Boring Manna

When someone reads the Old Testament for the first time, they will be surprised, “what, did God feed His people with the food that Angels eat?” When they continue to read further, they will be appalled by another incident in Numbers 11, “what, did these people feel bored to eat it?”

It is natural to feel bored to eat the same food repeatedly, it is not wrong. They could have asked God rightfully for meat after seeing how God guided them through the wilderness with love and concern. Instead, we read that they murmured and rebelled, they even made unruffled Moses to moan, hence the wrath of God blazed upon them and they were all punished.

One thing to be noted here is, if the Heavenly food eaten by the angels were mind-numbing to a man, how can this world satiate him? It is the glory of the image of God. Man is a miracle. His body might be a clay pot, but on the inside, he is an astonishing splendor! This world cannot satiate him. See, how difficult Satan’s project is! He thinks that he can separate Man from God by showing the pleasures of the world. It is like the pathetic state of a fool who thinks that he can satisfy all the elephants in a farm. He will belch aloud after eating everything and will ask, “that’s all?” Satan has to stand broke before him one day.

Solomon was an example that God showed before Satan. He had experienced all the goodness of the earth and uttered only one statement, “all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind,” said he, disappointing the Satan (not God).

God showed him another example using Solomon’s father. God conferred the deliciousness of his grace to David in a dry and parched land with no water in Judea. “I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you,” said he on cloud nine. It is an example that the fellowship with the Triune God and His love can only satisy humans, nothing other than that can fulfill him.

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

The one satiated by God will trample any beehive. Only one statement can be said to Satan who dreams that he can use something to satiate man so as to separate him from God, “no way!”