The Slave's Stomach: Bread, Grumbling, and Glory Text: Exodus 16:1-7
Introduction: The Lingering Taste of Egypt
A man who has been a slave for forty years does not become a free man the moment his chains are struck off. The chains may be gone from his ankles, but they remain wrapped around his heart and his imagination. This is the central problem in the book of Exodus. God brings Israel out of Egypt in a single night of glorious power, but it takes forty years to get Egypt out of Israel. And the primary battlefield in that war is the stomach.
We modern Christians like to think we are above such carnal concerns. We imagine that if we had seen the ten plagues, walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, and followed the pillar of cloud and fire, our faith would be unshakable. But this is a profound self-deception. Our hearts are made of the same grumbling material as theirs. We have been delivered from the ultimate bondage of sin and death by a greater exodus, and yet how quickly we pine for the leeks and onions of our former slavery. We remember the fleeting pleasures of sin with a selective, romantic amnesia, and conveniently forget the lash of the taskmaster.
The wilderness is God's schoolhouse. It is the place where He teaches His children the difference between what they want and what they need. It is where He starves the slave's appetite in order to cultivate a son's faith. This passage is not fundamentally about a food shortage. It is about a faith shortage. It is about the clash between the memory of Egyptian bread and the promise of God's glory. And in God's astonishing response, we see not just a catering solution, but a revelation of His character and a foreshadowing of the true Bread that would one day come down from heaven.
The Text
Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the sons of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to put this whole assembly to death with hunger." Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My law. Now it will be on the sixth day, they shall prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather daily." So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, "At evening you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt; and in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh, for He hears your grumblings against Yahweh; and what are we, that you grumble against us?"
(Exodus 16:1-7 LSB)
The Universal Grumble (vv. 1-3)
We begin with the setting and the sin.
"Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin... And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness." (Exodus 16:1-2)
They have just come from Elim, an oasis with twelve springs and seventy palm trees, a picture of God's gracious provision. But the comfort of the last stop is quickly forgotten in the hardship of the next. They are now in the wilderness of Sin, a name that is almost too providentially on-the-nose. And notice the scope of the problem: "the whole congregation." This is not a disgruntled faction; it is a unanimous, corporate rebellion. The grumbling is universal.
The content of their grumbling in verse 3 is a masterpiece of faithless distortion.
"Would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to put this whole assembly to death with hunger." (Exodus 16:3)
Look at this carefully. First, they rewrite their past. They remember Egypt as a land of comfortable cookouts and all-you-can-eat bread buffets. They have utterly forgotten the slavery, the beatings, the mud pits, and the murder of their infant sons. This is what unbelief does. It is a master editor, airbrushing the horrors of bondage and highlighting its meager comforts. Second, they misrepresent their present. They accuse Moses and Aaron, and by extension God, of attempted mass murder. "You have brought us out... to put this whole assembly to death." They interpret their hunger not as a trial of faith, but as a divine assassination plot. Third, they blaspheme God's past deliverance. They say, "Would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt." They are referring to the final plague, the death of the firstborn. They are saying it would have been better to have been judged with the Egyptians than to be saved with the people of God. This is the slave's soul in its purest form: better a full stomach in the house of bondage than a hungry stomach on the path to the promised land.
Grace That Tests (vv. 4-5)
God's response to this slanderous accusation is not the judgment they deserve, but a grace that is utterly staggering. And yet, it is a grace with a purpose.
"Then Yahweh said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My law.'" (Exodus 16:4)
They accused God of trying to starve them, and He responds by promising to make it rain food. He doesn't just provide; He provides miraculously, from heaven itself. This is pure, unmerited grace. But it is not sentimental, coddling grace. It comes with a structure, a test. The test is simple: will you obey Me? Will you trust Me for one day at a time? The command to gather only a day's portion was a direct assault on their anxiety. It forced them into a daily rhythm of dependence. They could not hoard. They could not build up a surplus. They had to wake up every morning and trust that God's provision would be there, just as it was the day before. This is what the Lord Jesus taught us to pray: "Give us this day our daily bread." God was training them to live by faith, not by sight, and not by stockpiles.
The test is sharpened in verse 5 with the introduction of the Sabbath principle, even before the law is given at Sinai.
"Now it will be on the sixth day, they shall prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather daily." (Exodus 16:5)
This is a weekly final exam on the subject of trust. On the sixth day, they must trust that God's provision will be doubled. And on the seventh day, they must trust that the doubled provision will be sufficient, and they must rest. The Sabbath is not a burden; it is a gift of trust. It is a declaration that our lives are not sustained by our frantic, seven-day-a-week labor, but by the gracious, ongoing provision of God. He sustains the world while we sleep, and He can certainly sustain our household while we rest in Him for one day in seven.
Provision as Revelation (vv. 6-7)
Moses and Aaron now deliver God's message to the people, but they frame it in a crucial way. The coming food is not just about satisfying their stomachs; it is about educating their souls.
"So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, 'At evening you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt; and in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh...'" (Exodus 16:6-7)
The miracle has a purpose: revelation. The quail in the evening and the manna in the morning are meant to be object lessons. The quail would be proof that it was Yahweh, and not some cosmic accident, who delivered them. The manna in the morning would be a visible manifestation of the "glory of Yahweh." God's glory is the weight of His character, the visible display of His invisible attributes. Here, His glory is revealed in His patient, faithful, sustaining grace. He is answering their grumbling not with an argument, but with a tangible display of His goodness.
Moses also clarifies the true target of their complaints. "He hears your grumblings against Yahweh; and what are we, that you grumble against us?" This is a timeless lesson for the church. To grumble against God's ordained leadership is to grumble against God. Moses and Aaron are not the issue. They are merely the messengers, the instruments. The people's quarrel is with their Deliverer, and God is about to answer them in a way that will leave them without excuse.
The True Bread from Heaven
This entire episode is a shadow, a type, that points to a far greater reality. We cannot read about bread from heaven without immediately being driven to the sixth chapter of John's gospel. The Jews there, just like their ancestors, ask Jesus for a sign, reminding Him that Moses gave their fathers "bread from heaven to eat."
Jesus' response is a radical correction. He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world" (John 6:32-33). And then He makes the most audacious claim imaginable: "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35).
The manna in the wilderness was a test. Would they believe God's word, go out, and gather? It was a temporary provision; they ate it, and they all eventually died in that same wilderness. Jesus is the true bread. He is the ultimate test. Will we believe God's Word, come to Him, and feed on Him by faith? He is the eternal provision. To eat of this bread is to have eternal life. The grumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness of Sin is the same grumbling of the human heart in every age. We are hungry, and we accuse God of abandoning us.
And God's answer is the same. He does not give us a lecture; He gives us His Son. He rains down the true bread from heaven. Our part is simply to go out each day and gather. We are to feed on Christ through His Word and prayer. We are to trust Him for our daily spiritual nourishment, not trying to stockpile grace for the future, but depending on Him for this day. And in this daily feeding, this daily dependence, we will see the glory of God. We will know that He is the one who has brought us out of the land of bondage, and He is the one who will sustain us all the way to the promised land.