Exodus 16 Study Notes

16:17-20 Those who ignored the instruction not to keep any of the manna overnight presumably went without enough to eat. They failed to enjoy the Lord’s provision because of their distrust.

16:21-26 Sabbath is an anglicized form of the Hebrew word shabbath, associated with a verb meaning “cease, stop, rest” (v. 30; 5:5; 31:12-17; Gn 8:22).

16:27-28 The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s displeasure and returns to the theme of testing for obedience (v. 4; 15:25-26). The Israelites’ refusal to keep the Lord’s commands put them in the company of Pharaoh, who refused to humble himself (4:23; 7:14; 10:3; cp. Dt 8:16).

16:29-30 Pharaoh had refused to give the Israelites any days of rest, and he had withheld the straw needed for their work. But the Lord provided a day of rest each week and the food the Israelites needed for that day of rest.

16:31-36 The name manna is the anglicized form of the Hebrew word man (interrogative “What?”), which partially echoes the question in v. 15 (Hb man hu’), “What is it?” No naturally occurring substance matches the description, constancy, and duration of manna well enough to account for it. The testimony is a shortened form of “the ark of the testimony,” the box that would later contain the Ten Commandments and would testify about the covenant the Lord had given Israel (25:16,21; 26:33; 30:36; 31:18; Nm 17:1-10). The construction of the ark is described in Ex 37:1-9, so it was not built until after 16:33-34. God continued sending the manna until the day after the Israelites first ate food grown in their new land (Jos 5:12). Moses’s instructions to Aaron here could have been given any time after the tabernacle was built.

16:36 The measure of an omer (Hb ‘omer) appears only in Ex 16. It is explained as a tenth of an ephah (Hb ’eyphah). Apparently the ephah remained in use longer than the omer. The passing of a generation or a change in region can make such explanations helpful.