In the Hebrew Bible It is described in the Book of Numbers as arriving with the dew during the night.
Exodus says that this heavenly grain then rained down from the sky every single day. The Israelites ground it into flour and used it to make cakes. God fed the Israelites with this bread, which they called 'manna', for forty years. When they finally arrived in the Promised Land, however, the manna stopped falling.
But manna is more than a literary anachronism -- it actually exists today in Italy, in a small corner of the island of Sicily. It does not fall from the sky -- it drips from the ash tree. When exposed to the hot summer sun of Sicily, this Italian variety of maple syrup solidifies into white stalactites of spongy sugar.
Manna is the name given to the food the Israelites ate during the wilderness wanderings recounted in Exodus chapter 16, following the parting of the Red Sea after the Israelites' escape out of Egypt, where they had been kept as slaves of the Egyptians.
But as miraculous as its biblical apparition may seem, manna is real and some chefs have been cooking with it. The dozens of varieties of what are called mannas have two things in common. They are sweet and, as in the Bible, they appear as if delivered by providence, without cultivation.
Duration of supply
Exodus states that the Israelites consumed the manna for 40 years, starting from the fifteenth day of the second month (Iyar 15), but that it then ceased to appear once they had reached a settled land, and once they had reached the borders of Canaan (inhabited by the Canaanites).
The term manna has since been used in other parts of the world to refer to any sweet substance exuding from plants. In Northern Iraq, the sweet substance, possibly caused by insects feeding on the plants, is harvested from ash trees [Fraxinus ornus].
manna, any of a variety of plants and plant products known for their sweet taste. Certain resins produced by the camel's thorn plant (Alhagi maurorum) are known as manna; it is a spiny-branched shrub less than 1 metre (about 3 feet) tall and is native to Turkey.
As the LORD commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna in front of the Testimony, that it might be kept. The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.
Manna Bread is remarkably simple and wholesome, best described as a unique, cake-like sprouted bread, made of all-organic and kosher ingredients, such as whole wheat, whole rye, and whole seeds, as well as dried no-sugar-added fruits and shelled nuts.
In Exodus, it's referred to as “like coriander seed, white,” with a taste “like wafers made with honey.” Numbers, on the other hand, likens the flavor to “fresh oil” and describes how the Israelites “ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it.”
Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
You might, for example, say, "The doughnuts my coworker brought in this morning were like manna from heaven." Manna has a Greek root that comes from the Hebrew man, and although it literally means "substance exuded by the tamarisk tree," it's almost always used to refer to God's nourishment in the Bible.
The day before the Sabbath, twice as much manna fell, and the Lord told the children of Israel to gather enough for two days. On the Sabbath day they did not receive any manna, but the manna they gathered the day before did not go bad. The Lord preserved it for His people (see Ex. 16:16–24).
When the children of Israel had to go out every morning and collect the manna, it was a reminder that God had provided again. Every day, it was a reminder that whatever they collected was because of God's goodness, God's hand, and God's mercy.
Jesus uses the understanding of the Manna to teach that God wants to give us the Eucharist, the new Manna, the true bread from Heaven, which will give life of the world. For it is not just a coincidence that the miraculous food God regularly gave was flesh and bread.
Numbers 11 tells the story of how God's people complained about the food God provided. God gave them manna, but the people were not satisfied with what God had given. They wanted more. Notice there was a “rabble” among God's people, a group who were never satisfied.
To meet the needs of the Israelites in the wilderness, God sent manna six days a week. This practice continued day after day, year after year. The people were not allowed to keep any overnight to provide for the next day, except on the day before the Sabbath.
Food that God gave miraculously to the Israelites in the Exodus, after the food they had brought with them out of Egypt (see also Egypt) had run out.
Manna Bread is made from sprouted grains. The sprouts are ground, shaped into loaves and cooked at a low temperature. And unlike mainstream breads, Manna Bread doesn't have salt, sugar, yeast, or gluten. The result is a flourless, cake-like bread 1 that is nutrient dense and easy to digest.
The manna looked like small coriander seeds, and it was pale yellow like gum resin. The people would go out and gather it from the ground. They made flour by grinding it with hand mills or pounding it in mortars.
produce food for man, the tamarisk manna scale, Trabutina mannipara, is thought to have produced the biblical manna for the children of Israel. The females produce large quantities of honeydew that solidify in thick layers on plant leaves in arid regions.
It was a sign of God's generous hospitality and God's presence. It also pointed to Jesus' coming to save us and give us new life. Jesus' offer of “hidden manna” reminds us that he is the bread of life (John 6:32-35).
MULTIGRAIN GOODNESS: Manna Health Mix contains the goodness of 14 Natural Cereals, Pulses, Grains and Nuts. viz. Ragi, Bajra, Corn, Jowar, Wheat, Barley, Red Rice, Green Gram, Bengal Gram, Ground Nuts, Cashew Nuts and Almonds.
There is the additional fact that the nutritional value of the "manna" produced by the cocci of the tamarisk is very slight, since it contains no proteins at all, whereas the Pentateuch speaks of the manna as "bread" and as a basic food.