A long, long time ago, Moses led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt. The Israelites were a great people, with many, many people. Now they were in the desert. A desert is a very hot place where there is hardly any water or food. Soon, people were hungry and began to complain.
The Israelites said, “Oh, if only we could have stayed in Egypt! There we had enough to eat. Moses, why did you bring us here?”
Moses heard the complaints of the people and prayed to God. “Please, God,” Moses said, “we need your help!”
God heard Moses and loved His people very much. He promised to show the Israelites that he was taking care of them. He told Moses that he would send them something to eat so that they would not be hungry.
The next morning, when people woke up, the floor was full of little things that looked like white flakes. People wondered, “What is this?”
Moses said, “This is the bread that God has given you. You can gather it and eat it. It will fill you up.” They called it “manna,” which means “What is this?” because they had never seen it before.
God commanded people to collect only as much manna each morning as they needed for a day. And God also said that they were to gather twice as much on the sixth day of the week so that they could rest on the seventh day. Because God wanted them to have a day of rest.
The Israelites gathered the manna, and it was sweet as honey. Every day, God had made sure that there was enough food for His people. They realized that they could trust God.
Message of history
God cares for us and cares for us so that we have everything we need. We can trust Him no matter where we are.
Bible passage
The story of manna in the wilderness can be found in Exodus 16:14-18 (Schlachter 2000):
“And when the dew had risen, behold, there it lay round on the surface of the desert, something fine, grainy, as fine as the frost on the earth. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, “Man hu[1]? (“What is that?”), because they didn’t know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread that the Lord has given you for food.” And this is what the Lord has commanded: Gather some of it, each according to his ability to eat, a gomer for each according to the number of your souls; let each one take it for those who belong to his tent. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some much, others little. But when they measured it with Gomer, he who had collected much had no excess, and he who had collected little lacked nothing; they had collected, each according to his eating ability.”
