food (1 Cor 10:3-4). But most of them fell in the wilderness. These stories were written for us to learn from (1 Cor 10:6,11). Paul urges us to not think that we couldn’t go the same way (1 Cor 10:12).

Reference:

  1. Leon R. Kass. Founding God’s Nation. Reading Exodus. 2021.
  2. James K. Bruckner. Exodus. New International Bible Commentary. 2008.
  3. John Goldingay. Exodus & Leviticus for Everyone. 2010.
  4. Robert Alter. The Hebrew Bible. A translation with commentary. The Five Books of Moses. 2019.
  5. Dennis Prager. Exodus. God, Slavery, and Freedom. The Rational Bible. 2018.
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