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Exodus 16:15-17
New Catholic Bible
Exodus 16:15-17
New Catholic Bible
15 The children of Israel saw it and said to one another, “What is it?”[a] because they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given us as food.
16 “This is what the Lord commands: ‘Collect as much as each person can eat, an omer[b] per person. Let every person take as much as needed for the people living with him, for as many as there are in his tent.’ ”
17 This is what the children of Israel did. Some collected quite a bit and others much less.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Exodus 16:15 The Hebrew word man hu, What is it? is a popular etymology of the word “manna” (see v. 31). On the Sinai peninsula the tamarisk exudes a substance resembling the biblical manna as described here. This does not make the Divine intervention any less extraordinary or eliminate the symbolic link with the Eucharist.
- Exodus 16:16 Omer: a measure equal to about four and a half liters. The sacred writer himself feels the need of explaining it (v. 36).
