What Does Exodus 16:15 Mean?
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, Manna, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.THE KEY
Their name for the bread is a question, “What is it?”, and Moses answers by naming its giver before its nature.
THE MEANING
You can encounter what sustains you while its identity is still unclear. The question remains audible, but Moses names the bread as what the LORD gives you to eat. Here, provision is already present before it is understood.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you must understand what sustains you before it can be real or received.
THE ROOT
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
To give, put, or set in place.
“given” in this verse is natan. The bread is described by its relation to the giver and its use, even while the people cannot identify it. The root lets giving carry the sense of provision placed within reach.
ALSO GROWS
mattan: Gift, present.
מַתָּן
The bread is given as provision; this related word makes the gift itself visible in the act of giving.
mattanah: Gift, present.
מַתָּנָה
Like the manna, a gift is received before its value has to be explained.
יָדְעוּ
yade'u
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“did not know” in this verse is yade'u. Sight does not equal knowing here: the people see the bread and still ask what it is. The verse holds recognition open, while the food is already present.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge, understanding.
דַּעַת
This related noun gives shape to the gap between seeing the manna and knowing what it is.
nodaʿ: Made known, become known.
נוֹדַע
The bread’s identity can become known after it has already appeared.
THE PATTERN
What sustains life is received as gift, even when it is not yet fully understood.
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.Give us today our bread for the coming day.Then Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you that bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.Exodus says the people “wist not what it was”; Deuteronomy uses the same root, yadaʿ (יָדַע, to know or perceive), for manna they did not know. The unknown bread becomes part of how knowing itself unfolds.
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