Exodus 16:4

I will rain bread from heaven for you. — This first announcement at once suggests that the supply is to be supernatural. “Bread from heaven” was not simply “food out of the air” (Rosenmüller), but a celestial, that is, a Divine supply of their daily needs.

A certain rate every day. — Heb., a day’s meal each day — sufficient, that is, for the wants of himself and family for a day.

That I may prove them. — Human life is a probation. God proves and tries those most whom He takes to Himself for His “peculiar people,” and the trial is often by means of positive precepts, which are especially

Calculated to test the presence or absence of a spirit of humble and unquestioning obedience. Our first parents were tested by a positive precept in Paradise; the family of Abraham were tested by a positive precept — circumcision on the eighth day; the Israelites were tested, both in the wilderness and afterwards throughout their career as a nation, by a number of positive precepts, whereof this concerning the manna was one. Christians are tested by positive precepts with respect to common worship, prayer, and sacraments — the object being in all cases to see whether men “will walk in God’s law or no.” Men are very apt to prefer their own inventions to the simple rule of following at once the letter and the spirit of God’s commandments.