Exodus 16:15: “And when the children of Israel saw [it], they said one to another, It [is] manna: for they wist not what it [was]. And Moses said unto them, This [is] the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.”
It is curious how a word makes its way into our traditions and we never stop to question the origin of the word. Manna is one such word. Actually, in the original Hebrew the word manna is not to be found in this passage. We say the word manna means what is it, but actually it is two words m(o)n hu which translators say means what it is. Actually, the word m(o)n, that is Men Nun is a prefix in Hebrew for the preposition from. Hu is a masculine pronoun meaning he or it. So this could really be translated as from Him intending to say from God. Remember these people came out of Egypt and were just learning about God Jehovah so they probably could not really pinpoint the exactly which god this was coming from which is why they used the pronoun Him and Moses was quick to point out that it was from Jehovah. Or maybe they were so familiar with the works of Jehovah from the plagues and crossing of the Red Sea that they would just using a pronoun rather than His name and Moses was just reinforcing the source of their food. Translators, however, tend to consider the fact that these people were strongly influenced by the Egyptians and Egyptian culture. Also, there were many Egyptians who choose to join the children of Israel in their journey. Therefore some translators assume that maybe they were using an Egyptian word or expression. The word mon in the Egyptian language means what. Hu in Egyptian, like the Hebrew also expresses a masculine pronoun and from that they get what is it.
So where does the word manna come from? Well every word in Hebrew must come from a triliteral root, that is three letters so now we revert back to the Hebrew word m(o)n and assume that the root word simply has an extra Nun making the root word manna. So is it Egyptian or Hebrew? No one can say for sure, Rabbis have offered various opinions on this but nothing conclusive and as we do need a name for this special bread from heaven, well applying the Hebrew root word gives us a name that is just as good as any, manna.
There is another little trick to the Hebrew language that is often overlooked. That is the Hebrews can utter one word and mean two different things at the same time. For instance in English we may say, “Oh that child is on a swing.” We could mean one of two things by this, that the child is playing on playground equipment known as a swing or that he is swinging on a swing. In the mind of the speaker who may be watching the child he is saying that the child is doing both. He is not only on the equipment known as a swing but he is also swinging on it. Double meanings are far more common in Hebrew than in English and in Hebrew the meanings are not often as closely related.
An example of this in the Hebrew is found in the passage in Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” My study partner who pointed this out to me is doing a study on it herself, so I will not steal her thunder except to say that the word nostrils comes from the root word ‘aneph which means strong emotions, but it also means the nose as well. The Hebrew could be speaking of both meanings at the same time indicating that God breathed into man’s nostrils not only the breath of life, but His own emotions as well.
So, too here, we could have the double meaning put into play. The original Hebrew does not give us the vowel for the word mn. The Masoretic text actually uses the chirik (i) which creates the preposition from. Translators treat the vowel as a kametz (a) creating the word what or a holem (o) creating the Egyptian word for what. Unless we have a time machine and can go back to that time, we cannot really know what the vowel would have been. However, it does not matter what the vowel is, we still need to assign a root word to this and linguistically, that root word would have a double Nun for manna. One meaning of manna is from far away. In other words what they found on the ground they recognized as something that was not indigenous to that area. I know some of you probably have been on a tour in Israel and your tour guide gave you some manna or some local shop made a few liras selling you a flaky type of substance which he called manna. However, I believe the context of the passage and the word itself clearly shows that this was something that was not natural or indigenous to that area. Another meaning of manna is portion. Thus in the words mon hu, you find both a question and the answer. What is it? It is from Him who sent us our portion from heaven. I love what one rabbi said who suggested even another meaning for the word mon from the root manna. It carries the idea of status and importance. In other words what the people were really saying is, “We do not know what it is but if it came from God and far away, we are absolutely sure it is something special.
You know, God is sending us manna from heaven all the time. Your heart knows it, you sense something special in your heart when you hear a word or phrase, a number, a song, a little bird singing, a kitten snuggling up against you, even Sparky the Wonder Dog not barking at me when I pass by his fence to take out the garbage. We don’t know what it means, but something in our heart tells us it means something and we know it is manna from God because it is not indigenous to our normal state of things. If we acknowledge that it is from God then we are absolutely sure it is something special and meant nourish us and help us to survive.
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