“If Only We Had Died in Egypt!”(Exodus 16:1-36)

“The good old days”

‘If Only We Had Died in Egypt!’ – this was Israel longing for the ‘good old days’.

Likewise when we may feel burdened in the present and anxious about the future, the past feels more comforting and familiar. We want to go back. God has been leading us until now, but maybe we don’t like where God has led us and we don’t like where God is leading us. Is it time for us to stop? Is it time to go back to a simpler time?

Prayers are answered (vv.1-12)

God leads his people into the middle of the wilderness. There is no way to make a living here, and they will soon die. Israel is unhappy with where God has led them, and they want to go back to the ‘good old days’. By grumbling against Moses and Aaron, Israel has in fact prayed to God though they did not realise it. Because God heard their words and answered their words so that they may know their God. This is what prayer is.

Though God answered their ‘prayer’, it is not a good example for us to follow. What wisdom might we learn about the way we should pray to God today?

Give us today our daily bread (vv.13-30)

In the trackless waste, God provides for his people all that they need for life and righteousness. Bread from heaven and quail for food, and divine instructions for how best to enjoy them. It is enough for each day, nothing more and nothing less so that Israel may know their God, honour their God and trust in him.

But Israel’s heart betrays their lack of knowledge, honour and trust. For they are afraid of tomorrow and do not trust the God who leads them. That is why some try to gather and save up more for tomorrow, and also why they are rebuked for doing so.

For the purpose of God’s provision for life and righteousness is so that we may know and honour and trust our God each day. When he tells us to work, we trust him and work. When he tells us to rest, we trust him and rest. In all these things God will sustain us with our daily bread in our service to him, whether it be work or rest.

Do this in remembrance (vv.31-36)

It may be good to remember where we have come from, but it is not good to go back. For the way back leads to death. God is leading us to the heavenly country. And we must continue forward day by day in prayer, in the monotony and the difficulty while counting on the faithfulness of God. For faithfulness will consistently put our own livelihoods at risk, from a purely human perspective. Doing things by faith will from time to time look like the foolish thing to do in our eyes and in the eyes of a watching world. In light of this passage it is especially applicable to the way we conduct our business and our work that seeks not to accumulate things for their own sake, but to acquire enough so that we can continue on the pilgrimage by faith each day, working and resting day by day in remembrance of Jesus on the way to the promised land.