Why did Moses lead the people in worship? How was this a show of their faith? How does the song help characterize God? Why would God want to be associated as a man of war? Who is Miriam? Why did the people complain? How long can you last without water? How was God merciful in the Israelites' apostasy? Does the piece of wood have any greater significance by calling forward to Jesus? How do the Israelites complain in a way that they know is not truthful? What is manna? Hoe does God continue to be merciful despite their grumbling? Why didn't the people of Israel listen to God's commands? Why does Moses save some of the manna for historical reasons?
Let Nothing Move You
Exodus 15 & 16
My name is Christian Ashley, a seminary student and servant of God. And you are listening to the Let Nothing Movie podcast, a proud Anazelle Ministries podcast. Welcome back, everyone, to the Let Nothing Movie podcast. I'm your host Christian Ashley. As we're continuing on through the book of Exodus, today we'll be in chapters 15 through 16. But before that, a little bit of announcements. We do have a couple of guests coming on fairly soon. I will have Joshua Knoll back again. He of the whole church podcast and systematic ecology and dummy for theology. He will be discussing Exodus 19 alongside me. Then after that, Exodus 20, I will be with Pastor Will Rose of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, as we will be discussing the Ten Commandments. I'm really looking forward to that one. We'll be his first time on the show. He's already teased me a couple of times about trying to move me. So we'll see if I moved at the end of that discussion. And then after that, I will have another returning guest, Karai Ro of the Foreign Saints podcast. We will be going over Exodus 21 and 22 going over several of the social justice laws of Israel. Why they mattered then? What matters now to us? Gonna have a ton of fun with that. So without anything else, we're going to be heading into Exodus 15 today, verses 1 through 12. Then Moses sent the people of Israel saying this song to the Lord, saying I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider, he is thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise him. My father's God and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his hosty cast into the sea and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them. They went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hando Lord, glorious in power. Your right hando Lord shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. You send out your fury. It consumes them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap. The deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My desire shall have it still of them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. You blew with your wind. The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand. The earth swallowed them. As the people of Israel have been saved once more by the power of God, Moses chooses to lead the people in worship to God, showcasing his character that is mightily displayed in this song. And in this song, we see a full display of his might and power through these wonderful verses. And from here, we learn more about how God himself is our strength and salvation. Words that will be repeated in further songs, hymns, and songs for thousands of years because they are just as true today as they were then. And this, if I remember correctly, is the first real worship song we have in scripture. If I'm forgetting something from Genesis, I apologize. But here it is. And it comes from such a mighty moment of God delivering his people from Egypt fully and utterly. They will never pursue them again in this lifetime. They're going to not learn their lesson and attempt it later on in various ways. But for right now, they learn the lesson. You don't mess with God and God's people. And Israelites have a lot to sing about here. They're at a spiritual high and they're acting like it. And through here, we learn that God is the only one who can give us our strength and our salvation, even when we struggle to believe that he's real. Still, even in those moments, he gives us with what we need so that we can worship and do his good works in the world. And just through Exodus alone, God had proven this multiple times over for the Israelites in Egypt. And he continues to do this to those who are his and even has the mercy to gift common grace to those who will never be his. That common grace idea is that, hey, we are alive. We are able to think, we are able to interact with this world and live life in a world that he made for us. That's a common grace. But the better grace to receive his salvation is to turn to him, is to repent, to become his, to realize, I am not perfect. I need to turn and be better than who I am. And also recognize that as part of this whole song, not once are the accomplishments of Moses, Aaron, or Miriam ever brought up because their achievements in this whole ordeal are nothing compared to the might of the Almighty God. Moses has successfully led his people out of Egypt. He spoke mightily against Pharaoh. Aaron has done the same. He has performed signs and wonders. Miriam was the woman who as a girl saved her brother from death. But compared to the works of God, they're nothing. They're not what needs to be praised right now. It's the God who enabled these things to happen to God who created them for these things to happen. And that's why they don't sing their own praises. They sing about his. And we also see here God described as a man of war, one who leads the battle against evil and injustice, conquering all who would dare to harm his people and desecrate the world that he made. As we see here, the schemes of man attempt to fight against him and against any and all plans of the enemy of mankind, of whatever is working against God. God denies them their ability to win no matter what they do because he is the ultimate warrior and judge over them. The Egyptians failed and so too would any other nation who dared act against his will, regardless of where in time and space, you can't win against God. And oftentimes right now, as we're looking at the state of the world and wondering, I don't like this political candidate, I don't like the other one. I don't like either. I don't know who's dare to save us. Well, guess what? They're not there to save you. They're never going to be able to save you. And that's good, because I don't want to put my trust in man. I don't want you to put your trust in man. We deserve better. We deserve the actual God who can win. And even in this world where we look and see how would that person prosper? He's doing all these evil terrible things. Why doesn't God distract him down right now? Why does he get to have all this beautiful fruits of his labor, all these wonderful things? Why does he have these riches? Why does she have these riches? Why do they have this family? Why do they have everything they've ever wanted? Because in the end, they're going to have nothing, because those gifts aren't gifts. They're curses. They're keeping them distracted from where they should be, which is in his hands. And you and I who are in his hands regardless for rich or poor, we've won. They've lost. They don't even recognize it yet. God will judge them when the time comes. We may never see it in this life. They may live their entire lives rich, successful, wealthy, the talk of the town. Everyone loves them, but that's nothing compared to eternity. What's 80 plus years on this planet of living in sin and doing whatever you want versus eternity, where you're separated from the Father? Any gift and victory that they have in this life is just Pyrrhic. And they're going to fall like every other person who has denied him in the past. And I take no pleasure in that. And I don't want to meet the person who does, because that's an image barrier. That's someone who I wish with all of my heart would turn and repent and head towards him. But they had their chance and they're squandering it. And right now, the people of Israel are not squandering it. We will see how they squander it several times over. But for right now, they're following him. Their eyes are on the prize. And we'll see that in the rest of the song as we head to verses 13 through 21. You have led in your steadfast love, the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength, your holy abode. The peoples have heard, they tremble, pangs have seized the inhabitants of Felicia. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed, trembling seizes the leaders of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them because of the greatness of your arm. They are still as a stone till your people, O Lord, pass by till the people pass by whom you have purchased. You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain. The place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established, the Lord will reign forever and ever. For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them. But the people of Israel walked on dried look round in the midst of the sea. Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them, sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Because of God's actions and saving the people of Israel from Egypt, the nations around them all trembled in fear. If God could humble Egypt, what could he do to the far smaller and weaker nations and tribes like Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Canaan? We're going to see in a couple of chapters the people of Amalek are going to decide to fight against the people of Israel. How quickly we forget what God has done. However, this fear was short-lived and forgotten just like it will with the people of Amalek in chapter 17. Because sin ultimately wins out in the hearts of unrepentant men and women. They know what God did. They've heard the stories. They've heard of the plagues. They've heard of the Red Sea party for God's people to be delivered from slavery. And they're going to go, I'm afraid of that. I don't want that to happen here. I don't want to be taken over by those people. I don't want God to wipe us out too or to destroy our infrastructure in a colony or anything like that. But then it slips away. Then the gears stop turning and they return to their apostasy. They return to their evil and say, "Well, I have no need of God." Yeah, maybe he did those things for Israel or if I do believe those old wives tales. And then they go back and then just not even a couple of months after those events, not only are the people of Israel going to be complaining, as we'll see in a little bit. But then the other nation attacks them, granted a tribe of nomadic horsemen and stuff like that, or raiders. I don't know if they use horses. I'd have to look them up again. But how easily we forget what just happened. God did all these things. And yet they have the audacity to think that they're the ones who can divide the spoil and draw their sword against the people against God. But he will sink them underneath the mighty waters and forget the other nations. Israel itself is going to forget these things. They're going to act like they never happen even though they know it's true. And not even hundreds of years later, I'm talking that literally in this same chapter, we're about to get to it. And for the other nations, not 40 years from this moment, they're going to disparage the people of Israel and deny God's true power, even though we will see in Joshua, chapter 2, where Rahab speaks of how they have heard about God delivering them at the Red Sea from Egypt. They still know 40 years after this moment it happened, but they're no longer afraid because they're too mired in their own sin to know just how deeply in danger they are. And that's something we need to learn as people when it comes to leading those around us. Fear is a terrible motivator for someone to believe in God and follow his laws and statutes. Fear is a terrible motivator for that, but it does serve as a temporary motivator to remind the laws that they are not right with him and need to repent. God did these things for his name to be displayed throughout the nations to say, you are not right with me. Be better. He is allowed to do that. You and I are not. We are not him. And any preacher worth their salt will recognize that no passionate and charismatic speech made and directed around the concept of Hellfire and brimstone and wrath is going to actually bring about true repentance to his flock. That has no place in interest. I am not saying we don't mention these things because there is judgment. There is wrath and it's going to be poured out on people, but that's not where we start. Look, Hellfire awaits those who dare deny God to the end. This is true, but this is not how we convinced him to change their ways. God delivered his wrathful justice to Egypt, yet Pharaoh in his court never repented, who had any more right to be afraid of God than Pharaoh in his court at that moment in time. No one else. And yet that didn't motivate them to repent because their hearts were hard and they denied God. But the people inside of Egypt who did repent, who did join the Israelites were those who saw the love of God towards his people and wish to be a part of that. They saw there was something different about how God was treating them. What was it? How could I have that same thing? And they saw after it because they too wanted to be loved. Be mindful of this when you evangelize to the lost. Love is a far better motivator to repentance than fear. And once again, I am not saying you never bring up Hell. You never bring up why we need to save you at all. I am saying temper it with some wisdom here and know that love is always going to conquer the world over fear. And you're better than that. I have been around far too many people who believe the opposite and that has no place in the church. It is no place at motivating them into doing what God has asked him to do. What God has commanded them to do. But from there, let's look at Miriam. This is the first time if I recall correctly that where she is actually named. And we find out, hey, no, she is Aaron's sister, which makes her Moses's sister, which more than likely as we see no other mention of a sister means she is the one who helped save Moses after his mother had to give him away and to ask Pharaoh's daughter to bring her bring him back to his mother. And what does she do? In light of all this, he repeats the beginning verse of Moses's song to further bring the people's attention to its importance. Sing to the Lord for he is triumphed gloriously. The horse and his writer, he is thrown into the sea. God has won over Egypt. He has delivered his people out. The people need to repeat this because it's not sinking in and it won't sink in for quite some time for a lot of them. Some are doing their jobs and their praise for it. But those who don't, they're the more notable ones because they're not doing what's right. And Miriam for right now is going to serve as a leader of the women of Israel for many years, using God's talents that he's gifted her to focus them to worship God. But in numbers, we're going to see that she too will have days where she rejects her purpose, at least temporarily. I don't think it's a case of her never having believed or anything like that. I think it's, hey, you stay in the desert for 40 years, let your heart grow bitter towards your brother, who you're already predisposed, in a sibling sense to not being as lovable about because he's the younger brother. How dare he be the one to speak up and do these things? I get it. It does. It's not good. It's not righteous, but I get it. And she's going to cause problems for herself and the people of Israel later on. But for right now, she's doing her job. She is speaking truth into the world. And we'll go from there, there versus 22 through 27. Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of sure. They went three days into the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Mara, they could not drink the water of Mara because it was bitter. Therefore, it was named Mara, which means bitterness. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log. Some of your translations may say, "Tree, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, 'If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.' Then they came to Elam where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they can't in camp there by the water." How easy we forget the good things he's given us. Not three days after the events at the beginning of this chapter, after the destruction of Pharaoh's army God delivering them, letting them walk through the Red Sea, have you ever done that before? Don't you think that would change your life? Well, guess what? This shows probably wouldn't. We think it would. We think, "Oh, if I just saw that miracle, I'd believe more." And here it happens, and the people don't. Here, not three days after those events, the Israelites grumble and complain against God once more because they have no water to drink. And even when they do find water, it is unusable and unsafe to drink, making their anger grow. Now, I think Nick and I covered this when we're doing the plagues, but just in case you went around, the human body needs water in order to survive. And three days is normally our limit. There are some outliers out there with people who have lasted way longer, but your body needs water continually in order to survive. So no doubt, the people were tired and unable to work or move, because their bodies are dying on them. And that is something that is extremely understandable to be upset about, but their anger against God is not. He has delivered them from Egypt multiple times over, and yet they believe this is where he's going to choose to have them die. It must have felt hopeless, but their entire existence had been hopeless without the intervention of God. Instead of crying out to him in prayer and humbleness, they complain and get angry at Moses. But God remains faithful to them, despite their apostasy. It is so easy to just say, "Well, I wouldn't have done that." I think that's going to be one of those things. We really keep hearing in the back of our heads with the entire Pentateuch. At least as it comes to the people of Israel, it's like, "I wouldn't have done that. I would have served God faithfully." Really? Have you gone three days without water before? Because you're in the middle of a desert? I mean, yeah, you just saw God save you from Egypt's army, but you're dying. You don't have clean water, and the water that you found, the thing that you were having hope in, it's unable to be used. It's unsafe. So you really think that you're not going to have that problem? I'm going to have that problem. I'm going to grumble and complain. Hopefully, I'm also going to be the person who prays and ask God, "Please help me out of this situation." And even if you don't, you are sovereign. That's not what people of Israel were at. And just remember, by the way, they were just singing his praises, not three days ago. But the moment adversity comes, where are they at? Where are you and I at? When it happens? Are we the grumbling and complaining type? Or are we the praying and humbleness type? Most days I'm not. Some days I am, and I'm grateful for those days, because they serve as outliers for the days when I am definitely grumbling and complaining. We need to be better about this. Do they honestly thank God brought them out this far, just so he could have them all die of dehydration in the middle of the desert? Where are the people organizing the rest? Pray out to God, cry out to him and say, "Lord, deliver us just like you delivered us from Egypt." Maybe there were some, but we don't hear about it. It seems like the majority were allowing to just speak for everyone else and saying, "Why don't you bring us out here to die?" But Moses, under God's direction, cries out to him. And God gives him the knowledge of what he needs to do next. Now look, I've seen some commentaries here trying to say, "Oh, this is a call forward to the cross." And delivering the people of Israel, the living water, and all that. And I'm like, "I kind of see where you might connect the dots there. I'm not on your side as of this moment in time. I think you're really grasping at strings and trying to pull them together, because I'll see this log, this wood that is used to cause this miracle. There's nothing special about it. If you just throw a log or a piece of wood into water that's unsafe, guess what it's going to do? Nothing, because there's just an extra piece of wood and a pull of water that's already unsafe to drink." It doesn't magically make the water good to drink again. Instead, the wood is merely a sign of God, excuse me, of Moses submitting himself to God and following his directions that make no logical earthly sense. And yet Moses was faithful and did this because through his actions following God's directions to the tea, the people of Israel are saying, because God creates a miracle and reverses the state of the water, which is something no human being could have done with the resources available to them at that time. Only God had that power. Now, on a more modern age, there are some things we're able to do to reverse some of the unsafe qualities of water. And that's a great achievement that God has allowed us to do. I'm very grateful for that. I mean, I still love the fact that there's a desalination project going off in desert countries that desperately need that water. Or we have these tablets you can take when you camp and you put this in some water, you're like, I don't know, there might be some bacteria or something in there where you put them in there. Drink it and you're fine. That's a useful ability to have. Guess who doesn't have that? People of Israel. They don't have that ability or anything. They're helpless without him. And when they don't submit, there is one who still will. And because of that faithfulness of the one man, the people of Israel are saved from themselves. And then God, in this moment, speaks to and against the people establishing a statute that should they remain faithful to him, which is a huge ask. I include myself among that. Then he will save them from what he allows to happen to other nations, the things Egypt suffered from those plagues. Remember them? Hey, you do what I tell you to? That ain't going to happen. You follow me? That ain't going to happen. And if they won't, any of those this will not last, but he offers it anyways. That is the proof of his life. He offers something. He knows it's impossible. Anyways, because he loves them that much, hoping that the people will change and that eventually he'll be able to prove his part of the bargain by leaving them to another area where water and shade are abundant in the desert. And that's what he does. When they were giving up hope and I said, there's no water to be found, he brings them to Elam. When I only is dead water, there's also a place to rest in the shade for a little bit. You don't think we're doing that in shifts in the middle of the desert? Yes, 70 palm trees are around there. It's like, yes, I'm going to have my time there filed. Okay, 105, the 130 or whatever, I'm going to be under this shade. Yeah, I'm setting that up because I'm sorry, not going to be seeing that for a while. But that doesn't happen without God delivering them there. And we'll go from there to 16 versus one through 12. They set out from Elam and all the congregation of the people is Ryokan did a wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the wilderness and the people of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord and the land of Egypt when we set by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Then the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am about the 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 they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily." So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, "At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you grumble against us?" And Moses said, "When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him, what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord." Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say it to the whole congregation of the people of Israel. Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling." And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness and behold the glory the Lord appeared in the cloud and the Lord said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.'" Just a little over a month into their wanderings. The people of Israel once more find a way to complain to Moses and God about their circumstances. Rather than doing as they are told and submitting to him in prayer and supplication, he just told them, "Just follow my rules and statutes. I got you." What is part of that? Speaking with him, being honest with him. And I can't do that. And once again, hey, I think this is the 333 rule of what it is. You can live three hours in extreme conditions, like extreme heat or three cold. You can live three days without water and you go three weeks without food. That's like a generalization, but for the most part, it's pretty true. So going along without food, yeah, I'm going to be upset. Even if I have water, that's great. Water's a wonderful thing. I'm learning to like it more than I'm on one of my diets, but it's not food. I need food in order to survive. It's how I'm designed in this imperfect world where I need to have water and food in order to survive. So of course, I get, I get angry just like a couple of hours after I've had a meal sometimes because my body says, "Well, it's time to eat. Therefore, you should be angry. You don't have food." But it goes a longer time without that. Yeah, I get and understand why people are angry. But what I don't understand, well, I do understand. I should be honest about that. What I do understand is why they're not going to God, the same person who brought them out of every single trouble they've ever had. And I corrected myself because I'm just as bad. It's like, "Oh, I'm not going to have a meal tonight, Lord." When I've got food, I just don't want to eat it. I want to pay someone else to make me food. So I don't have to prepare it for myself. Well, what was me? I am immensely blessed. I'm not the richest person in the world. I live in a seminary budget, but I have food. I have people in my life who would donate money to me to help me live and prosper. That if I were just working on my own resources, I wouldn't have that opportunity. I wouldn't have the ability to get the things that I need in order to survive. And I'm very grateful for those people, but I forget God is also among that number. Who do you think gave those people the money in the first place? Who do you think provided for the food that I eat? So it survived to the point where I could be the one eating it. It was him. And the people of Israel forget that, and I forget that, and we forget that. And as a result, we grumble and complain instead of turning to him who can reverse that situation if he so chooses as a sovereign Lord of this world, of all of the creation, of all of the cosmos. And then the people of Israel have the audacity to deliberately misremember their pasts and talk about how they lived lives full of relaxation and luxury. And they grumble about being forced away from such wonderful times, despite knowing in their hearts that they were slaves and were hated and despised in Egypt. They weren't eating five star meals. They were working without pay as an enslaved people group inside of another nation, beaten, and mocked having their children murdered just because they were growing too large for Egypt to want to have to deal with. They were afraid of them. But now, no, you sent us out here to die Moses. God sent us out here to die. We were much better off in Egypt where we were suffering every single day. And look, oftentimes we do the same. We look back on moments in our lives when we were living sinfully and denying God's sovereignty and imagining right now that we were far better off in those circumstances, when we know in our hearts the exact opposite is true. Those times of apostasy in my life, when I've left for a little bit, and I've decided to do my own thing, or even when I'm doing everything right most of the times, and then there's just a little bit of, well, I'm going to go back into that. Oh, it felt good. I'm going to go back and do it again. And as a spiral, instead of knowing that wasn't good for me in the first place, it just feels good because it's wrong. And I know it's wrong. This false nostalgia harms all of us. And we need to deny it because it distracts from reality and from the things we must do today. But God was still patient with his people. And he organized events so that they would have food beyond what they had imagined because he loved them immensely. They would also have more than they had asked for because he was merciful. If God were a completely fair God, none of this would be happening. But because God is unfair, and that is a good thing, he delivers far beyond what we deserve. The Israelites were given far beyond what they deserved, which was nothing by the way, and yet he gave it. And we're going to see how in verses 13 through 26. "In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning, do lay around the camp. And when the do had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer." That's about two courts, two leaders. "According to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent, and the people of Israel did so, they gathered some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, "Let no one leave any of it over till the morning. But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stink. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered, each as much as he could eat. But when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses he said to them, "This is what the Lord has commanded. Tomorrow is the day I saw them rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning. So they laid aside till morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink. And there were no worms in it." Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is the Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Sixth day he shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, there will be none." Continuing on from earlier, God delivers on his promise in an abundance to Israelites, "Do not deserve." He gifts them with quail for meat and manna for bread. And look, we are entirely sure what manna is, and the word itself literally means, "What is it?" And guess what? We don't need to know. As much as it pains me to say they're not loud, we don't need to know what it actually is. I am super curious. I want to find the Ark of the Covenant one day so we can get that jar of manna out and test it and say, "Oh, this is this, or we've never seen this before." They had to classify this. That's not its purpose. Its purpose was not to be scientifically studied and analyzed and catalogued. Its purpose was to feed the Jews when they themselves had no means of saving themselves from starvation, and it was also going to serve as their constant companion for their eventual 40-year journey into the desert, which, by the way, still hasn't happened yet. They're still hoping their minds are just going to Canaan, but we'll see how that doesn't happen later on. However, the Israelites, being true to their baser natures, didn't listen to Moses' words and tried to stockpile it, fearing that God's promises might not come true the next morning. And for this, they witnessed a tinier display of his wrath, which they deserved far worse, and yet he only did this in his mercy, which caused that manna to become worm food and worthless to them. But when it came to the Sabbath and keeping it holy, God allowed them to gather more than they needed so that they were provided for on a day of rest, which is another mercy God could have had them not eat it all on the Sabbath. But he provided more than they needed on that day before so that they would have what they needed the day after. They wouldn't have to prepare it. They had already done that the day before. They could just eat and relax and reflect on what God had done for them. The purpose of the Sabbath was not to work. The purpose of the Sabbath was to rest and relax. Here, the Word of God spoke into them and to reflect on it. And you can't do that if you got to worry about work. And this was his mercy that they didn't have to. And we'll finish off this chapter by going through 27 to 36. On a seventh day, some of the people went out together, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments to my laws? See, the Lord has given you to Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day, he gives you bread for two days. Reming each of you in his place so that no one go out of his place on the seventh day so that people rested on the seventh day." Now, the house of history called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, which I see me white. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, "This is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generation so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness. When I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations." As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. "The people of Israel ate the manna for years till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. And omer is the tenth part of an ephra." That's like 3/5 of a bushel or 22 liters. So we see at the beginning, what did God said last time? Don't work. Don't wait and gather more on the seventh day. Gather more on the sixth day. So on the Sabbath, you don't have to worry about anything. Yet what do the people do with everything they had seen and heard? Some of the Jews had refused to listen and went out to look for food on the Sabbath for which God grew angry at them. But God was merciful once more, refusing to punish them this time and chose instead for Moses to reiterate what God had said. So it would get through to their fixed goals. This is what I am telling you to do. Oh, by the way, he hasn't delivered all the law and commandments yet. And these are the rules that people are breaking. The very small group of rules that they have, they can't keep to. So forget about treating your neighbor as yourself. That hasn't been brought up yet. Yeah, it's still a universal moral law. But it hasn't been brought into the law. No one's been taught about, you know, not using God's name and fame or worshiping other idols or anything like that yet. It can even follow these simple rules. So forget about the big ones. That's how bad it is. What does Moses do in response to this? He has command. We asked him to set aside some of the manna in a jar to be preserved so that later on in their history, they could show it to their descendants as a sign of the good things that God had done for them in the desert. This is a wonderful thing. And we even get here some added narration that's probably coming at the end of Moses's life as he's writing that down. Or they state that they ate the manna 40 years till they came to a habitable land. And they did so until they reached the border of the land of Canaan, whether that's written by Moses to Joshua or some other Hebrew scribe at the time doesn't really matter. Their point was do this. Be faithful. The point being this was a gift. It was only supposed to be for a certain amount of time, but God delivered it to his people for 40 years. They didn't ask for that. He could have later on when we see their apostasy just say, Nope, you got to worry about yourselves. And that could have been that would have been an immense famine. A lot of people would have died. But because God is gracious and merciful and loving, he allowed them to maintain this gift that they're going to grow to the spies. But he did it anyway because he loved them, because it gave them their daily bread. And with that, we're done with Xs 15 and 16. Thank you guys for continuing on with the journey. I'm really enjoying it as we continue on to the book of Xs. I'm looking forward as I hit my microphone. That's a lot of fun. I really, really love doing that. Please get a chance to leave a five-star review in your podcasting platform with Joyce to help with the ratings there. If you want to find out my own works and check them out, you can go to starfingeratesgo.com or an Amazon by searching for the name MC Ashley. If you're all interested in some further solid studies into the Bible and his teachings and check out the other members of the Amazon Ministry's podcasting network, you can contact me at the nothing movie podcast@gmail.com. I'd like to explain a special thank you to Joshua Knoll for the editing that he does and for the music he has to the podcast. Or with all that in mind, God bless you on the corners to his will and not mine. Now allow me one more time to remind you. Let nothing move you. Hey guys, are you interested in podcasting? But don't know where to go. Well, check out sincaster.com and go ahead and make an account there and use special promo code, let nothing move you, all caps. That way you can get 30% off of your next deal to go ahead and set things up so you can figure out how to edit stuff using sincaster.com to host your stuff to get things done there. So check out sincaster.com, use special promo code, let nothing move you. All right, see ya.