In regard to your writing on the Gospel of John (Pg. 402, Oct. ’95), you stated the manna did not literally float down from heaven. Please explain Psalm 78:23-24. (S.T., U.S. A.)
The relevant passages are:
Psalm 78:23-24 — “Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.”
Exodus 16:4 — “Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you.”
Exodus 16:13-16 — “And in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground…And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat…Gather of it every man.”
The reason for our comment was the evident process whereby the manna was provided under the dew. It evidently did not float down through the sky for hundreds or thousands of feet. The people did not put out buckets to catch it, rather they gathered it up as something formed on the ground.
We feel the language in Exodus and Psalms of the manna being “from heaven” and “rained down upon them” is the same manner of speaking as James’ statement, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (Jam. 1:17). Such gifts as forgiveness of sins, the promise of eternal life, the ordination of family life, etc. “come down” from God in the sense they are ordained by Him. Our daily provisions also come from God, but not in the sense that they physically come down from Him.
Thus we feel the idiom of Christ coming “from God” would have been clearly understood by his listeners to mean he was “provided by” God as the manna “came from heaven” even though formed on the ground.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One