32 Moses said, "This is the thing which Yahweh has commanded, 'Let an omer-full of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.'"
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And Moses said. Moses does not proceed with the history in order, but by interposing these circumstances by anticipation, he the more confirms the fact that this food was then created for the people by God's special bounty, because He desired an omer of it to be preserved as a memorial, which, undergoing no putrefaction, handed down to posterity the gloriousness of the miracle. And first, he propounds generally God's command, and then, in the next verse, describes the manner in which it was done, viz., that Aaron put it in a bottle or pot, and laid it up by the Ark of the Covenant. Whence, too, it appears how high importance God would have attached to this His bounty, since he wished its memorial to exist in the sanctuary together with the tables of His covenant. The two expressions, conveying the same meaning, "before the Lord," and "before the Testimony," are used in commendation of the worship of the Law, that the people might know God's power to be near them in the sanctuary, not as if he were shut up in that place, or wished their minds to be fixed upon the visible sign, but, desiring to provide against their weakness, He in a manner descends to them, when he testified to the presence of His power by external images. He descends to them, therefore, not to occupy their minds with a gross superstition, but to raise them up by degrees to spiritual worship.
To be kept for your generations - See Clarke's note on Exodus 16:9.
And Moses said,.... At another time, though it is here inserted to give the account of the mamma all together:
this is the thing which the Lord commandeth; namely, what follows:
fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; which was the quantity allowed a man every day; this measure was to be laid up, and reserved for posterity in future generations, not to eat, nor so much as taste of, for then it would soon have been gone, but to look at, as follows:
that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt; that they might see what sort of food was provided for them, and what quantity each man had of it every day; and so have an ocular proof of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, in providing for their support in a wilderness, where no supplies were to be had; and when they were just come out of an enemy's country: thus Christ is the food of his people, while they are in the wilderness of this world; and is never so until they are brought out of the state of nature's darkness and bondage, like that of the Egyptians; and who, being the food of the saints in ages past, is presented to the eye of faith, for its encouragement to look to him and believe in him, receive, embrace, and feed upon him.
God having provided manna to be his people's food in the wilderness, the remembrance of it was to be preserved. Eaten bread must not be forgotten. God's miracles and mercies are to be had in remembrance. The word of God is the manna by which our souls are nourished, Matthew 4:4. The comforts of the Spirit are hidden manna, Revelation 2:17. These come from heaven, as the manna did, and are the support and comfort of the Divine life in the soul, while we are in the wilderness of this world. Christ in the word is to be applied to the soul, and the means of grace are to be used. We must every one of us gather for ourselves, and gather in the morning of our days, the morning of our opportunities; which if we let slip, it may be too late to gather. The manna must not be hoarded up, but eaten; those who have received Christ, must by faith live upon him, and not receive his grace in vain. There was manna enough for all, enough for each, and none had too much; so in Christ there is enough, but not more than we need. But those who ate manna, hungered again, died at last, and with many of them God was not well pleased; whereas they that feed on Christ by faith, shall never hunger, and shall die no more, and with them God will be for ever well pleased. Let us seek earnestly for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to turn all our knowledge of the doctrine of Christ crucified, into the spiritual nourishment of our souls by faith and love.
Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations--The mere fact of such a multitude being fed for forty years in the wilderness, where no food of any kind is to be obtained, will show the utter impossibility of their subsisting on a natural production of the kind and quantity as this tarfa-gum [see on Exodus 16:13]; and, as if for the purpose of removing all such groundless speculations, Aaron was commanded to put a sample of it in a pot--a golden pot (Hebrews 9:4) --to be laid before the Testimony, to be kept for future generations, that they might see the bread on which the Lord fed their fathers in the wilderness. But we have the bread of which that was merely typical (1-Corinthians 10:3; John 6:32).
As a constant memorial of this bread of God for succeeding generations, Jehovah commanded Moses to keep a bowl full (העמר מלא, the filling of a bowl) of the manna. Accordingly Aaron placed a jar of manna (as it is stated in Exodus 16:34, Exodus 16:35, by way of anticipation, for the purpose of summing up everything of importance relating to the manna) "before Jehovah," or speaking still more exactly, "before the testimony," i.e., the tables of the law (see Exodus 25:16), or according to Jewish tradition, in the ark of the covenant (Hebrews 9:4). צנצנת, from צנן to guard round, to preserve, signifies a jar or bottle, not a basket. According to the Jerusalem Targum, it was an earthenware jar; in the lxx it is called στάμνος χρυσοῦς, a golden jar, but there is nothing of this kind in the original text.
*More commentary available at chapter level.