The night before the 4th I was home alone (without wifi or cable TV) so I was grateful to the local PBS channel for re-airing some classic food documentaries I could veg out on until bedtime.

As part of a popular 1999 production called An Ice Cream Show, reviewing the history of ice cream in the United States, it was revealed that the name Haagen Dazs is a made up word combination that means absolutely nothing but was intended to look Scandinavian without it being a derivative of any of the countries vocabularies.

The daughter of the inventor of the ultra-premium ice cream line (btw, my favorite HD flavors are Rocky Road and Chocolate Peanut Butter) explained how one day when she was still a girl her father, Reuben Mattus of New Jersey, sat down at the kitchen table for hours verbalizing nonsensical words until he came up with the famous product name. His mission had been to concoct something completely unique and original that evoked a European flair.

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Watching this I was reminded of a study Jordan gave a few weeks back examining the matter of manna in which he told us how British explorer Captain James Cook, when he arrived in Australia, christened the kangaroo with its name.

Basically, kangaroo was an Australian tribe word for, ‘What did you say?’ When Cook first observed the strange animal sitting on his tail, he asked, ‘What’s that?’ to which a native responded in his tongue, ‘What did you say?’ Cook was like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s what that is.’

Jordan relayed the anecdote to suggest the word manna has a similar origin. He explained, “The Hebrew word manna, it’s really two words, and it means, ‘What is it?’ The Israelites didn’t know what it was. It was something completely inscrutable, unknown to them, and so they came up with the name manna. It’s ‘What is it?’

As Exodus 16:15 tells it, “And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.

Verse 31 further reports, “And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.”

Jordan explains, “The passage says it was a ‘small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground.’ That’s white frost. It had the characteristic of a hailstone and a snowflake. That’s why down in verse 31 it calls it white.”

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White is the symbol of purity as referenced in the Book of Job when God asks Job, ‘Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?’

“Remind you, these Israelites had the Book of Job in their possession when they crossed the Red Sea and the Book of Job is written in relationship to some things that are going to take place in the Last Days when God restores Israel; takes Israel and uses them to be his kingdom people.

“In Job 38:22, when God is beginning to challenge and educate Job about what he should know about God’s plan for man, He asks, ‘Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,
[23] Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?’

“The connection between snow and hail is in connection with that which is reserved against the time of trouble and battle. You also know about the hailstones in connection with the Book of Revelation.

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In Exodus, in the giving of the manna and the details of its appearance, God’s describing what will take place in the Last Days when He judges Satan like he did under the prototype figure of Pharaoh and feeds His people in the wilderness during the tribulation period.

“You bring those past and present ideas together where the Messiah is the one who’s going to do for Israel what Israel couldn’t do for themselves,” says Jordan. “He did it when He formed the nation and He’ll do it when He delivers the nation.

“By the way, manna is a picture and a type of the Lord Jesus Christ in His incarnation. It’s also a picture of the Word of God. It’s a fascinating dual typology. Jesus said man should not live by bread alone. In that context, if you look at Deuteronomy 8:3, he’s talking to them about manna.”

The verse says God “fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.”

From Psalm 78 we know God “opened the doors of heaven and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels’ food.”

Jordan explains, “In Egypt they had slaves’ food. In manna they had angels’ food. God says, ‘I’m giving you this to prove you. To test which one you’ve got an appetite for. Do you really have an appetite for obedience to God’s Word or not? Well, it turned out Israel didn’t.”

(Editor’s Note: Just getting started with this one. Tune in tomorrow for all the nitty-gritty details . . . )