This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents.
Gather of it every man according to his eating. The manna was the gift of God, but the Israelites had to gather it. The same law obtains in the kingdom of grace as in that of nature. God gives to His people their daily bread in answer to prayer, but they must put forth their hands to labour for it.
An omer for every man - an omer was equal to about three quarts.
Take ye every man for them which are in his tents. This statement has recently been fastened on as an objection to the truthfulness of the narrative, as opposed to the fact recorded in Leviticus 23:42-43, as the basis of the memorial feast of tabernacles. But there is no contradiction; for, granting that multitudes, even the majority of the Israelites, had no shelter but Succoth, booths (and in the then well-wooded state of the wilderness they could experience no difficulty in procuring branches in abundance wherewith to construct them), a large proportion of the people having continued shepherds, would be accustomed to live in tents, and would, as usual in their nomadic wanderings, carry the materials along with them. Nay, supposing that numbers were destitute of tents at the moment of the exodus, how easy would it have been for those whose women were accustomed to spin and weave goat's hair-cloth to provide this sort of covering-poles from the trees of the desert, and erect tents for themselves. And assuming that they did so, there is no necessity for supposing that two million people would require 200,000 tents, on the ground that decency would not allow more than 10 persons to be in each tent. It is absurd to limit the number; because all who are acquainted with the habits of nomadic people know that, by letting fall a portion of the covering as a curtain, they divide the tent into compartments more or less numerous, as they require.