While reflecting on this Nougat, I noted that their sin was rooted in the attachment to food. They, like Y’shua, faced the issue of food insecurity in the wilderness. Is there a connection between the two situations? Consider Today’s Holy Nougat.
Exodus 16:3 AFV
[3] And the children of Israel said to them, “O that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger!”
Luke 4:3-4 AFV
[3] Then the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that this stone become bread.”
[4] But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”
Food Insecurities
It is worth noting that their trust in God’s ability to provide for their basic needs was paramount in the Children of Israel’s psyche. Just as notable is that worry about food security is counter to the very nature of God’s character. In the Genesis 1 account of Creation, Elohim (the first name for God presented in the Bible) saw to the needs of humanity before placing humanity on earth. To doubt God’s ability to provide is thus akin to not knowing God, or denying God’s God-ness.
Self-Check
How well do we know God, and do we trust God to meet our every need?
Digging Deeper
After completing the reflection on our Nougat yesterday, Luke’s account of Y’shua’s temptation kept echoing in my mind. There, Y’shua refuted Satan’s offer of food by saying: Humans don’t need only bread to survive. Rather, they require every word of God for survival. This is a mirror of the desires cited by the grumbling Children of Israel! While Y’shua’s hunger would have been justifiable after forty days without food or drink, what could justify murmuring about potential lack after their experience of the bounty YHWH provided in Sin? Yet they were so worried about food that they flew in the face of God to say it would have been better for YHWH to have killed them in Egypt. One wonders what was truly at the root of their complaint.
Could it be that Y’shua’s response to the temptation of food was also a means of redeeming the sins of the past? Was He atoning for the Children of Israel’s sins?
Their inability to see beyond the immediate is contrary to Y’shua’s call to live by God’s words. We are not told that they ran out of food, but that roughly forty days had passed. While Y’shua was able to overcome, they didn’t. Y’shua invites us all to live in faith in the face of the unseen and uncertain future, trusting God to fulfil God’s promises for our lives. God’s words contain proof of God’s willingness and ability to provide for our every need. It is God’s word that established creation, and God’s word that sustains us in every situation. Fleshpots can only satisfy us momentarily.
Point to Ponder
When faced with the unknown and that which threatens us, do we first seek to gratify the flesh, or rely on God’s word?
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May all we seek be found in Christ
