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March 19, 2025 |
| Eating Manna | ||
We're obviously looking at the time that the Israelites were in the wilderness. We will be focused on the beginning of that time when they were in the Wilderness of Sin. That's when they begin eating manna.
I had a lot of trouble finding a picture for this study. I thought, "How easy should it be to be able to get a picture of a bowl of manna or people picking up manna or something like that?" But in every picture that I found, there was an error, a contradiction with what the Bible says about collecting and eating manna. I was shocked by that, yet it justified the need for this study. It wasn't until I was able to have AI create an image for me that I got something that was both appropriate and correct according to the Bible.
I think that this study will show you things you've never noticed before because of the depths that we're going into.
The story of eating manna is not really a story about eating manna. It's really about doing things God's way. Yes, God is providing food for them because they need food in the wilderness, but God also has other goals. He is teaching them his ways and testing them on their understanding. At the heart of it is whether they can trust him.
We'll see, though, that no matter what miraculous thing God does for them, and he will do many of them, they are unable to trust in him. That shocks us, and it should, but in our time, we see the same thing. With all the problems in Christianity and the problems in the world, we are inclined to think that, if only Jesus were healing sick people now, then people would see that and they would believe in him. Or we say, if only the apostles were preaching in our churches now, then all the churches would get together and everything would be wonderful.
But the Bible also shows us that it has never been that way. With Israel not trusting in God and then with the Jews not trusting in Jesus, we know that no matter what miraculous thing is done, most people are never going to get it. It's just not possible for them to do that.
We're going to be looking at chapter 16 of Exodus. At this point in the Exodus story, it has been about two months since the Israelites left Egypt. As we begin these verses, we see the Israelites had been living on the Passover bread that they put together in a hurry just before they left Egypt. Now that's beginning to run out. For some of them, I imagine it had completely run out.
With that in mind, Moses has started leading them toward a different place. They're looking at entering the Wilderness of Sin. The word "Sin" isn't related to sinful, if that's what you are thinking. It's just the name of a geographic area, a large, desolate place, in every way a desert. It's going to be hot, with little water. It's going to be rocky, and if they're lucky, a little dust.
So, low on food, there's nothing in there to make them want to go in. They're not happy with this decision. Trust is the problem.
Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin […]. 2 And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 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." (Exodus 16:1-3)
They're saying this because they have no faith in God. They simply do not trust Him. It's more than that. They are trying to test God. They want him to prove that he can take care of them. They are trying to manipulate God. This was how they had dealt with the gods in Egypt. The sacrifices and prayers to those gods were done to coerce the god into doing what you wanted. Instead, God wants trust.
You may be aware that they're grumbling against Moses and Aaron. Why does the verse tell us who they're grumbling against? Why wouldn't you just say, "Israel grumbled"? God is telling us something. They don't dare to grumble against the one who's responsible for this, who is Yahweh. They know he has killed people before. This is the Yahweh who brought the plagues. This is the Yahweh who parted the waters and then closed them on their enemies. Grumbling against him would be stupid. They even say, "Would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh."
Instead they want to grumble against Moses and Aaron, who are the people who are leading them, and ignore the fact that Yahweh is actually the one leading them. They're being dishonest in what they're doing here.
Yahweh hears this grumbling, of course, and he's not happy about it. He decides he's going to deal with it.
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. 5 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 16:4-5)
There are two points I want to bring out there. This is a test. God already knows all of the things that are going to happen. He isn't the one who needs to know the test results, whether they're going to walk in his law or not. This test is for them to see that they aren't going to trust and obey God. It's for their benefit, so they can see themselves. The test is a mirror for them to look into.
There is another miracle that people don't usually notice. We know there wasn't going to be manna on the Sabbath. Verse 5 says, "on the sixth day, they shall prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather daily." The verse doesn't tell them to collect twice as much, but the result will be twice as much. So a weekly miracle is going to happen here.
We haven't seen the verse yet that tells them how much to collect, but they're going to collect as much as they were instructed to collect, and when they get it home and prepare it, it's going to be twice as much as they had on any other day. This is very similar to Jesus and the feedings of the 5,000 and 4,000.
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; 7 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 16:6-7)
So a couple of things are important to see here. Moses and Aaron call out the people for their grumbling. They haven't fooled anyone. They were really grumbling against Yahweh, and he heard. We're going to see this word "grumbling" a total of 8 times in the passage for this study.
God is really bothered, not by the grumbling but by the faithlessness behind it. These people should know better by now. They saw all of the miracles in Egypt; they saw what happened after Egypt. All of these should have been enough for them to trust that Yahweh was there to protect and care for them. Despite all of that, they simply are unable to make that step of trusting in him.
There is another aspect that's important here. God says two things will happen so that they will know and see. He says: in the evening, you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt. He also says: in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh. They're going to see the glory of Yahweh. This is God's continuing attempt to get them to trust and believe in him and to know that it was Yahweh who brought them out of the land of Egypt and is caring for them now.
Verse 8 is very similar to the previous verse. The difference is that previously, Moses was only saying there were going to be two signs, one in the evening and one in the morning. In this verse, he's fleshing out the details of exactly what those signs are going to be.
And Moses said, "This will happen when Yahweh gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread to the full in the morning; for Yahweh hears your grumblings which you grumble against Him. And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against Yahweh." (Exodus 16:8)
Moses says you will see the promise of verse 6 fulfilled when Yahweh provides meat in the evening and bread in the morning. This is less than clear. The fulfillment seems different than the promise. It's only by looking ahead to see what happens that we understand what is being promised.
When verse 6 says, "you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt," the fulfillment of that comes with getting meat in the evening and bread in the morning. The verse, however, sounds like meat in the evening is the entire promise of provision.
There is another promise. They will see the glory of God in the morning. We will see, however, that they see the glory of Yahweh in the evening before they receive the meat. This becomes apparent in verse 12. Because of this discrepancy, we have to think that the translation has a problem. The problem seems to be in the placement of punctuation. Remember that punctuation, as we know it, is not in the original text. The translator adds it. The translation says:
At evening you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt; 7 and in the morning [and] you will see the glory of Yahweh
Hebrew uses the word "and" much more than we do in English, and it is commonly the first word in a sentence. Most translations remove many of those, as was done here.
With different punctuation, it says:
At evening you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning. And you will see the glory of Yahweh
Punctuated this way, it also makes more sense. This is God's response to their grumbling words seen in verse 3, "in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full." They grumbled that they had both while in Egypt; God's response is to provide both.
This change also corrects the other promise, that they will see the glory of God. With this punctuation, no time is given for when they will see the glory of Yahweh. Therefore there is no problem with the glory appearing before the meat.
It seems like the translators decided they would treat the break between verses 6 and 7 as a period.
As far as we know, only the manna continued day after day. The meat and the glory did not continue. We do see quail appear again in Numbers 11, which shows that they did not continue as a daily provision.
This word "grumbling" appears a few more times.
Moses says, "What are we?", just as he said in verse 6. This emphasizes the point: "Who do you think we are?". Do you think that we somehow parted the waters of the Red Sea? Do you think that we somehow brought those plagues on Egypt? All of the things that you've seen happen, they could not have come from us. We are only men. Who are we that you would grumble against us? Then he finishes with, your grumblings are against Yahweh. You only fooled yourselves by saying you were grumbling against us. In your hearts, you knew that it was Yahweh who was doing all these things.
Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, 'Come near before Yahweh, for He has heard your grumblings.'" 10 Now it happened as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they turned toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of Yahweh appeared in the cloud." (Exodus 16:9-10)
Remember that Aaron is still the mouthpiece for Moses. We can see that in verse 6, where it says, "So Moses and Aaron said." That doesn't mean they are speaking in unison. It means Moses is telling Aaron what to say, and he delivers that to the people. It's going to be a little while yet before Moses speaks directly to the people.
The glory of Yahweh appeared in the cloud. That's one of the signs. They are now seeing the fulfillment of that sign.
Of course, we all wonder what that must have been like. What does it mean to see the glory of Yahweh? Well, we don't even get the slightest bit of a description here. But nonetheless, they saw it, Yahweh was great and glorious, and that they should be trusting in him.
And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 12 "I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel; speak to them, saying, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, so that you shall know that I am Yahweh your God.'" (Exodus 16:11-12)
This is the verse that causes the sequence problem with the translation that we saw above. The people have just seen the glory of Yahweh, and Yahweh says, in the future tense, they will receive meat and later bread. From this, they are to know that Yahweh is their God.
The word "God," Elohim in Hebrew, has different connotations than we have now. We tend to think of "God" as meaning "the one who tells us what to do and punishes those who don't." In Hebrew, the meaning is "your mighty one", or "your protector", the one who can take care of you and do miraculous things.
So it happened at evening that the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 Then the layer of dew evaporated, and behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the frost on the ground. 15 And the sons of Israel saw it and said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread which Yahweh has given you to eat (Exodus 16:13-15)
There's another miracle here. Quail don't normally do that. No bird or animal normally does that. The people would have recognized that right away.
All they had to do was get out of their tents, go out there, grab some quail, and there was the meat that they were looking for.
The quail covered the camp, and later, there was manna around the camp.
The people saw the fine flake-like thing and said, "What is it?". They actually said "manh", which means "what [is]." They have to be told that this is the bread they were promised.
This fulfills the last of the promised signs. The first sign was the glory of the Lord being seen, and also the meat in the evening.
Notice those words, "fine flake-like thing." Who would describe what they're seeing that way? Only the people would do that because they don't know what it is. It was God who wrote these words we are studying. All five books of the Torah were specifically "written" by God, then delivered to angels, who gave them to Moses.
How do we know that's true? The Old Testament never says that. Nonetheless, the Jews have always believed that, and in the New Testament, there are three different places where the idea is expressed that it was angels who were given this word first and they delivered it to man through Moses. The clearest one is in Hebrews.
For if a word spoken by Angels was established and everyone who heard it and violated it received a reward by justice (Hebrews 2:2)
That's talking about the law, which is what the first five books are called. The author's point is that if you were punished for violating the words delivered by angels, how much more will you be punished for violating the words delivered by God himself, by which he means Jesus.
A very similar thing appears in Acts 7:53. In Galatians 3.19, there's an oblique reference to angels delivering the word. Therefore as Christians, we believe it because the Apostles said it by the Spirit. The Jews, however, believed it long before that.
Back to our point here. It was God who wrote these "fine flake-like thing" words. He is writing from the perspective of a person who had gone out there for the first time and seen this and said, "What is that?" He has bothered to record that. We also see God do this in prophecy in many places; he writes the book from the perspective of the seers, but it's him writing the words.
This is what Yahweh has commanded, 'Gather of it every man as much as he should eat; you shall take an omer apiece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent. (Exodus 16:16)
Moses had told the people that bread was coming in the morning. The next morning, this white stuff showed up on the ground. But Moses has to tell them: this is it.
Why did they fail to recognize it? Maybe they had been expecting it to arrive as fresh-baked loaves delivered on their doorstep or something. God could have done it that way, but there's a reason he didn't.
There are two things I want to highlight in that verse. First, the part in blue is a really poor translation. You can find a lot of other translations that say that better. In this translation, it sounds like God is saying that each man should gather as much as he personally needs to eat. That's not what it's saying.
In the literal translation of this verse, it says "according to his need", and then his need is described in the next clause, you shall take an omer apiece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent. It's saying gather whatever you need for the number of people that you have in your tent. I'll come back to this again later.
God has reasons for doing it this way. There's a necessity for work for mankind. The Bible talks about that in many ways and places. Work is important to men and mankind.
First, it establishes a social structure. Men go out and gather. The verse says every man. It doesn't say every man, woman, and child. That was one of the problems I found in the pictures I considered for this lesson.
The men are the ones who are supposed to go out and collect for the number of people who are in their tent. This establishes a social structure where men have jobs. Every morning, they have to go out and gather the food for their family and bring it back to them, where it is prepared and eaten.
The verse also says, "his tent." It doesn't say his family. Whomever the man has in his tent, whomever is under his authority, that is whom he's to gather for. This establishes that the man is responsible for all who are in his house. If he has people who are not his family staying with him, for whatever reason, he is responsible for them. That's a principle that we see elsewhere in the Bible too. That doesn't only apply to the provision of food, but also to teaching and probably other things.
As part of the social structure, going out together to gather food is also a chance for the men to socialize. Some men are social animals and seek contact. Gathering together is something that men need to do. All these men would go out to work as though they had a lunchbox in their hands. As they worked, they would pause and chat, talk about the weather, share their stories, discuss the news, and whatever else. They would also establish hierarchies. That's what men do that allows them to work together.
Second, work is also good for their fitness and their health. If they just sit around in their tents eating all the time, that's not going to be good for them. Especially for men, it's necessary for them to get out and exert that effort. From the verses, it sounds like it wouldn't have been an easy thing to do. It wouldn't have been like picking up apples. These little flakes need to be picked up off the ground, and not just a few.
We do know that they didn't get a lot of time to gather manna. A little bit later, we'll see a verse that says the manna would start to melt and wasn't good anymore when the sun got hot in the sky.
There's also some motivational benefit. The early bird doesn't have to walk as far to get to an area that hasn't already been gathered.
Third, there's an unexpected purpose, righteousness. We have an expression that says, "Idle hands are the devil's tools." That's not a proverb in the Bible, but it's an observation that people have made over time. When somebody has too much time on his hands, he finds evil things to do with his hands. So it's necessary for people to have things to keep them busy. Gathering food was part of that.
Fourth, work provides a person with a sense of accomplishment. It fulfills a very basic need, as the children of a creating God, to create things.
I imagine there are other reasons that I haven't thought of, but I think you understand that God was not only providing food; he was building social structure and character.
Going back to the verse, we see that this translation uses the word "Omer," which is correct. It is a measurement of volume, but the size of an Omer is not at all well-defined. The source that I looked up for this gave various measurements. I saw a range of values between 0.6 US gallons and 1 US gallon. Some translations say 2 quarts. That sounds a little shy. That gives you a general idea of how much was to be gathered for each person in a man's tent.
And the sons of Israel did so; some gathered much and some little. 18 And they measured it with an omer, and he who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no lack; every man gathered as much as he should eat. (Exodus 16:17-18)
Many people don't recognize that there is another miracle going on here.
Moses told them to go out and gather this stuff, and the sons of Israel did so. Some gathered much and some little. When each one measured it with an omer, he who had gathered much didn't have more than he needed, and he who had gathered little didn't have less than he needed. How does it happen that each man just happens to have exactly what he needs?
There are two bad translations in this verse. I mentioned one already. It can be seen here in yellow highlight. It appeared in a previous verse and is here as well. In a later verse, we'll discuss that more. The new problem here is a verb tense problem. Notice the purple highlight. They both say "had". Therefore the final clause of that verse should say "had" as well.
Every man had gathered as much as he should eat
But it doesn't say "had." So this verse, as it is, makes it seem that every man just happened to gather exactly what he needed, but that's not what the Bible actually says. It says some gathered much and some little. After they had gathered, when they measured what they had gathered, it was exactly what they needed. Something is happening. God is doing something to make sure that everybody gets the right amount. He must be moving the manna among the men.
This accomplishes a number of things:
God has set up a system where people who put in the effort are rewarded equally; those who do not are rewarded with little or none. Any attempt to create a market for manna will fail. This is quite similar to some of the parables that Jesus told.
God's message in the manna is this: when I care for you, I care for each one of you individually. You need nothing else but me. You don't need to rely on yourselves. You don't need to do anything to protect yourselves. You can't take advantage of others. I'm in charge and caring for you.
Israel struggled with that message. They never did get to the point where they could trust God.
And Moses said to them, "Let no man leave any of it until morning." 20 But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul; and Moses was angry with them. 21 So they gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat according to his need; but the sun would grow hot, and it would melt. (Exodus 16:19-21)
Moses said that nobody is to leave any of the bread until morning:
Any attempt to plan for themselves was thwarted. God was taking care of them and trying to build their faith in him. Also, None of them would be able to take credit for their continuing existence in a food desert. God doesn't want people taking credit for the things he has done. So they can never say, "Well, God said to do it this way, but I did it this way instead, which was better. So I succeeded because of what I did."
Verse 20 says that they did not listen to Moses. Some of them left part of the manna until morning. That didn't work out for them.
So they learned to do it God's way. For some, though, that was only because God had left them no other way to go. They never learned that they could trust in God to provide for and protect them.
We've come to that bad translation again. I've scratched it out this time and replaced it with what a direct translation would say - according to his need. We've seen that his need depends on the number of mouths he has to feed in his tent.
Now it happened that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. Then all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses. 23 And he said to them, "This is what Yahweh has spoken: Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to Yahweh. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is in excess put aside to be kept until morning." (Exodus 16:22-23)
It's easy to miss what's being said in this verse. The men went out and gathered as they had been gathering in the previous days. When they got back and measured how much they had gathered, they found that they had two omers for each person in their tent.
The men didn't intentionally gather twice as much. From what the leaders say, we know they weren't aware of the Sabbath yet. When they measured how much they had gathered, they found there were two omers for each person. The men are so shocked by this that they send their leaders to Moses to see what's going on.
Once again, a miracle is happening. God is intervening, and things are coming out the way that they need to be.
Moses explains to them how to handle this situation. This day of the week is to be a day of observance. The rules are going to be different for this day of the week. They can now keep anything leftover until the next day, and it will not spoil. Also, this is to be a day of rest. The word "Sabbath" means "rest" or "ceasing from work". That will be how they observe this day.
So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had commanded, and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it. 25 And Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to Yahweh; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none." (Exodus 16:24-26)
Moses is introducing the idea of the Sabbath cycle and how food is going to work on the Sabbath.
It sounds like everyone did as Moses commanded. We're going to see, though, that isn't going to be true.
Notice that the words Moses uses here are essentially the words that are going to be in the Fourth Commandment.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of Yahweh your God (Exodus 20:9-10)
Remember that the Ten Commandments have not been given yet. That's still a couple of months away. For this time in the wilderness, the people don't have a lot of work to do. Instead of saying "You shall labor and do all your work," all that is said is, "You shall gather."
Now it happened on the seventh day, that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. 28 Then Yahweh said to Moses, "How long do you (y'all) refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? 29 See, Yahweh has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." 30 So the people rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:27-30)
When God says to Moses, "How long do you refuse …," he doesn't mean you, Moses. He means "y'all" or "all y'all." The word in Hebrew is a plural pronoun, but English doesn't have a standard for that plural pronoun.
I've already mentioned that Sabbath means "rest" or "ceasing from work," which are the same thing. When Yahweh says, "Yahweh has given you rest," that means something more to the Israelites than we realize. He refers to two different things. He is saying that the rest you did not get in Egypt, I am giving you. Remember that the Israelites are only a couple of months away from having been slaves. As slaves there, they didn't get rest. Now they get rest and are not slaves.
The other thing he is saying is that I've given you rest as an observance. With that, he clarifies how they should observe that rest. He says to stay around your "place." He doesn't use the word "tent" like he has been. So he's referring to a wider area, but an undefined area. His point is that they shouldn't go walking around so much that they don't get their rest. Just enjoy the rest that Yahweh has given you.
And the house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey. 32 Then Moses said, "This is what Yahweh has commanded, 'Let an omerful of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.'" 33 And Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar and put an omerful of manna in it, and place it before Yahweh to be kept throughout your generations." 34 As Yahweh commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the Testimony to be kept. (Exodus 16:31-34)
Notice that Moses says, "Place it before Yahweh." So Aaron is going to say, "Great! Where's Yahweh that I should place it before him?" But the verse says, "so Aaron placed it before the testimony." What's the testimony? The testimony is another name for the Ten Commandment tablets, but they don't exist yet.
What we're seeing here is almost certainly a non-chronological verse, which is to say, we've been hearing a time-ordered (chronological) story of their first reception of manna, and how they learned that they had to keep God's rules. But this part is a future event that is described now. So at some later time, when the Ten Commandments had been given, then the jar of manna was put before the testimony, before the Ten Commandments.
And the sons of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. 36 (Now an omer is a tenth of an ephah.) (Exodus 16:35-36)
This again is a non-chronological verse, which means it's not in time order. This one is even a little stranger. The previous one looked a couple of months into the future. This one looks 40 years into the future.
The Bible doesn't say when the angels gave the Torah to Moses for him to write down. The Jews believe it was given to him in pieces over the 40 years. Remember that the Israelites, at this time, don't know they are going to spend forty years in the wilderness. They think that they're going to go straight to the land of Canaan. We have to wonder if the Torah from the angels told Moses some things in advance. This would be a place where that could have happened.
We've talked about all of the miracles that have happened in this passage. I want to review them, though I may have missed a couple.
First, the glory of Yahweh appears in a cloud. This doesn't seem to be a daily occurrence. It seems like that was a one-time event because there is never a mention of it happening again. Later Yahweh will always appear to them in the cloud.
The quail dropping on the camp. That isn't exactly a one-time thing, but I don't think it happened every day. I mentioned that there's a later incident where the Israelites are complaining again, and God drops a bunch of quail on them again. But, quail dropping on a camp, that doesn't happen in the normal world. So it's a miracle.
Manna settling around the camp. That happened day after day after day, except on the Sabbath, for 40 years. For 6 days out of every 7, they see a miracle.
Gathering exactly the needed amount. Whether they gathered a lot or they gathered little, they had exactly what they needed once they had it home and measured it. Everybody got the omer of bread that they needed. So we know that God was doing something there.
Gathering twice as much on the sixth day was also something. It wasn't that the men worked harder and gathered more, or that there was more to gather. It was another miracle, apparently something out of nothing. It was like Jesus feeding the 5,000 and 4,000
Manna did not rot on the Sabbath. Every other day, any manna left over to the next day would go bad. God is doing something there too.
These make up a long list of miracles, some occurring daily or weekly. Yet they are unable to trust God.
That seems so strange to us. We like to think that we would never be like that. But I tell you the truth, there are a lot of people in the church today who would be just like that when it really came to trusting God in difficult circumstances. They wouldn't be able to do that.
The message for us is to make sure you're not one of those people. Hebrews 3 and 4 talk about this.
Do not harden your hearts to anger him, like the rebellious, and as the day of temptation in the wilderness 9 When your fathers tempted me and they proved and saw my works 40 years. 10 Because of this, I was weary with that generation, and I said, 'That is a people which deceives their heart, and they have not known my ways.' 11 And I swore in my anger, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" 12 Beware therefore, my brethren, lest there be an evil, unfaithful heart in any of you, and you depart from the living God; 13 But inquire of yourselves every day (Hebrews 4:8-13)
We also looked at the idea that God wasn't only providing everything that they needed. He was trying to build their faith in him. He was also structuring a society and teaching them his ways.
Especially note his instructions on how to keep the faith; inquire of yourselves every day. Evaluate yourself every day to make sure that you're still on the path. Getting off the path is not just a single step in the wrong direction. It's always a slow change with many steps. So to everyone, watch that for yourselves.