Why Don’t We Heed God?


Exodus 16:10-21
10And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11And the Lord said to Moses, 12“I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’” 13In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. 14And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. 15When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. 16This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” 17And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. 18But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. 19And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” 20But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. 21Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

There are many Bible stories that it would be my joy to experience personally and the morning delivery of Manna is one of them. I’m not so excited about the evening delivery of quail that will be discussed tomorrow as I don’t care for birds flying around me all the much. But to get up every morning and have the day’s food supply delivered to my hands would be lovely. Just imagine how great it would be to not have to figure out what to make for dinner tonight!

The Manna delivery served a couple of great purposes for God. He is trying to develop the people’s willingness to trust Him, testing Israel to see if they would obey not only those commandments that made perfect sense to them but also those that did not. What remains a mystery for me is why the people insisted on defying Moses (and thus God) by doing exactly what He said not to do – collecting more than one day’s food at a time (except for on Friday’s in preparation for the Sabbath.) This Manna was miraculous stuff. It arrives in the morning, is collected by everyone, and then the leftovers simply melt away. Now if you were foolish enough to try and horde some of it, it became putrid and filled with worms. You’d make that mistake only once, I think. God states a serious command about the Manna collection but some insist on not heeding God’s voice. We know what that looks like today too even though we don’t receive a daily delivery of Manna.

If people think God demands a behavior that runs against their intuitive sense of what is right, or pleasurable, or reasonable, or just “not so bad” (sex outside of marriage, e.g.), it is easy for them not to take a commandment seriously, which (although few realize it) is the same as not taking God seriously.
Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2, p. 375). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Just because God’s ways don’t immediately make sense for us doesn’t mean we should call Him into question or disregard what He says. We may find that our manna has taken on worms. It is interesting that God provides for the people the perfect food and they get to witness and daily miracle for the next 40 years. The Manna is His response to their grumbling but it is absolutely fantastic and they wouldn’t have had to grumble for Him to provide this for them. He would have done so had they simply asked Him in prayer in the first place. 

Just as the Hebrews couldn’t have possibly imagined such a food delivery system as the Manna (and Quail) so too we couldn’t have imagined our own salvation through the brutal death of God Son. But He will always do the most amazing and miraculous thing. We need only stand back with our gathering basket ready to receive what He has planned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)

Image
Psalm 121 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. There are numerous passages I cling to when stress takes over my life. I would be hard pressed to declare a favorite, but this psalm would come close. So this morning I listened to Psalm 121 about 20 times as I meditated through the verses. First, I want to point out that the word or idea of shamar appears in every verse expect 6. The NIV uses the word "watch" while the ESV uses "keep". The...
Read more

Excusez-moi

Image
2 Kings 23:31-37 31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. 36 Jehoiakim was twenty-fiv...
Read more

Narrow Door

Image
Luke 13:22-30 22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them , 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at tabl...
Read more