If only we had died in Egypt! (Exod 16:1-12)

When the Communist regime fell apart in Hungary, there was widespread celebration and high hopes for a different future where people could talk freely, travel where they wished, become affluent and have more control over their lives in general. As a new government was elected in 1990 and the next few years unfolded, the initial euphoria turned to disappointment. Due to earlier policies the country was deep in debt, inflation soared and with it the expense of living, unemployment was on the rise and if a private enterprise went bankrupt, there was no one to bail it out. Suddenly, many felt nostalgia towards the past when the state took over responsibility for individuals, ensured full employment and cheap bread. It was a sentiment felt throughout the former Eastern Bloc.

I am reminded of this, as I read how Israel saw their stay in Egypt through rose-coloured glasses. Their hard labour forgotten, they long for the safety of basic needs met: pots of meat and a full stomach. At this stage, they are four to six weeks after the Passover (Exod 16:1), so any provisions they may have carried with them from Egypt would have been gone by now. Although they had their flocks and herds, these represented the future and they would not have wanted to slaughter their animals. What is striking is that their grumbling completely ignores God. They recognise that He could have killed them in Egypt, so presumably they acknowledge the Lord as the source of the plagues, but they do not see the events of being led out as a continued action of God and blame their human leaders instead (Exod 16:2-3). So often when we despair of our circumstances or find our enslavement to an old way of life more appealing than our release from it, the first thing that needs correcting is our perceptions.

While God is going to provide food for His people, the important lesson is that they need to recognise Him fully in all the events that have happened to them. This is why Moses and Aaron do not start their answer with the promise of meat and manna, but with an emphasis on God and on the result of what His provision for them will achieve. Israel will know that the Lord brought them out of Egypt and they will see His glory (Exod 15:6-7). Indeed, what happens first is not the filling of their stomachs with food, but God’s glory appearing in a cloud (Exod 15:8), a reminder of how God shielded them from the Egyptian army before their crossing of the waters and how He led them in the wilderness. Again and again, the people are pointed back to God: your grumbling is against Him (vv.7, 8 [2x]) and He heard your grumblings (vv.7, 8, 9, 12).

As at the waters of Marah, God is remarkably patient with His wayward people and does not show anger or frustration at their skewed vision and complaints. The wilderness is their learning ground where God wants to draw them to Himself, so that as they consistently encounter His help and support, they may come to know fully that the Lord is their God. God’s message is opportune for us too at a time when life for many in the present pandemic has become a wilderness experience of acute needs. If it is hard to see His presence and anxiety engulfs us, it is time to ask for His help that we might see Him in the circumstances of our lives and come to know Him more fully. Those needs may be God’s opportunities to teach us that He cares, He hears, that He is our God.