And he... suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee. — A process naturally humbling. He might easily have fed them without “suffering them to hunger.” But He did not give them the manna until the sixteenth day of the second month of the journey (see Exodus 16:1; Exodus 16:6-7); and for one whole month they were left to their own resources. When it appeared that the people had no means of providing sustenance during their journey, “they saw the glory of the Lord” in the way in which He fed them; and for thirty-nine years and eleven months “He withheld not His manna from their mouth.”
Manna, which thou knewest not. — Its very name (but see Note on Exodus 16:15) commemorates the fact “unto this day.” All the natural things which have been called manna (and Dr. Cunningham Geikie, in “Hours with the Bible,” has described several) do not afford the least explanation of the bread which God gave Israel to eat.
That man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. — Not here alone, but throughout the Law, as in the Gospel, we are taught that life is to do the will of God. Our Saviour called that “My meat.” What the visible means of subsistence may be is a secondary matter. Man’s life is to do the will of God: “My commandments, which, if a man do, he shall even live in them.” “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
But the special interest of these words arises from our Lord’s use of them in the hour of temptation. He also was led forty days (each day for a year of the Exodus) in the wilderness, living upon the word of God. At the end of that time it was proposed to Him to create bread for Himself. But He had learnt the lesson which Israel was to learn; and so, even when God suffered Him to hunger, He still refused to live by His own word. He preferred that of His Father. “And the angels came and ministered unto Him.” It is noticeable that all our Lord’s answers to the tempter are taken from this exhortation upon the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 6-10.