Exodus 16 · a question people ask
What was manna?
Exodus describes it rather than explaining it. When the dew had gone, "on the surface of the wilderness was a small round thing, small as the frost on the ground" (16:14). "It was like coriander seed, white; and its taste was like wafers with honey" (16:31). Numbers adds that "it looked like bdellium" (Numbers 11:7), and that the people "ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it" (Numbers 11:8). The people "didn’t know what it was" (16:15), and Moses told them, "It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat" (16:15). The chapter shows it keeping the LORD's pattern: none on the seventh day (16:26-27), foul if kept overnight (16:20) except before the Sabbath (16:24), melting "When the sun grew hot" (16:21). And it stopped when the land's food began: "The manna ceased on the next day, after they had eaten of the produce of the land" (Joshua 5:12).
The verses
“When the dew that lay had gone, behold, on the surface of the wilderness was a small round thing, small as the frost on the ground. When the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they didn’t know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.”
“Notwithstanding they didn’t listen to Moses, but some of them left of it until the morning, so it bred worms and became foul; and Moses was angry with them. They gathered it morning by morning, everyone according to his eating. When the sun grew hot, it melted.”
“They laid it up until the morning, as Moses ordered, and it didn’t become foul, and there were no worms in it.”
“Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath. In it there shall be none.” On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, and they found none.”