Exodus 16:4 - Exposition

Bread from heaven . Compare Psalms 78:24 ; Nehemiah 9:15 ; John 6:31-51 . The expression is of course not to be trader-stood literally. The substance was not actual bread, neither was it locally transferred from the distant region called "heaven" to the soil of the Sinaitic peninsula. But it was called "bread," because it was intended to serve instead of bread, as the main support of life during the sojourn of Israel in the wilderness; and it was said to be "from heaven," first, as descending on 'the ground out of the circumambient air; and secondly, as miraculously sent by him, whose seat is in heaven. The people shall gather a certain rate every day . Rather "a day's supply every day," such a quantity as shall seem to each man reasonably sufficient for himself and his family. That I may prove them. As in Paradise God coupled with his free gift of "every tree of the garden" the positive precept, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat,"—that he might prove our first parents, whether they would obey him or not—so now he "proved" the obedience of the Israelites by a definite, positive command—they were not to gather on ordinary days more than was sufficient for the day. All life is intended as a probation.