February 27, 1901

“What Is This?” The Signs of the Times, 27, 9.

E. J. Waggoner

When the children of Israel first saw the food which God provided for them, they said, “Man-hoo?” that is, “What is this?” And that question, Anglicized into “manna,” has served as a name for it ever since. People generally think that “manna” is the name of that which the children of Israel ate for forty years, whereas, on the contrary, it is only an indication of ignorance as to what it was. That is the way with many of the “scientific” names that we meet with. In this case, however, there was no excuse for ignorance; for God had told them beforehand that He would send them “bread from heaven,” and we are told that the people ate of “the corn of heaven”—“angels’ food.” If they had called it by its real name, “bread from heaven,” or “heavenly bread,” it would have kept them in much closer touch with heaven, and they might have been saved from much evil. Likewise in these days if men would recognize God’s gifts as coming directly from Him, instead of inventing names which serve only faintly to conceal their own ignorance, and effectually to shut off the view of God, the world would be in a far better condition. E. J. WAGGONER.SITI February 27, 1901, page 132.1