“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” Num 21:5(b)
In my last blog, we explored the relationship between our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus and a strange story in the Old Testament about a serpent on a pole. You will recall that in response to the people’s sin, the Lord sent “fiery serpents” into the camp. And anyone that was bitten either looked to the serpent on the pole and lived, or they died. This was, indeed, a strong dose of discipline from the Lord. But did you notice, and do you remember what the people’s sin entailed? Let’s take a look at Numbers 21:5.
“And the people spoke against God and against Moses: ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.’”
This was not a sin of action; rather, it was a sin of the heart. This seems very harsh, doesn’t it? They complained about the food, and the Lord sent them venomous snakes as a result.
There are some very important lessons to take from the story at the surface. Sin originates in the depths of the heart, and whatever comes from the heart produces fruit, either good or bad. In this case, their hearts produced words of sin and rebellion, and the scripture clearly tells us that the wages of sin is death. So the ultimate fruit of their heart was death. However, this is not the only lesson to be learned from this amazing story. Let’s look specifically at what they were complaining about…
…For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.
Let’s set aside the bit about food and water and focus on the bread. As the reader is surely aware, bread has been the primary staple of human diet since the dawn of the world. In fact, bread is the very subject of the fall and the curse within the Garden of Eden. Let’s take a look:
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Gen 3:17-19 NKJV (italics added for emphasis)
So by extension, we see that Adam and Eve had eaten bread before the fall, and that part of the curse was that bread would now be a result of arduous toil, rather than the relative ease and joy with which they had partaken prior. Bread would now be a result of hard work – man’s work.
This was the case for thousands of years. Men and women worked the soil, harvested the crops, threshed and prepared the grain, ground the flour and made bread for their sustenance. That is until God led His people out of Egypt. Come with me to the Exodus, and let’s see what the Lord had in store for His people…
And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.”
Ex 16:1-5 NKJV
Did you notice that in this case, the people complained about the lack of food, but rather than respond with serpents (as in the later story), God responded with bread? (By the way – the reader might be interested in comparing these stories to Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:7-11) Notice that in this case, God has removed the curse from the bread. Rather than man eating bread “by the sweat of his face,” man was now gathering bread straight from the hand of the Lord. This was truly a miracle of providence – and a partial removal of the curse!
So some of you might be starting to make a connection – “Oh,” you say, “I see – the Lord was angry with the people for calling His gift of bread worthless. This must be why he responded by sending the snakes.” Well, hold onto that thought, because there’s still more to the story. To learn more, let’s jump to the New Testament – to the time of Christ.
Jesus said a lot about bread. In fact, bread was the symbol of sustenance that the Lord used in many stories, and in the prayer that He gave us as a model. Remember?
“Give us this day our daily bread.” Matt 6:11 NKJV
Jesus knew that we needed daily sustenance, and urged us to pray that God provide it. In fact, it is possible that as He was teaching the disciples how to pray, He was actually thinking back to the days of the Exodus, when God did physically provide the “daily bread”. But He had more to say about bread. Much more…
Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”
Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
John 6:28-35 NKJV
Did you notice that when the crowd mentioned the “bread from Heaven”, Jesus began to personalize it? Let’s read His response again:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.“
And when the crowd asks for this bread, he answers,
“I am the bread of life.”
What is Jesus saying here? Simply this: we each have two needs – one physical, which we sustain with physical bread, and one spiritual, which we sustain with Christ. He is truly the Bread from Heaven, given to sustain our eternal lives. And lest we make a mistake of giving this too little focus, He goes on:
“…This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”
Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven — not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
John 6:50-58 NKJV
Now let’s return to the wilderness and examine our desert story in the context of the fulfillment of Christ Himself…
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you…” Gen 16:4(b) NKJV
This bread (the manna) was given as a type of Christ. Given as a free gift, not earned, but given by grace. Given to nourish and sustain. And the rejection?
“…For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” Num 21:5(b)
This was not just a rejection of earthly food – it was ultimately a rejection of the life giving bread of Christ Himself! Is it any wonder that the result of rejection of the Heavenly bread was death – death by the sting of the serpent? When we reject the Lord as our Bread of Life, this is the result! All who reject the spiritual Bread (Jesus, our savior) pay the ultimate price of dying in sin and losing eternal life. God was showing us that rejection of His gift of Grace through Christ would ultimately result in the second death. Yet there is hope; even after initially rejecting Him, all we need do is turn and “look to the cross” to gain forgiveness and find eternal life! What a glorious gift and plan of salvation!
By the way; do you know the significance of Christ’s birthplace? He was born in Bethlehem. Like many Hebrew words, Bethlehem is a compound word made of two root words, “beth” and “lehem”. Beth means House, lehem means bread. Jesus was born in the “House of Bread”. Selah.
God’s many blessings to you in your personal study!
YouJi