The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 57

EXPOSITION. Vers. 31-36.-THE APPEARANCE OF THE ~e author of the Epistle t? the Hebrews MANNA, ITS C01iTINUANCE, AND ITS DEPOSITION (1x. 4) follows the LXX. ID representing I!i THE TABEBNACLE.-ln bringing the subject the word used by a--rrl.µ.~os, which certainly of the manna to a conclusion, the writer adds a means " a jar" or " pot." Lay it up before the Lord. The " pot of manna" was laid up few words. 1. On its appearance ; 2. On its before the Lord with the "tables of the cove- deposition by divine command in the Ark of nant," and "Aaron's rod that budded" as the Covenant; and 3. On its continuance symbolical that God's mercy was as eternal during the forty yes.rs of the wanderings. It and essential, and as much to be remembered :i.s e,ident that verses 32-34 cannot have been as his. justice, and perhaps also as especially symbousing the " true bread of life." ,nitten until after the scjonrn in Sinai, and Ver. 34.-Ae.ron laid it up before the tes- the command to make a tabemacle ( eh. timony. "The testimony" is not the Ark of =vi.) : as also that verse 35 c.annot have been the Covenant, which is never so called, but written till the arrival of the Israelites at the the Covenant it.self, or the two tables of stone ,. crge of the land of Ca.na.a.n.. But there is engraved by the finger of God, which are termed" the testimony" in eh. xxv. 16-21 ; nothing in the passage that militates against tl 20 ; etc. The pot of manna wos laid up the Mosaic anthorship of the whole. inside the ark (Heb. ix. 4) in front of the two tables. Ver. 31.-The house of Israel This ex- Ver. 35.-The ohildren of Israel did eat pression is unllSllll.i., and is not admitted by the m.e.nne. forty years. Kalisch observes that Septnagint, the Syria.c, or the Arabic ver- the actual time was not forty full years, but sions. which ell have "the child,ren of a.bout one month short of that period, since Israei." Several Hebrew MSS. have beni, the manna began after the fifteenth day of " sons," instead of beyth " honse." Manna. the second month of the first year ( verse 1) Literally, as in the Septnagint, man-the and terminated just after Passover of the fort.y- word used when they fust beheld the snb- first year (Josh. v. 10-12). It may be added stance (verse 15), and probably meaning "a that MosPs cannot have written the present gift." The elongated form rnanna, first passage later than about the eleventh month a.ppean; in the Sept. rendering of Nmn. xi. of the fortieth year (Deut. i. 3 ; x.xxiv. 10; 6, 7. It wa.s like ooriander seed. This is " a Josh. iv. 19); when the manna had continued small round grain of a whitish or yellowish thirty-nine years and nine months. Until grey." The comparison is made again in tt.ey ea.me to a land inhabited. Kalisch Num. xi. 7, where it is added that the colour translates "the land of their habitation," or was that of bdellium--either the gum 60 " which they were to inhabit," remarking called, or possibly the pearl The taste of it that they had reached inhabited countries, was like wafers made with honey. Such e.g., those of Sihon and Og, much earlier wafers or cakes were constantly used as offer- But the words will not bear this rendering ings by the Egyptians, Greeks, and other What the writer intends to note is, that the nations. They were ordinarily compounded manna continued ell the time they were in of meal, oil, and honey. Hence we can the wildemess, until they reached inhabited reconcile with the present passage the state- territory, and then further (in the next ment in Num. xi. 8, that "the taste of it was clause), that it lasted after that, until they as the taste of fresh oil" came to the bordeIB of Canaa.n. He does not Ver. 32.-And llosea Ba.id. Not at the say that it even then left off. He writes moment, but some time subsequently. See exactly as Moses might be expected to have the introductory paragraph. Fill an omer. written towards the close of his life. A later lr:r the original it is "the omer," and 60 the writer would, as Canon Cook observes, have LXX. : but the reason for the introduction of been more specific. the article is obscure. For your generation&- Ver. 36.-An omer. The " omer" must i.e., " for your descendants." be distinguished from the " homer " of later Ver. 33.-Take a pot. The word here times. It was an Egyptian mcBBure, as also translated " pot " does not occur elsewhere in was the " ephah." It is not improbable that Seri vture, and is believed to be of Egyptian the verse is an addition by a later writer, 111 origiu Geseniua translates it "basket;" but Jo~hua, or Ezra, en. JI.VI. 32-34.) THE BOOK OF EXODUS.