TUESDAY 27th
Joshua 5
NIV (v12) – ‘The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.’
ESV (v12) – ‘And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.’
One of the advantages there are for me in preparing these daily devotions is that I often come across a verse or two that stand out for me, that I will have read before but not taken any significant notice of and the verse for today (v12) is one of them.
The people of Israel had left Egypt some forty years or so earlier, they had witnessed many spectacular events, one of which was the daily provision of God for them with the manna which they collected fresh every day. They had now crossed the Jordan into the Promised land, which if you remember was going to be a land flowing with milk and honey. In our chapter for today they celebrated the Passover for the first time since entering the land and the next day they ate of the produce of the land and immediately afterward there was no longer any manna for them to go out and to collect. The period of the manna was over, a new day had dawned, a new beginning and from then onward they would eat of the produce of the land.
What we need to remind ourselves of is this, the manna was God’s provision for them, but only until . . . and the until was this moment in our text for today, until they could begin to partake of the new provision within the new promised land. It marked a significant change in their daily lives, no more collecting manna, now they were going to enjoy something new and just as they had trusted God with the ‘old’ provision so they would need to learn to trust him to provide with the ‘new’ provision in the land.
I think there is an important spiritual lesson here and it is this, our God is the same God that Israel served, and just as he was bountiful in his provision toward them so he is in his provision toward us, and we need to constantly remind ourselves that we cannot expect to be living on his provision from yesteryear, or last month or even last week, there needs to be an ongoing provision, it may have been manna over the last few years, but maybe God has something different for us for the next few years. We need to learn to trust God when he moves us out of a specific era or period into a new era or period, he is a God who is constantly moving and we need to move with him in our generation both to be blessed and to be a blessing to others.