“So the Israelites did this. Some gathered a lot, some a little. When they measured it by quarts, the person who gathered a lot had no surplus, and the person who gathered a little had no shortage. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat. Moses said to them, ‘No one is to let any of it remain until morning.’ But they didn’t listen to Moses; some people left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. Therefore Moses was angry with them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever proven yourself to someone only to have them doubt you anyway? That’s an enormously frustrating situation. One of the major themes of the Exodus journey is Israel’s persistent lack of faith in God. This story fits squarely within this theme. Let’s talk about how God provides, why Israel didn’t trust, and what all of this might mean for us.

It is easy to sit back and take pot shots at Israel. In fact, that’s generally one of the dangers of the Scriptures’ being so very honest about the people whose stories got featured by the various authors over the centuries of their composition. They present us with the temptation to look down on them and to think better of ourselves than we should. People aren’t perfect. We are all broken by sin. Lots of religious texts, though, in their attempt to make heroes out of certain individuals, have a tendency to whitewash their character so it looks like they were a whole lot better than they actually were. After all, people need heroes they can look up to, right?

Perhaps, but this is not a perspective shared by the inspired authors of the Scriptures. They are relentlessly, uncomfortably honest about the people we nonetheless call heroes of the faith. These folks are presented with all of their warts showing right out there in public where everyone can see them. I think the reason for this is fairly simple to understand: the only person we are supposed to look up to is Jesus. Where someone else’s life is worthy of emulation, it is because he is effectively emulating Christ. As the apostle Paul said, “Follow me while I follow Christ.”

What this means practically is that there are lots and lots of stories of people failing in one way or another in the Scriptures. This story is a perfect example. I feel like we’ve done this several times already, but it really is worth doing again. Israel had seen God demonstrate His power and might over the gods of Egypt not once, not even twice, but ten times; ten utterly indisputable examples of the fact that their God was stronger than the most powerful gods around. So decisive was the victory their God won for them that Egypt literally begged them to leave, they politely plundered their former captors on their way out the door, and they marched out in victorious military formations even though they hadn’t had to do a lick of actual fighting.

Then came the parting of the Red Sea. When Egypt came to their senses and gave chase to Israel, God opened a path through the Sea for them to cross on dry ground, and then He dropped all the water of the Sea on the pursuing Egyptian forces, totally destroying them.

The people rather quickly forgot all about that when they headed out into the desert, following the ever-present pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. After three days of no water, they figured they were toast. But then God provided for them miraculously again. He turned a pool of brackish water sweet by having Moses drop a piece of wood into it, and then directed them to a nearby springs that had more than enough for everyone.

Three times so far God has provided for the people. And these three were not things that could have been God, but also could have just been coincidences either. These were all undeniably miraculous instances of God’s revealing Himself as both able and willing to meet their needs (much unlike all of the other gods on the block). And then we have this occasion. The people complained about a lack of food, and openly wished for the culinary situation they had back in Egypt. Sure, they were slaves living under the rule of a tyrant who was trying to control their population via efforts that bordered on genocidal, but at least they weren’t hungry.

God should have thrown the towel in on them right then and there. If after three powerful self-revelations they still weren’t willing to trust in Him and His character, a fourth doesn’t seem likely to have made much of a difference. He just needed to start over with a people who were more disposed toward faithfulness than these knuckleheads. The trouble was that there weren’t any people who were more disposed toward faithfulness than the Israelites. Their lack of willingness to trust in Him even in spite of His best efforts was (and is) pretty much par for the course when it comes to humanity. And, God’s character is consistent. He was gracious and gentle and kind with them before, and He sticks with that pattern here.

He provided food for them. First came meat. All the meat they could eat. It literally fell from the sky as huge numbers of quail on their migration from one part of the region to another got tired and dropped to the ground in mass just as they happened to be flying over Israel’s encampment. Then came the bread. It wasn’t bread exactly, but it was a provision of daily sustenance that met their needs and even tasted good as a bonus. Once again, God miraculously demonstrated both His ability and His willingness to take care of them.

This time, though, God wasn’t just giving them a freebie. He told Moses back at the beginning of this episode that His intention was to test them to see if their faith had developed any. It hadn’t, of course, but a test like this isn’t just about evaluating. It is also about revealing. It was about revealing where they were in terms of their trust in Him. He already knew, but they needed to see and experience it.

So, when He told Moses the food was going to be coming, He gave him some instructions to pass along to the people about how they were to handle it. They were to gather what they needed each morning. No more, no less. He was going to make sure they all had enough. And that’s what happened. When everybody went out and gathered up the manna from Heaven, there wound up being enough for everyone. People who gathered a lot because that’s what they needed had enough. People who gathered just a little because that was all they needed had plenty too. Because God was going to give them enough for each day, they didn’t need to save any of it. This was the point of the test. Did they really trust in God’s character? Did they trust Him enough to do what He said? He had proven Himself reliable four times now. Were they convinced?

Some of them were. But many of them were not. In spite of being told directly not to save any of the manna once they had eaten their fill, some of them did just that anyway. They didn’t eat until they were full, and saved some of what they had for the next day just in case Moses was wrong and God wasn’t to be trusted. When they got up the next morning, their lack of faith was visually and olfactorily obvious. The leftover manna was all eaten up with worms and smelled terribly. Interestingly, we are only told that Moses was angry with them. He took this as a personal offense. After all he had done for them and before them, they didn’t trust his word. Or perhaps he was simply angry on God’s behalf. God’s irritation would come on the seventh day when they ignored that particular day’s special instructions, but we’ll get to that next week. Either way, the people’s lack of faith was pathetic.

And it was. But before we look down our noses at them, we should probably do a quick check in the mirror. As pathetic as their lack of faith was, their stubborn unwillingness to trust in God’s clearly revealed character, our apple doesn’t always fall so far from that particular tree. How many times have we fretted about something in the future?

How many times have we withheld a monetary gift that could have made a real impact in someone else’s life because we wanted to make sure we had enough for something we wanted to do?

How many times have we not given our time to a friend – or even a stranger – in need when we had a night off because we were just too tired and didn’t know when our next night off was going to be?

How many times have we made a decision that was controlled by fear instead of trusting that God was going to have our back and that an eternity in His kingdom was ahead of us no matter how that particular situation unfolded?

How many times have we leaned away from the character of Christ because of what we thought might be the implications in the moment for embracing it in spite of His many assurances in the Scriptures that embracing His character will always be better than not in the long run?

How many times have we failed to trust in God’s character and His promises in spite of the fact that He has proven Himself trustworthy a million times over?

As we read stories like these and see the cringeworthy reminders of just how silly a lack of faith in God really is, let us make sure we don’t miss the forest for the trees. We can debate just what exactly manna was and how the quail might have arrived in camp and whether this was the real introduction to the Sabbath for the people or a later addition and the like. There are a million different exegetical questions that can and should be answered. But none of those matter the most for us. What matters most is the reminder that when we don’t trust in God – something demonstrated by our obedience to His commands – we wind up looking pretty silly every single time.

So, look for opportunities to trust in Him today. And when you’re in that place where trusting in Him seems to make the least amount of sense – like, perhaps, when you can’t see how you are going to make it through some situation without depending entirely on the little bit you can see rather than the infinite God you can’t (which is what those few Israelites who saved their manna for the next day were doing) – know well that is the precisely the place you should lean hardest into that trust. You’ll be glad that you did.