Manna and water from the rock
Less than a week after the Red Sea, Israel is complaining again.
They are hungry. They are tired. They are camped in the wilderness with no visible food. And they say one of the most painful sentences a delivered people can say. “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted” (Ex 16:3).
In their memory, slavery now has full pots of meat. Memory is a generous editor. They forgot the bricks. They forgot the babies in the river. They forgot the four hundred years of groaning.
But notice what the Father does not do. He does not punish them. He feeds them. In the morning a fine flake-like substance covers the ground. They ask each other, “What is it?” (Ex 16:15). The Hebrew is man-hu — which is exactly where the word manna comes from. What-is-it. They ate what-is-it for forty years.
Two things to hold. First, it came daily. You could not store it up. It rotted overnight (except before Sabbath, when a double portion kept). The Father was teaching His people to trust today’s bread for today. Second, it came for everyone. Whoever gathered much had no surplus, and whoever gathered little had no shortage (Ex 16:18). The Father’s economy in the wilderness was daily, sufficient, equal.
Then water. Israel reaches Rephidim and there is none. They quarrel with Moses and quarrel with God. Is the LORD among us or not? (Ex 17:7). And the Father says — strangely, gloriously — “I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. When you hit the rock, water will come out of it” (Ex 17:6).
A struck rock. Water for a thirsty people. Life flowing from a stone because God was standing on it.
Centuries later, the apostle Paul will say something that should make every reader stop. “They drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4). The rock at Horeb was Jesus. Struck so the people could drink. And at the cross, when Jesus was struck for the last time, water came out of His side (John 19:34).
The manna that fell daily was Jesus too. “I am the bread of life… the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:35, 41). The Father has been feeding His people Jesus since the wilderness.
You don’t need to gather more than today. Today’s bread is sufficient. Today’s water is flowing. The Father is on the rock, and the rock is Christ.
Today: ask the Father for today’s bread. Don’t try to figure out tomorrow. Eat today’s manna. Drink from today’s rock. He will be there again tomorrow with more.