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So, God used the manna to teach Israel that their continued, daily existence was absolutely dependent on His active decree. They were kept alive, not by the food they ate, but by the words that proceeded out of His mouth (Deuteronomy 8:3). He was preparing them for life in the Promised Land, where He would bless them abundantly. In the midst of that blessing, He didn’t want them to become confused and forget that He, not their own effort, was the source of that wealth. Such confusion would manifest itself in the worship other gods (Deuteronomy 8:5-19).

While the manna only lasted 40 years, the lesson was perpetuated in the system of the Sabbaths, laid out in the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 23-25). Israel was to rest in God’s provision and protection. That was the core of their relationship with Him.

Unfortunately, Israel’s history through the Old Testament is, for the most part, the history of a people who repeatedly failed to grasp this very basic aspect of their relationship with Yahweh.

This failure is so offensive to God that He depicts it as whoredom (Exodus 34:15-16; Leviticus 17:7; Hosea 1:2). We can track this whoredom from the time of the Exodus all the way up to the Exile, almost 1000 years later. 

God tells Moses that, after his death, Israel will play the whore with the gods of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 31:16). After they settle the Land, their whoredom shows up during the period of the Judges (Judges 2:17; 8:27, 33), and then, during the period of the Kings (2 Chronicles 21:11, 13). By the time we get to Ezekiel, who prophesied during the Exile, God’s description of her unfaithfulness is intense –

“Then the Babylonians came to [Judah], to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her. After she had been defiled by them, she turned away from them in disgust.  When she carried on her prostitution openly and exposed her nakedness, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister [Samaria]. Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.”

Ezekiel 23:17-21 (NIV)

Earlier, in Ezekiel 16, He gave a parable depicting her unfaithfulness. A little history review is in order to fully appreciate the story.

After the reign of David, and then Solomon, civil war divided Israel into two parts:

• Israel, the Northern Kingdom  – 10 tribes who broke off in rebellion – ruled from Samaria
• Judah, the Southern Kingdom – made up of Judah and Benjamin – ruled from Jerusalem

Israel, the Northern Kingdom, never had a king that honored Yahweh. He used the Assyrians to judge them, sending them into captivity in 722 BC. By the time of Ezekiel, the Northern Kingdom had ceased to exist.

In contrast, Judah, the Southern Kingdom, had some faithful kings. Nevertheless, she failed to learn from the example of Israel, and persisted on the same path that lead to their captivity.

By chapter 16 of Ezekiel, this path has brought Judah to the place of impending judgement and destruction. This chapter is a parable addressed to Jerusalem, the capital of the Southern Kingdom. Although the parable follows the development of Jerusalem as a city, her path and heart are representative of the rest of the remaining nation, and so the message is applicable to the entire nation.

• Verses 1-7 – Jerusalem’s “birth” predated the days that Israel possessed the Land. The reference to her Canaanite, Amorite, and Hittite ancestry speaks of a wicked, pagan pedigree. She was left to die of exposure, like an unwanted baby, but Yahweh coaxed her to life.
• Verses 8-14 -As she reached the age for love, Yahweh chose her as His own, cleaned her up, adorned her with fine apparel, and made her a queen.
• Verses 15-22 – Rather than remembering Yahweh, her Husband, Who had blessed her such, she used the things He gave her to whore herself out. The imagery is startling. She is pictured as using the gold, silver and jewels Yahweh had given her to make phallic images to have sex with. She offered the food He had given her to these false gods as sacrifices. The children He had given her, she slaughtered and offered as sacrifices to these gods. In all this, she forgot His care for her, His blessing and provision.
• Verses 23-29 – She was not only a whore toward the gods of other nations, but toward the nations themselves, chasing after Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldea. The promiscuous way she threw herself at any potential lover was embarrassing to even the Philistines, who, although they worshipped idols, were at least faithful to their own gods.
• Verses 30-34 – Her behavior was more outrageous than a typical whore. A whore gets paid for her services, but Jerusalem was the one paying, bribing her lovers.
• Verses 35-43 – Because of her lewdness, God would use these lovers to humiliate and judge her, and stop her whoring ways.
• Verses 44-52 – Her behavior was so wicked that she made even Samaria and Sodom appear righteous.
• Verses 53-59 – In order that she might bear her humiliation and feel ashamed, God would send her into captivity.

And, indeed, God did send them into captivity — for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:11-12).

Now here’s the point. Israel’s dependence on God was at the core of their relationship with Him. He was to be their Provider and Protector. This was emphatically demonstrated in the lesson of the Manna, and of the Sabbaths. If they ever forgot this, God said they would become proud, forget Him, and go after other gods, to worship them (Deuteronomy 8).

And, as we have seen, this is the very thing that happens.

Does that make them bad? God says it made them whores.

So, what should they have done differently? Been more “spiritually minded”?

I don’t think so.

Remember the Sabbath system? Remember that there was not only a Sabbath Day, but a Sabbath year as well. Every 7^th year, they were to let the land lay fallow and trust that God would cause the land to produce enough in the 6^th year to last them through the 8^th year. In this, they would be reminded of their dependence and experience His provision.

But here’s the thing. There is no biblical record of them ever celebrating a Sabbath Year. By the time we get to 2 Chronicles 36:20-21, God says they owed 70 Sabbath Years, and sends them into captivity for those 70 years. For 490 years, they were unwilling to trust God as their Provider. So, they became proud, and chased after other gods, just as Yahweh said they would. But that was the effect, not the cause.

The cause was that they lost the core of their relationship with God. They did not recognize Him as their Provider and Protector.