Exodus 16:35

The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land where they could settle; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The narrative records the Israelites' wilderness journey immediately after Aaron stores the manna before the Testimony. It closes the manna account as the people approach the edge of the Promised Land.

The words — אָֽכְל֤וּ ('a.khe.Lu) translates literally as "they ate," and עַד\־ ('ad-) means "until." These terms bracket the forty-year span of continuous provision before settlement.

The thread — The forty-year manna period resurfaces in Deuteronomy 8:2 as a wilderness test, is recalled in Nehemiah 9:20 as proof of God's faithful instruction, and terminates in Joshua 5:12 when the manna stops after the people eat the land's produce.

Why it lands — The text states a fixed duration of supernatural food that ends at a specific border. It asks the reader to track how divine provision is measured, bounded, and replaced by earthly harvest.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

King James Version

And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

Cross-references

Joshua 5:12 And the day after they had eaten from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. There was no more manna for the Israelites, so that year they began to eat the crops of the land of Canaan.
Nehemiah 9:20 You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.
Deuteronomy 8:2 Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.
John 6:30 So they asked Him, “What sign then will You perform, so that we may see it and believe You? What will You do?
Numbers 33:38 At the LORD’s command, Aaron the priest climbed Mount Hor and died there on the first day of the fifth month, in the fortieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 1:8 See, I have placed the land before you. Enter and possess the land that the LORD swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.”
Psalms 78:24 He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.
Numbers 33:48 They set out from the mountains of Abarim and camped on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.
Deuteronomy 34:1 Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which faces Jericho. And the LORD showed him the whole land—from Gilead as far as Dan,
Nehemiah 9:15 In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land that You had sworn to give them.