Firmament Made Food

In the wilderness, Israel eats they know not what, which they call “manna,” “What is it?” The Old Testament describes it as being like something flakey (chaspas) like frost (kafor; Exodus 16:14).

Alternatively it is like bedellium (bedolach; Numbers 11:7), which doesn’t seem like much held unless we know what that is.

Following through the LXX usage, we might make some progress. It translates bedolach as krustallos, a word elsewhere associated with ice and frost (Job 6:16; Psalm 148:8), and is used in parallel with the Greek equivalent of kafor (pachnen) in Job 38:29. And crystal is also a kind of precious stone, the stone from which the gates of the restored Jerusalem will be made (Isaiah 54:12). So manna is like crystal, which is like ice, which is like a gem.

These associations come into focus a bit more when we see that crystal has a cosmological dimension. The raqia (firmament) above the living creatures in Ezekiel’s vision (1:22) has an appearance (Heb. ayin, literally “eye”) like crystal (Heb. qarach; LXX orasis kristallou). 

Putting this together, we speculate that frost and ice are understood cosmologically, as the crystalline firmament falling to the earth, heavenly gemstones descending. This fits with the cosmic crystal of Revelation, where the crystal sea (Revelation 4) links with the crystal river (Revelation 22) in the city that descends from heaven like a bride adorned with jewels. The sea is the firmament, above which the Father sits enthroned; when the city descends, heaven comes to earth.

And manna is like that. It is heavenly sea, heavenly ice, heavenly frost, heavenly crystal come to earth, made bread for Israel. It points ahead to the true Firmament, Jesus, who is also like crystal bread, giving His life for the life of the world.