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The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:22-27
The want of water and the want of faith-Marah and Elim. It will be noticed at once how the interest of this passage is gathered round that great natural necessity, water. It is a necessity to man in so many ways. He nee…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:22-27
Trial and Blessing. I. THE CLOUD AND SUNSHINE OF THE PILGRIM LIFE. The weariness of the wilderness journey, the disappointment of Marah, and the comforts of Elim, all lie along the appointed way. II. A HEAVY TRIAL BADLY…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:22-26
The well of bitterness. "For I am Jehovah that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26). A new chapter of history now opens, that of the wandering; it comprises the following passages. 1. Two months to Sinai. 2. Eleven months at Si…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:22-27
I will hear what God, the Lord, will say. There is no reason why a powerful sermon should not be preached from a seemingly strange text. All depends on how the text is treated. God himself is the greatest of all preache…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:23
And when they came to Marah. It is not clear whether the place already bore the name on the arrival of the Israelites, or only received it from them. Marah would mean "bitter" in Arabic no less than in Hebrew. The ident…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:23-27
The trials and vicissitudes of life. Israel in the wilderness is a type of our pilgrimage through life. I. MONOTONY. The long weary sameness of days each exactly resembling the last (Exodus 15:22)—the desert all around…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:24
And the people murmured against Moses. As they had already done on the western shores of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:11, Exodus 14:12), and as they were about to do so often before their wanderings were over. (See below, Exo…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:27
Elim. "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water," etc. (Exodus 15:27). Describe locality, and point out the great change from Marah, and the miserable preceding three days in the desert. And then note the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 15:27
They came to Elim. Elim was undoubtedly some spot in the comparatively fertile tract which lies south of the "wilderness of Shur," intervening between it and the "wilderness of Sin"—now E1 Murkha. This tract contains th…
Matthew Henry on Exodus 16:1-12
The provisions of Israel, brought from Egypt, were spent by the middle of the second month, and they murmured. It is no new thing for the greatest kindness to be basely represented as the greatest injuries. They so far…
The Israelites Murmur for Bread. (b. c. 1491.)
THE ISRAELITES MURMUR FOR BREAD. (B. C. 1491.) The host of Israel, it seems, took along with them out of Egypt, when they came thence on the fifteenth day of the first month, a month's provisions, which, by the fifteent…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1-15
The provision of the manna. This chapter contains an account of the first provision of miraculous bread for Israel in the wilderness. We are told very fully the circumstances in which it was given and the regulations fo…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1-3
EXPOSITION THE FIRST MURMURING FOR FOOD. From Elim, or the fertile tract extending from Wady Ghurnndel to Wady Tayibeh, the Israelites, after a time, removed, and ca-camped (as we learn from Numbers 33:10) by the Red Se…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1
They journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation came. It has been noted (Cook) that the form of expression seems to imply that the Israelites proceeded in detachments from Elim, and were first assembled as a complete…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1-3
The unreasonableness of discontent. The people of Israel experience now the second trial that has come upon them since the passage of the Red Sea. First, they had nothing which they could drink (Exodus 15:24); now they…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1-4
Murmurings. In the "Wilderness of Sin," between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after the departing of Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 16:1). One short month, but how much can be forgotten even in so bri…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1-36
The manna of the body-A homily on providence. "They said one to another, what is this? (marg.) for they wist not what it was" (Exodus 16:15). Introduction:—Trace the journey from Elim to the sea (Numbers 33:10); and the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:1-36
Manna for the soul; a homily on grace. "I am the living bread … he shall live for ever." John 6:51. Having given the manna story, discussed the miracle, and given the lessons bearing on our providential path, we now go…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:2
The whole congregation … murmured, It has been observed above, that only the poorer sort could have been as yet in any peril of actual starvation; but it may well have been that the rest, once launched into the wilderne…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:3
Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt—i.e; "Would that God had smitten us with a painless death, as he did the first-born of the Egyptians! Then we should have avoided the painful and lin…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:4
Bread from heaven. Compare Psalms 78:24; Nehemiah 9:15; John 6:31-51. The expression is of course not to be trader-stood literally. The substance was not actual bread, neither was it locally transferred from the distant…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:4-8
The mercy of God in hearing and helping even an ungrateful and discontented people. God is very merciful to those who are in covenant with him, whom he has chosen for his own, and made "the sheep of his pasture." Very o…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:4-16
The gift of Manna. Quails also were given, on this occasion in mercy, and on a later occasion in wrath (Numbers 11:31-34); but it was the manna which was the principal gift, both as providing Israel with a continuous su…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 16:4-8
EXPOSITION THE PROMISE OF BREAD FROM HEAVEN. When men who are in real distress make complaint, even though the tone of their complaint be not such as it ought to be, God in his mercy is wont to have compassion upon them…