Sometimes when I read a verse in Hebrew it speaks to me beyond what the English translation had conveyed and I am profoundly impacted. That happened this morning as I was reading Exodus 16 about the manna God provided from heaven for the Israelites who were starving in the wilderness.
Here is the NIV translation of Exodus 16:4:
Exodus 16:4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”
Here is my translation from Hebrew:
Exodus 16:4 And the Lord says to Moses: “Behold! I will make it rain bread to you from the heavens and the people will go out and will gather the word of the day in his day, on account of this I will grill him: Will he walk in my teachings (the torah) or not?”
The “bread from heaven” that the Israelites are to gather is called the דְּבַר־י֣וֹם (pronouned from right to left: debar-yom). This Hebrew phrase is profound and worth a little explanation. Debar is a pretty common Hebrew word primarily translated as “word” or “speech”. It can be used more generically the way we would use the word “thing”. So one could translate the phrase as the “daily aliquot” or “daily portion”, but this is not the first thing a Hebrew reader would think when they read the phrase, particularly in the context of a test of whether he will “walk in the Torah or not”. Removed from the context of collecting the manna from heaven, a student of a Rabbi would certainly have thought that a test on the “word of the day” from the Torah, was going to require him to repeat word-for-word something that he had been required to memorize from the prior day! So our English translation completely misses the clear deeper connections to discipleship that are obvious in Hebrew. By the way, the verb “test” is used in an intensive (Piel) form in Hebrew. So I translated it as “grill”. The concept is a grueling examination – for you students, think midterm or final exam!
The application is that each day we are to gather a personal portion of “bread from heaven” until we have our personal “word of the day”. Then we are to ingest it throughout the day. More than just memorizing it, we let it change us so that we walk in it. This is how we pass God’s examination, by showing that our “word of the day” is in our heart and makes us walk like the Rabbi we are following, Jesus.
There is one more amazing connection here. Jesus claims the title “the bread from heaven” in John 6:33 and John 6:48-51. In Exodus 16:4 this title for Jesus is directly connected in scripture to another famous title for Jesus in John 1:1 and John 1:14, where Jesus is called “the Word”. In Greek this is Logos, but in Hebrew this is Debar. The origin of the title for Jesus of “The Word” is found in this verse!! How cool is that?
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ָAppendix: Dave’s Interlinear Translation:
Exodus 16:4
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה הִנְנִ֨י מְטִ֥יר לָכֶ֛ם לֶ֖חֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם
the heavens from to-you bread I-will-make-it-rain behold Moses-to Yehua and-said
And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold! I will make it rain bread to you from the heavens
וְיָצָ֨א הָעָ֤ם וְלָֽקְטוּ דְּבַר־י֣וֹם בְּיוֹמ֔וֹ לְמַ֧עַן
the-purpose-of-for his-day-in day of-word they-will-gather-and the-people will-go-out-and
and the people will go out and gather the word of the day in his day, on account of this
אֲנַסֶּ֛נּוּ הֲיֵלֵ֥ךְ בְּתוֹרָתִ֖י אִם־לֹֽא
not-or my-teachings(the torah)-in will?he-will-walk him-I-will-grill-(test)
I will grill him. Will he walk in my teachings (the torah) or not?”
Atheist to Elder 