Exodus 16: From the Market of Complaint to the Wilderness of Trust
Exodus 16: From the Market of Complaint to the Wilderness of Trust
"If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted..." (Exodus 16:3, NIV)
Just one month after experiencing the miracle of the Red Sea, Israel longs for Egypt again. What they yearned for was not their status as slaves, but the guaranteed pots of meat and satisfying bread. This precisely corresponds to the certainty that modern people crave—the 'logic of the Market.' A system where they could obtain what they needed by paying a price, or accumulate future security through labor—that was the comfort of Egypt they remembered. To them, the wilderness was merely a space of deprivation where tomorrow's food was not guaranteed, making it utterly anxiety-inducing.
Wolfgang Schoberth warns that when modern theology adopts a market-oriented attitude that seeks to satisfy people's religious needs, faith degenerates into a replaceable commodity. Israel's complaint arises precisely at this point. They perceived God only as a provider who would satisfy their hunger (Needs). If this God would not provide better supplies, then Egypt's gods, which had provided a well-fed slave life, would be preferable.
However, God gives them manna, a food that cannot be stored. Manna refuses accumulation and possession. It is grace that enables living only 'today,' neutralizing the desire to secure tomorrow's safety by our own means. God pulled Israel out of the market of complaint and invited them into the wilderness of trust. Schoberth's proposed 'Heuristik des Vertrauens' (Heuristic of Trust) begins precisely in this wilderness. It is training in the field every morning to learn how to trust the invisible God.
The climax of this training is the 'Sabbath.' "On the seventh day no one is to go out." (verse 29) The Sabbath is not merely a cessation of labor. It is a 'holy resistance' against the fear of survival that says "if I don't work, I'll starve to death" and the market's greed that says "I must possess more to be secure." Only those who have experienced God through the manna that falls for six days can look at the empty field on the seventh day without anxiety. This is truly practical courage.
Our reality still exists in the tension between 'Already' and 'Not Yet.' Though Sunday is called the day of rest, relational conflicts and ministry fatigue still weigh us down. Like the early church believers, we too live an elliptical life of the gap between ideal and reality. However, precisely because of that deficiency and dimness, we have no choice but to trust God even more. Manna originates from the question "What is it? (Man-hu)." Grace that cannot be explained by worldly logic, that cannot be stored and disappears by tomorrow, yet sustains us today—this mysterious grace keeps us alive. The wilderness is not a place of deprivation, but a 'school of trust' where we learn to drain our own strength and depend entirely on God. Only those who pass through that school will enjoy the glorious status of being 'children of God,' which even angels envy.