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Threefold Miracle Reveals Sabbath Sacredness, May 7
And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an
inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of
Canaan.
Exodus 16:35
, NKJV.
Every week during their long sojourn in the wilderness the Israelites witnessed
a threefold miracle, designed to impress their minds with the sacredness of the
Sabbath: a double quantity of manna fell on the sixth day, none on the seventh, and
the portion needed for the Sabbath was preserved sweet and pure, when if any were
kept over at any other time it became unfit for use.
In the circumstances connected with the giving of the manna, we have conclu-
sive evidence that the Sabbath was not instituted, as many claim, when the law was
given at Sinai. Before the Israelites came to Sinai they understood the Sabbath to
be obligatory upon them. In being obliged to gather every Friday a double portion
of manna in preparation for the Sabbath, when none would fall, the sacred nature
of the day of rest was continually impressed upon them. And when some of the
people went out on the Sabbath to gather manna, the Lord asked, “How long refuse
ye to keep my commandments and my laws?”
“The children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land
inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of
Canaan.” For forty years they were daily reminded by this miraculous provision,
of God’s unfailing care and tender love. In the words of the psalmist, God gave
them “of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food” (
Psalm 78:24, 25
)—that
is, food provided for them by the angels. Sustained by “the corn of heaven,” they
were daily taught that, having God’s promise, they were as secure from want as if
surrounded by fields of waving grain on the fertile plains of Canaan.—
Patriarchs
and Prophets, 296, 297
.
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