Man did eat angels’ food.
Angels’ food
I. There are in the universe higher order of intelligent creatures than man, “Angels.” The proofs, the nature, the functions, the varieties of their existence abound in the Scriptures.
II. This higher order of intelligences require food. No creatures, however exalted, can be self-subsisting, i.e. can live of themselves or from themselves; they must appropriate something from without.
III. Of this food man to some extent is a partaker. Revelations of truth, beauty, God, are the food of souls in all worlds, and this food is universal. (Homilist)
Angels’ food
We soon tell by our appearance what food we have been eating. You cannot hide the bill of fare. The face is a tell-tale. The more the sensualist eats the greater a sensualist he appears to be. He feeds the flesh. He gets coarser every day; what little music there was in his voice is all dead and gone; he has choked it with the food of beasts. Once there was a little child in him, well spoken of, thought to be the germ of a fine man; but that child-angel is dead. Every mouthful of meat the man now takes makes him more beast-like. Say not that it is of no consequence what a man eats. It is of vital consequence. The mystery, however, is this, that even the best food may be turned into evil nutriment, according to the nature of the man who partakes of it. The lion grows as a lion the more he eats; though it be of the daintiest food it all becomes lion. So with us bodily, intellectually, spiritually: we tell what our food is. Under what circumstances may men be said to cat angels’ food, corn of heaven, bread sent down from God? When earth cannot satisfy him any longer, the good food is beginning to tell upon him. Growing in spirituality is not a metaphysical process; it is concrete, intelligible, patent to the observation; it is not a growth in mere sentiment, it is not an enrichment of the nature in mere foam of ecstasy and rapture: it is a larger outlook, a firmer grasp of things eternal, a clearer view of distant things; it is a growth in preparation, in the estimate of relative values, in sympathy with God. Growing so, the whole world changes; its duties become light, its burdens become comparatively easy, its wealth a handful of dust that may be thrown up and caught again and laid down with a conjurer’s ease. Growth in spirituality means larger intercourse with God, keener perception of religious essences and moral affinities. Growth in spirituality means a throwing-off of mere burdensomeness and ceremony and ritual; a forsaking of the fleshpots of Egypt, and a yearning for the society of angels and spirits, blessed and immortal. We can now do better than eat angels’ food, a larger feast has been prepared for us--we can eat the body and drink the blood of Christ. Faith takes the bread, and turns it into the flesh of Christ; faith takes the emblematic wine, and makes it sacrificial blood. Lord, increase our faith! (J. Parker, D. D.)
He sent them meat to the full--
The blessing of harvest
View this verse as applicable to all time and all generations of men; for, just as surely as God fed Israel in the wilderness with manna, so surely is He feeding the whole human race to-day by a miracle not less wonderful.
I. In what sense the statement of the text is true, as applied to all men. Look at the variety of the food God gives us. It is not merely the one food sent directly from above, but we can use a hundred kinds of food, so we cannot comment upon the poor character of the products of the earth. The courses of Nature bring round the seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and point the Christian back to the God who lies behind them; and he who has the heritage of the Christian has a fountain of gratitude in his soul, because he recognizes that these come from above, for they tell the man who believes and trusts in God that these things are but another sign of that eternal love which has watched over us from infancy, and cares for us all the years of our life.
II. In what sense the statement appears not to be true. How is it that in a world in which there appears to be plenty, or at least in which there is the possibility of plenty, there should be a vast number in every town and city kept pinched and bare? I believe, in many instances, because of their own mismanagement and misconduct. Idleness will clothe a man with rags. It is one of the wise provisions of God’s providence that the earth surrenders her products only to those who work. There is also another explanation. Intemperance is the cause of a vast deal of the want that lies around us. Again, God has never said He will give a successive continuance of rich seasons, and commerce in its whole history has never gone straight on. It has always gone by leaps and falls, and there have been times of scarceness and plenty. But God means every prudent man to lay by in times of success and fulness for a time of scarcity, and I think it is nothing less than sacrilegious for men to blame God for want and poverty if they allow times of fulness to pass without laying by for a time of need. There are, however, some causes outside of a man’s or woman’s own control which lead to poverty and something approaching want. For instance, too many men rush into one trade, possibly because they think it a prosperous one. The result is, that the trade is overstocked, and there is not sufficient work for every one, and a great deal of pain and scarcity often follows, until matters right themselves--and they don’t right themselves in a year. Or, again, the greed and cruelty of some may act as a pressure on those who are weak and unable to defend themselves, and because of this injustice and greed of gain they are not able even to make their bread. Or, again, bad economic laws, such as our Corn Laws that Cobden and Bright did so much to abolish, may raise the price of God’s grain to a fictitious value. There is another cause of poverty and want that is perhaps more directly traceable to God Himself, and that is famine. God’s universe is spiritual, and the powers that conquer in it must be Spiritual, and famine itself is, I believe, one of the methods by which God seeks to work out one of the spiritual purposes of the universe. See, for instance, how famine may bring a nation back to simpler and truer modes of life. See how famine disciplines men by bringing out generosity in them, making them go to the help of other nations. I believe that, too, may be the explanation of the fact that there is poverty among us. Does not God seek to lead us, by poverty, to think of that bread which perisheth not? (D. Woodside, B. D.)