I love how God not only anticipates the needs of His people, but also the questions they might ask. In Deuteronomy 6:20-24, God anticipates the children in Israel asking why they have to keep the Law. In Exodus 12:20-26, God foresaw the questions that would arise after taking the Passover.
In both of those scenarios, God knew future generations of the Israelites would ask questions for the meaning behind these rites and symbols. In Exodus 16, God tells Moses to take an omer-ful of manna and place it before the “Testimony.” No doubt, that would engender the same type of curiosity as the other symbols mentioned.
It’s not even a lot of manna. Exodus 16:36 clarifies the amount of an omer by saying that it’s a “tenth of an ephah.” That doesn’t narrow it down for me, but a quick Google search tells me that an Ephah is around 22 liters. Since an omer is a tenth of that, that means that Moses was instructed to take 2.2 (dry) liters worth of manna, or enough food for one person for one day.
Possibly stoking even more questions would be the fact that the manna is still actually even there after all those years. After all, manna only had a shelf life of one day; after that, it went sour and grew worms. Yet that omer of manna stayed pure inside the Ark for the rest of the Old Testament. How’s that for a miracle?
It’s important to point out that the “Testimony” here is not the Ark itself (although eventually, the manna would be inside the Ark according to Hebrews 9:4). It refers to the Ten Commandments—the “testimony” of who God is to His people.
This creates an important link between the omer of manna and the Law. God is not just the Provider of rules, but the Provider of sustenance. He’s unique, just like the first couple commandments state, and we should treat Him as such, just like the other commandments state.
In the end, it wasn’t so much about manna as much as it was what the manna represented. God created life, so it’s no surprise He could make an omer-ful of manna last for centuries. But as those people pondered the manna, they remembered the Source—not just of physical food, but spiritual as well.
