Manna: Symbol of Jesus Christ

After the children of Israel complained that they missed the fleshpots and bread of Egypt, the lord told Moses that He would “rain bread from heaven” (Ex. 16:4). This bread was called “manna,” “the corn of heaven,” and “angels’ food” (Ps. 78:24–25). Exodus 16:31 describes manna as being “like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.”

God fed Israel this special bread for forty years (Ex. 16:35), a number that symbolizes a period of probation, testing, and tribulation (see Deut. 8:2–3). The manna ceased the day after the Israelites partook of grain in the Promised Land (Josh. 5:12).

Manna symbolized Jesus Christ, who is “the living bread” (John 6:51). In the context of the miraculous feeding of bread and fish to five thousand people near the Sea of Galilee, Jesus taught the people that He was “the bread of life.” He said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger. . . . Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh” (John 6:35, 49, 51). As the chart indicates, manna served as a type and shadow of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.[1]