Bible In One Year Day 36 (Exodus 15 - 16, Leviticus 11, Psalm 71)

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Miracle of the Manna (Jacopo Tintoretto)

Day 36 Manna from Heaven

 

                  

A Commentary 
Understanding the Bible - The Didache Series (Chapter 7, page 140) 

With no more Egyptians to worry about, the people had time to think about food again.  The Israelites had been driven out of Egypt with no time to pack food for the journey.  In a few days they were starving and thinking about the good old days when they were slaves and provided their meals. They began to grumble and blame Moses and Aaron. 

God had a way of dealing with their hunger:  "I will rain bread from heaven for you," he told Moses.  And the next morning the Israelites found "a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground." (Exodus 16:14) 

When the Israelites asked what it was, Moses said that it was the bread which the Lord had given them to eat.  They called the thing "manna" meaning "what is it?"  As long as Israel wandered in the wilderness, the manna continued to appear on the ground, enough to feed all the people.  

Manna was a type of the Eucharist, as Jesus himself would point out:  So they (the multitude) said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you?  What work do you perform?  Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"  

Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world."  

 

They said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always"  

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to be shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst."  (John 6:30 -35) 

Miriam's Song (Wilhelm Hensel) Exodus 15: 20-22

Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible 

Leviticus 11 Clean and Unclean (Leviticus 11:1 to 15:33)

The priesthood having been informed of their responsibility to discern between what was ritually clean and what was ritually unclean (Leviticus 10:10), spends five chapters now dealing with the question in order to provide them with guidance.

The question of clean and unclean brings out Israel’s world view, and stresses the difference between walking with God, and enjoying life and enjoying what is pure, in other words what is ‘clean’, and groveling in what is ‘unclean’, with its connections with impurity and death, urging men to the former away from the latter.

In order to appreciate the significance of this we need first to recognize what precisely is involved. The purpose behind the idea of cleanness and uncleanness is not mainly hygiene or moral uncleanness. Rather it emphasizes in a general way the holiness and perfection of God, and our need to escape from and avoid and rise above degradation and death. We have already seen that sacrifices and offerings are to be ‘perfect’ or ‘without blemish’. This is a pointer to the concept involved. In emphasizing what is clean and unclean God seeks only what is totally ‘perfect’, what is wholly right, for Himself and for His people. What is clean is best. What is not clean is not best.

As we go through the laws of uncleanness we will discover a pattern based on the first five chapters of Genesis. The tradition behind Genesis was Scripture for the people of Israel under Moses. It dealt with the roots of life, leading up to the promises given to Abraham. In Genesis 1 the world was created, and with it all living creatures. In Genesis 2 God prepared man’s dwelling place on earth, and set him over all cattle, wild beasts and birds. And he walked naked, authoritative and tall, and was not ashamed. But what crept on the ground was not said to be submissive to him. And in Genesis 3 this was evidenced when mankind fell into sin, deceived by the serpent, and the serpent was cursed and was sentenced to the dust, and the woman who first sinned was punished in the very thing that was dearest to her, the ability to conceive, and the ground which produced man’s food was cursed.

So we have in descending order, God, man, animals and birds, creeping things of the ground, the latter outside man’s control.

So with all this in mind let us now consider this chapter, which deals with what food is clean and may therefore be freely enjoyed by the people, and will not make them unclean, and what is unclean and should be avoided for one reason or another. But one warning. The purpose of these restrictions was not in order to be a list of all harmless foods, although they certainly did prevent the eating of many harmful foods, nor was it in order to declare that what was unclean was necessarily bad in itself, it was in order to set apart His people from all others, and to lift them up from the squalor of the world and from the taint of death. It was to make them holy. It was in order to lift them above all that was degrading, and to keep them living before Him in purity, and in recognition that death and all connected with it is the very opposite of all that God is. It was to ensure their wellbeing and their wholesomeness. It was to keep them out of the dust of death (Psalms 22:15; Psalms 22:29; Psalms 30:9; Psalms 104:29; Ecclesiastes 3:20; Daniel 12:2).

There is an important lesson here for Christians. We too can enter the Holiest of All through the blood of Jesus. We too can gather together to worship in holiness, having a ‘rarified’ time. But we too cannot enter God’s presence until cleansed. We too have to go out into the world and must choose between what is wholesome and what is degraded, and must avoid what is degrading and choose the wholesome. This is all a warning to us to discern between what is spiritually clean and what is spiritually unclean (2 Corinthians 7:1).

Adoration of the Trinity (Albrecht Durer)

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A Daily Defense 
Day 36 Do the Saints Pray for Us? 

CHALLENGE: “Catholics should not ask the saints for intercession. We have no evidence they pray for us.”

DEFENSE: We have evidence the saints pray for us, including Scripture. First, we may infer from the fact that the saints are in heaven that they would pray for us. Being in heaven means being united with God, who is love (1 John 4:8–9, 16). When united with God, we will be transformed to be like him (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49–52; 2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 3:2), for “nothing unclean shall enter” the heavenly city (Rev. 21:27). 

Being thus transformed by the love of God, the saints are filled with love and so care about others. It is natural when you care about someone to pray to God for that person. We can thus infer that, just as God loves us and provides for us, the saints love and pray for those on earth. 

We also have direct evidence of their intercession in Scripture. Judah Maccabee had a vision of two men who had died. The first was the former high priest Onias, and in the vision, “With outstretched arms Onias was praying for the entire Jewish nation” (2 Macc. 15:12). When he saw the second man, Judah was told, “This is God’s prophet Jeremiah, who loves the Jewish people and offers many prayers for us and for Jerusalem, the holy city” (2 Macc. 15:14). 

2 Maccabees is not in the Protestant canon, but it is in the Catholic canon, so it is legitimate for Catholics to appeal to it to inform their faith. Even for Protestants, 2 Maccabees attests the pre Christian Jewish belief in the intercession of the saints.

The book of Revelation, in the Protestant and Catholic canons, also shows the saints and angels interceding in heaven. In Revelation 5:8, we see the twenty-four elders, who appear to represent the leaders of the people of God in heaven, offering incense to God, which we are told represents the prayers of the saints. In Revelation 8:3–4, we see an angel offer incense to God, incense mingled “with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar” in heaven. Guardian angels also intercede (Matt. 18:10).

Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist