God Meets The Israelites’ Needs

God Meets the Israelites’ Needs

Q: What did God provide for the Israelites to eat on their journey?

• a. fish and loaves of bread
• b. unleavened bread and honey
• c. quail and manna

On their way to the Promised Land, the Israelites camped at Elim, where there were springs of water and palm trees. Then the Israelites set out again, and as their tendency had been since leaving Egypt, they began complaining. Once again they turned on Moses and cried out, “If only the LORD had killed us back in Egypt. There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”

The people had been delivered from slavery and were on the way to a special land God had promised them. They didn’t look ahead to that, though. And they didn’t look back at the miracles God had done to get them this far. They only saw the immediate problem.

The desert they were in was not a fruitful place. The sand and stone environment was barren of natural resources, but God hadn’t failed them. In the evening, God provided meat from quail. In the morning, God rained down bread from heaven for them. They were to gather it daily and take only what they needed for that day. The sixth day was the only day the people were supposed to take extra so they wouldn’t have to gather food on the Sabbath.

God met the Israelites’ needs each day. Their job was to obey and trust him.

For You

God met the Israelites’ daily needs. He didn’t give them food ahead of time because he wanted them to learn to trust him. You can trust God to meet your daily needs too. He may not give you all you want, but he will give you what is best for you.

Answer: c

That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. . . . The Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed, and it tasted like honey wafers.   Exodus 16:13, 31

(The Whole Story: Exodus 16)