the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Manna
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or MANNA.—The miracle of the loaves and fishes, by which Jesus fed five thousand men, stirred the multitudes to fanaticism (John 6:1-15). Their first impulse was to make Jesus king by force. On the morrow they followed Him across the sea to Capernaum, hoping that He would feed them again in some supernatural way, and suggesting the giving of bread from heaven as a suitable sign in confirmation of His high claims. Would not the prophet of Nazareth imitate the great lawgiver, who gave their fathers bread from heaven? Jesus turns their thoughts away from Moses to God: ‘It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven.’ As God gave the fathers literal bread from heaven, so now He is giving to their children spiritual food that nourishes the soul eternally. ‘I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’ ‘Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they died.’ God has a far better gift than the manna that was gathered day by day in the wilderness. ‘I am the living bread that cometh down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world’ (John 6:51).
In Revelation 2:17 the spiritual blessing promised by the glorified Christ to the victor in life’s battle is called ‘hidden manna.’
John R. Sampey.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Manna'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/m/manna.html. 1906-1918.
