Manna

Manna (Hebrew man-hu, "what is it?") was the miraculous food God provided for Israel throughout the forty years of wilderness wandering after the Exodus (Exodus 16:4–36). It appeared each morning like hoarfrost on the ground, white as coriander seed and tasting like wafers made with honey (Exodus 16:31; Numbers 11:7–9). The people gathered an omer per person each day; any that was kept overnight (except before the Sabbath, when a double portion was gathered) bred worms and became foul. On the sixth day a double portion was gathered that kept through the Sabbath without spoiling. A jar of manna was also preserved in the ark of the covenant as a memorial (Exodus 16:33; Hebrews 9:4).

Jesus explicitly connects himself to the manna in John 6:31–58, responding to the crowd's request for a sign like the manna Moses gave: "I am the bread of life... your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die." The contrast between the manna that sustained physical life temporarily and the true bread from heaven that gives eternal life is one of John's central christological claims. Revelation 2:17 promises the overcomer "hidden manna" as a future heavenly reward.