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"This manna" is elsewhere called "angel's food", "bread from heaven", and is type of
Him Who is the bread of life that came down from heaven. The influence of the mixed
multitude is clearly seen. The heart is turned back to Egypt, and the things of God are
lightly esteemed.
Some of this mixed multitude were allied to Israel by marriage. This is no fancy, for
we have at least one such alliance and its disastrous effect recorded in Lev. 24: 10:--
"And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among
the children of Israel."
The words "went out among" seem to imply some definite purpose. We are told in
Exod. 2: 11 that when Moses was grown:--
"He went out unto his brethren . . . . . and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew."
Here, however, we find, "The son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove
together in the camp". To the fleshly lusts of Numb. 11: therefore must be added the
"strife" of Lev. 24: Not only so, but the dreadful sin of blasphemy must be included:--
"And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed."
Instead of loving that name, and revering it, this son of an Israelitish woman
blasphemed, and blasphemy is the germ of Antichrist.
Neh. 13: 1-3 shows how Israel, when returned from the captivity, mingled with
the Ammonite and the Moabite, and these are called "the mixed multitude". In
Neh. 13: 23, 24 Ashdod, Moab and Ammon are cited as nations which had intermarried
with Israel, and Nehemiah draws a sad lesson from Solomon:--
"Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations was
there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all
Israel, nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin" (Neh. 13: 26).
Ezra 9: 1, 2 likewise mourns over the fact that Israel had not:--
"separated themselves from the people of the lands . . . . . the holy seed have mingled
themselves with the people of those lands."
Jehoshaphat was another king who had a good record, for he "walked in the first ways
of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim, but sought the Lord God of his father".
In the third year of his reign he sent Princes and Levites with the book of the law of the
Lord to teach in Judah. Yet like Solomon and like Israel of the exodus he failed, for
II Chron. 18: 1 says:--
"Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab."