Deuteronomy 8:3

Not bread, but God's Word.

The lesson of the manna gathered up into one concise sentence. It teaches us—

I. TO SEE GOD IN SECONDARY CAUSES . The Word of God is as truly the creative and nourishing principle in ordinary bread as it was in the extraordinary supply of manna. It is not bread, as something subsisting independently, but bread as the product of Divine power, and as possessing properties which the Word of God imparts to it and upholds in it, which is the staff of life and the object of our prayers ( Matthew 6:11 ).

II. TO BELIEVE IN GOD ACTING ABOVE NATURE AS WELL AS IN IT . If God wills life to be sustained, he can sustain it in other ways than by bread. He is not tied up to one set of means. He can act, if it pleases him, independently of means altogether, the creative word being sufficient to sustain. This is the direct meaning of the text, and a part of the significance of Christ's answer to the tempter ( Matthew 4:4 ).

III. TO RECOGNIZE IN MAN THE EXISTENCE OF A HIGHER LIFE THAN THE PHYSICAL . The physical is not the highest in us. We do not live by bread alone. A higher life is found in depending on God's Word, in obeying it, and in abiding by it, whatever the immediate consequences. The lower life may need to be given up that the higher may be saved ( Matthew 16:25 ).—J.O.