Exodus 15

Exodus 15:22-16

X FROM THE RED SEA TO SINAI Exodus 15:22-16:361. What notes of time and how long the period?

Ans. – Exodus 12:6-51, shows that they started from Egypt on the fifteenth day of the first month. Exodus 15:22, the beginning of our lesson, shows that they go three days in the wilderness. Exodus 16:1, shows that they enter into the wilderness of Sin on the fifteenth day of the second month, and Exodus 19:1, shows that they arrived at Sinai on the same day of the third month. So that the period covered by this lesson was about two months.

2. What scripture gives all the camping stations?

Ans. – Numbers 33:8-15.

3. Explain methods of travel and stops, giving average distance per day including stops.

Ans. - (a) As the multitude was very great and included women and children, and as they were accompanied by flocks and herds that must be grazed, they necessarily moved slowly. Even large armies, however well disciplined, move slowly. How much more such a multitude of untrained women and children as were here. (b) They did not travel every day, sometimes remaining quite a while at a convenient stopping place. While the cloud stood still they stayed, (c) They averaged on this part of the journey about a mile a day including stops.

4. What was the starting point, what wildernesses are mentioned and what are the stopping places?

Ans. – The starting point was the Red Sea; the wildernesses mentioned are the Wilderness of Etham, the Wilderness of Sin and the Wilderness of Sinai; and the stopping places are Marah, Elim, etc. (See Numbers 33:8-15.)

5. What are the great events of this journey?

Ans. – (1) The healing of the bitter water at Marah; (2) The good times at the many waters of Elim; (3) The coming of the manna and quail; (4) The sabbath marked and observed; (5) Water from the smitten rock at Rephidim; (6) The deliverance in battle at Rephidim.

6. What are the great lessons of these events?

Ans. – (1) The checkered vicissitudes of an earthly pilgrimage; (2) God’s safe guidance of his people – “Where he leads we will follow”; (3) God’s provision of competent human leaders; (4) God’s provision against sickness, thirst, hunger, nakedness, heat, and darkness; (5) God’s provision for regular worship; (6) The Lord is the banner of his people in battle; (7) The sin of murmuring when under God’s leadership; (8) All together his marvelous methods of training a nation by proving and discipline and healing and delivering.

7. What three instances of provision against thirst?

Ans. – When the water was bad, when it was good and abundant, and when there was no water.

8. State the lesson of Marah?

Ans. – (1) They were brought to this bad water to prove them, to afford them an opportunity of trusting God under difficult conditions. (2) It is distinctly a lesson of healing. Whatever the way, the water was diseased, poisoned by some unwholesome ingredient. It is quite possible that this poison came from stagnation. A flowing stream disposes of its poison. In Ezekiel 47, where we have an account of the marvelous water of life flowing from the sanctuary, it is stated in the paragraph, Ezekiel 47:7-11, that where the water flowed into a depression whence there was no outlet it became a salt marsh. As water must flow to be healthful, so a Christian must move forward or backslide. (3) The purpose of the miracle of healing the water was to suggest that God is able to prevent or to cure all the diseases of his people. (4) Therefore this healing was made the occasion of a statute requiring obedience as a condition of the divine blessing upon the pilgrims, followed by a glorious promise that he would put upon them none of the diseases to which the Egyptians were subject. (5) It is quite probable that the spiritualizing interpreters are right in seeing in the tree used as an instrument of healing a foreshadowing of the cross of Christ.

It is certain that the way of life necessarily finds some hard places, leads to some painful experiences and afflictions. Indeed this is necessary to discipline, and this whole lesson teaches that when we come to these afflictions or other trials that may be bitter, the cross will sweeten them so as to make them bearable, converting the bitter into sweet. A splendid commentary on the lesson is J. G. Holland’s great poem, “Bittersweet.” If you have not read it) read it, and there learn the lesson of Marah.

9. What is the lesson of Elim?

Ans. – As Marah shows that life’s pilgrimage must come to some hard places, Elim shows that there are alternations of most pleasant places. Here were twelve flowing springs and abundant pasturage, and the palm tree for shade. The providence of God does not lead us always to climbing hills and to sufferings from sickness. It brings us now and then to Beulah lands. It is quite probable that they remained at Elim several days until man and beast were refreshed. Compare Job in his reflections.

10. What are the great lessons of the manna?

Ans. – (1) From pleasant Elim they go into the horrible desert of Sin and now, their supplies brought from Egypt having been consumed, the people are suffering from the keenest pangs of hunger. The bread and meat question in all human history has been one to try the souls of the people. What shall we eat and what shall we drink? is the fruitful source of needless anxiety, as we learn from the Sermon on the Mount. If the high cost of living at the present time oppresses the poor and puts them on the danger line of desperate deeds, how sore must have been this trial to these people in this dreadful wilderness when there was no food at all! It was a time for great faith in God. They were not equal, however, to the occasion. (2) They not only murmured against the earthly leaders whom God had appointed, but they looked back longingly to the flesh-pots of Egypt.

They preferred abundant food in Egypt with slavery to hunger in the wilderness with liberty. How Patrick Henry’s voice would have sounded there: “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” (3) Jehovah now announces that he will rain bread from heaven but in such a way as that their dependence on him shall be day by day, and that he is able to set a table before them in the wilderness, not only by supplying bread in the morning but causing quail by the thousands to light in the camp in the evenings.

11. Describe the coming of the manna, its appearance and taste.

Ans. – (1) It came as dew. (2) It looked like coriander seed. (3) It tasted like honey and wafers.

12. What was the occasion of its name?

Ans. – When the people looked upon something like hoarfrost on the ground and were informed that this was their bread from heaven, all over the camps the question spontaneously came: “What is it?” What a fine text for a sermon. “What is it?” That is the meaning of manna. They saw the bread thus spread on the ground, and said, “Manual” meaning, “What is it?”

13. What was the law of its coming so as to mark the sabbath?

Ans. – On the sabbath day no manna fell; it was God’s calendar. If the people in the monotony of their life should forget, once every week when they looked out and found the ground bare, that said, “Today is the holy sabbath of the Lord.” For many long years the absence of manna on the seventh day served the purpose of a church bell.

14. What of the Law of when and how much to gather?

Ans. – It was to be gathered every morning that it appeared. A definite quantity must be gathered for each one, just a sufficiency. On every Friday they must gather twice as much as on the other secular days of the week, because none would come on the sabbath day. This remarkable supply and its method taught the lesson later inculcated in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” or “Give us our bread day by day.” It also calls up that remarkable prayer of Agur: Two things have I asked of Thee; Deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lies; Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is needful for me; Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is Jehovah? Or lest I be poor, and steal, And use profanely the name of my God. – Proverbs 30:7-915. How was disobedience of this law discoverable in three particulars?

Ans. – (1) If on Friday, they forgot that the morrow was the sabbath, or if remembering, they trusted to find enough on the sabbath to satisfy for that day, then they must starve that day. Others could not supply them, for each one had just enough for himself. (2) If when they gathered it in the morning they provided more than the allowance, it shrank to the measure of the omer. (3) If doubting that it might come the next day they preserved a part of one day’s supply for the next day, it stank and bred worms. And some of the people were caught on all these points.

16. What, then, was the purpose of this marvelous miracle?

Ans. – Its purpose was threefold: (1) To make the people see and feel their dependence upon God; (2) to make them feel this dependence day by day; (3) to mark in the most marvelous way the necessity of setting apart one-seventh of their time, not merely to freedom from work but to worship God and thus keep them from straying too far from the Lord.

17. What scriptures show how long this miracle lasted?

Ans. – Joshua 5:10-12, and Exodus 16:35, show that at Gilgal after the Passover following the circumcision, they did eat of the old corn of the land and the manna ceased. Just forty years from the time that they had left Egypt.

18. What was the memorial of the manna?

Ans. – A pot of the manna, a day’s allowance, was laid up before the Lord, like Aaron’s rod that budded, and kept for a memorial unto all generations.

19. Where do we find an elaborate discussion of the antitype of the manna?

Ans. – The whole of John 6, is devoted to a discussion of this subject, and we cannot understand the fulness of the lesson on the manna until we have mastered that chapter.

20. What further New Testament scripture refers to this antitypical lesson?

Ans. – Revelation 2:17, to the church at Pergamos, Jesus says, “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.” The hidden manna may refer to the preserved pot of manna kept later in the ark, or it may refer to its spiritual signification, that is, faith daily feeding on the Lord.

21. What name does Paul give to the manna?

Ans. – 1 Corinthians 10:3 : “And did all eat the same spiritual meat.”

22. In what later scripture does Moses show that God provided at this time against nakedness as well as against hunger and thirst?

Ans. – In Deuteronomy 29:5-6 : “And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxed old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxed old upon thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink’ that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God.”

23. In what way during this part of the pilgrimage, and all the rest of it, did Jehovah provide against heat by day and darkness by night?

Ans. – The pillar of cloud spread over them as a shade by day, and illuminated their camps at night.