Leviticus 1-5

Now that we've put the rule filled Exodus behind us, we can move onto Leviticus which I'm sure will bring us back to the adventure and character development we saw earlier in the book. These first few chapters focus mainly on how God likes his offerings provided to him, whether you're doing it voluntarily or out of guilt. There's a whole bunch of bloody animalistic rituals. It's almost like they're all pagans or something.

Chapter 1:

Recipe for an Offering to the Lord

Ingredients: 1 flawless male from the herd (if you're running low on herd, a flawless male sheep or goat makes a fine substitute)

Materials: Knife, Fire proof altar (preferably homemade), Fire, Priests, Cheese grater

Serving Size: Serves 1 God

Directions:

1. Grill up the flawless male offering entirely (don't kill it just yet, that comes later ;) )
2. Press the head of the offering with your hand so your vengeful yet merciful God knows that this ritual sacrifice is meant to represent you.
3. Now comes the slaughtering. Use a sharp object so as to drain the blood.
4. Present the blood then allow your priests to add some splashes of it to your altar.
5. Skin the offering with whatever you have handy: cheese grater, vegetable peeler, knife, etc. and dispose of it separately so as to avoid trans fats.
6. Chop the offering into large pieces, no mincing needed here.
7. Light a fire at your altar and arrange the already burned pieces on the wood. God likes his offerings very well done.
8. Wash your flawless male's insides and lower legs before adding them to the fire.
9. Allow the Lord to enjoy the soothing smell of your flawless male goat/sheep/cow.

Chapter 2: 

If you're on a budget, you can present a grain offering to God. Neat.

Chapter 3: 

If you would like to make a "well being sacrifice" you can use a flawless male or female. In this recipe you only need to burn up the fatty bits, the kidneys, the fat around the loins, and the liver lobe. You can keep the rest but:

"All fat belongs to the LORD. This is a permanent rule for your future generations, wherever you live: you must not eat any fat or blood."

This is for the LORD!

Chapter 4: 

This chapter is about what to do should you sin unintentionally. If a priest does it, he has to sacrifice a flawless bull and sprinkle it's blood on curtains and horns. He must also remove God's favorite fatty bits and burn them up except for the hide, flesh, head, lower legs, entrails, and dung which must be burned in a separate location. If the entire Israel community sins unintentionally (like worshipping stupid cows for instance) the priest must do all the stuff he did for his own unintentional sin on behalf of the community. If a leader of the community sins, he has to do all the same stuff but with a flawless male goat. If some nobody commits an unintentional sin, a female goat will do in a pinch.

Chapter 5:

Here God lists some examples of unintentional sins such as not showing up to testify in court or touching unclean things or swearing to do something and then getting flaky about it. God's not a fan of germs or broken promises.

Then he lists some alternative offerings. If you can't afford to kill cows or sheep, you can absolve yourself of one unintentional sin for the price of 2 doves or pigeons. No word on what God's policy is on other bird species.

How many sins does this one buy me?

Then God goes on to explain "Compensation Offerings." You have to make a sacrifice of a flawless male ram if you commit other accidental sins such as corrupting something holy, committing robbery, or being involved in bad financial dealings. Question. How do you do those ones on accident exactly? Like if I borrow someone's pen and forget to give it back, do I have to sacrifice a ram every time?

Exodus 33-40

Chapter 33:

The Lord tells the COI (Children of God) to go to the land of milk and honey without him. He can't go with them because they are stubborn and would annoy him and then he would have to hurt them. Does this not sound like the words of an abusive boyfriend? "I don't want to hurt you anymore baby, but you keep making me because you're so damn stubborn." 

Moses reasons with God that if he doesn't travel with the COI that the COI aren't anymore special or chosen than any other tribe that claims they are special. God says "You got me." Moses says that he would like to see God's glorious presence. God's all "No you'd die. but you can see my glorious butt." So they arrange for Moses to see God's glorious butt by playing a game of peekaboo. Moses will stand beside a rock, God with walk by and put Moses in the gap of the rock, cover it with his hand until he's passed by, take away his hand, then Moses will get to see the backside of God but not his face. 

Here is a reenactment of God's peekaboo game drawn by someone who can barely use scissors to cut paper in a straight line, let alone create art. 

                                    

 

Chapter 34:

Moses has to rewrite the 10 commandments because he broke the last ones in a hissy fit. He has to cut two more stone tablets and meet God on the mountain again, no one can follow, not even sheep. 

God renews the covenant he made with the COI. 

"The LORD said: I now make a covenant. In front of all your people, I'll perform dramatic displays of power that have never been done before anywhere on earth or in any nation. All the people who are around you will see what the LORD does, because I will do an awesome thing with you." 

Oh YES. God's going to do a MAGIC SHOW and Moses is going to be his lovely assistant.

God repeats the rules of the covenant. Moses writes them down. This takes 40 days and 40 nights because writing things down on stone tablets is time consuming. Here are some highlights:

• Don't make a covenant with the foreigners. They're a bunch of prostitutes. Destroy their altars and smash their sacred stone pillars because tolerating other religions is lame.
• Don't make metal gods for yourself. Especially not any fucking cows.
• "Every first offspring is mine. That includes all your male livestock, the oldest offspring of cows and sheep. But a donkey's oldest offspring you may ransom with a sheep. Or if you don't ransom it, you must break its neck. You should ransom all of your oldest sons."  What exactly does he mean by the firstborn sons being "mine"? 
• Don't boil a goat in it's mother's milk. Still solid advice.

When Moses is done and goes down the mountain. His face is shiny because of talking to God. God causes oily skin. 

When's the magic act happening?

Chapter 35-40:

Moses passes on the rules to the COI. It basically just involves the special dwelling they have to make for God and all the gifts they have to bring him. Everybody gets to work on it. The next 5 chapters are VERY detailed about EVERY material used and how people built it.  Then God fills the dwelling with his cloudy presence. Some might suggest that these chapters were a little unnecessary and perhaps even self indulgent on the part of the authors. Some might wonder what the purpose of knowing that one hundred "kikkars" of silver were used to cast the bases for the sanctuary or where exactly God wants Moses to arrange his furniture "Place the chest containing the covenant inside the dwelling. Hide the chest from view with the veil. Bring in the table and arrange its items. Bring in the lampstand and set up its lamps. Place the gold altar for burning incense in front of the chest" and so forth. If you find God's interior decoration choices fascinating, go ahead and read these chapters on your own because I'm not dissecting them for you. Also, there wasn't any magic show. 

Exodus is finished! 75 pages in and only 873 to go!

Next week we will read a section called "Leviticus" and hopefully there will be no more discussion of rules or God's opinion of feng shui. 

Exodus 31-32

Hello HBB readers. It's been a little while. I've been on the other side of the world and when you're on the other side of the world, you don't do anything productive. Let's recap what happened last time. There were many rules. Ok all caught up now? Let's see what happens next.

Chapter 31:

God tells Moses that he's given a guy named Bezalel special powers. Who's Bezalel you ask? Why he's the son of Uri and the grandson of Hur from the tribe of Judah. Does that clear things up for you? Bezalel has the skill, ability and knowledge for EVERY KIND OF WORK. He will use this power in order to make a pretty temple to hold all the neat stuff God wanted made in his honor. Bezalel can do any sort of work. He could be like Tesla. He could invent things like the internet or indoor plumbing. How will he use his insanely awesome powers? He will be God's interior designer.

God wants the COI (Children of Israel) to take a day off during the week for the Sabbath. If you choose to not rest during the Sabbath and wants to run some errands during your free time YOU SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH.

Sorry, if I pick you up at the airport today I'll be put to death. 

Chapter 32:

Moses has been away for some time up on the mountain listening to God's rules and shopping list. While he is away the COI get impatient that they don't have something to worship. They're addicted to worshipping things. They don't know what's happened to Moses so they ask his brother Aaron to whip them up some new gods to worship. Aaron says all right and has them melt down their jewelry to make them some new gods. That easy.

"Then he made the metal image of a bull calf, and the people declared 'These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" When Aaron saw this, he built and altar in front of the calf. Then Aaron announced, 'Tomorrow will be a festival to the LORD' They got up early the next day and offered up entirely burned offerings"

No wonder God was acting like a jealous boyfriend. God leaves them alone for 5 minutes and they're already moving on to some shabby homemade golden cow and you know how God feels about cows. God gets pretty pissed and talks about all the horrible things he's going to do to the COI as punishment. Moses calms him down. He asks God why he would want to do horrible things to the people he took such great pains to save in the first place. Moses adds a little slyly that the Egyptians will get to say that God took the COI out to the desert just to murder them if he doesn't show some mercy.

"Well done Moses." I said to myself before I read the next section.

Moses comes down with 2 big stone tablets with all the special rules God wrote down himself. Once Moses sees the COI worshipping the golden calf, he throws a hissy fit and breaks the tablets. Moses asks his brother Aaron.

"What did these people do to you that lead you to commit such a terrible sin?"

"Well they asked me to...soooo I did."

Moses gathers those that claim to be on the Lord's side.

"Each of you, strap on your sword! Go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Each of you, kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbor!"

In order to rectify the sin of worshipping another god, the true believers commit the sin of murder and not really respecting their neighbors. After they kill off 3,000 of their family, friends, and neighbors, Moses informs them that they all now get a special blessing but the next day Moses reminds them that they still committed a terrible sin and he will go up to the Lord to try and cool things down because it worked out so well the last time.

Moses says to God: "Oh what a terrible sin these people have committed! They made for themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin! And if not, then wipe me out of your scroll that you've written."  

God says that he will only erase the names of those that have sinned against him. He reminds Moses that in spite of the spectacular murder spree the remaining COI survivors have committed, the sin will count against them on the day of reckoning. The Lord then shows mercy by sending a plague on what's left on the true believer.

The lesson to take away here? Don't ever worship a fucking cow.

Murder and plagues coming their way

Exodus 22-30

The next bit is mainly rules. Again. I'll give you the highlights.

Chapter 22: 

Apparently the "make my day" law originated here. It's cool to kill a thief that sneaks into your house at night unless he comes in broad daylight...because reasons.

There are lots of fascinating property laws involving farm animals.

If a man seduces a "young woman" (no word on the consequences of seducing an old one) and they aren't married, he has to marry her and pay a bride price for her. If the father doesn't allow them to marry, the man still has to pay the bride price. No word on what happens if the young woman does not want to be seduced or married.

"Don't allow a female sorcerer to live."

"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal should be put to death."

"Anyone who offers sacrifices to any god, other than the LORD alone, should be destroyed."

Again with the jealousy issues.

"Don't mistreat or oppress an immigrant, because you were once immigrants in the land of Egypt. Don't treat any widow or orphan badly. If you do treat them badly and they cry out to me, you can be sure that I'll hear their cry. I'll be furious, and I'll kill you with the sword. Then your wives will be widows, and your children will be orphans."

My favorite:

"If you lend money to my people who are poor among you, don't be a creditor and charge them interest."

Chapter 23:

"Don't spread false rumors. Don't plot with evil people to act as a lying witness. Don't take sides with important people to do wrong. When you act as a witness, don't stretch the truth to favor important people."

I have nothing witty to say or meme to this. I just think it's a good rule.

"When you happen to come across your enemy's ox or donkey that has wandered off, you should bring it back to them."

Cows are fair game though.

"Don't take a bribe, because a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are right."

Another good rule I appreciate unironically.

He repeats the "Don't oppress an immigrant" rule. He's really partial to that one.

"Don't call on the names of other gods. Don't even mention them."

He cannot stand to hear you even mention your ex.

"Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk."

Solid advice.

__

After the rules are established, God says that he's going to send a messenger to lead the COI and they better not disobey him because he's not merciful. Like he'll turn you into way worse spices than salt if you give him lip. The COI are going to have to face a whole bunch of other tribes that are going to want to fight them. God warns them not to fall for the hot new gods and idols they might see in these other tribes. In fact, they should probably straight up destroy them.

"don't bow down to their gods, worship them, or do what they do. Instead, you should completely destroy them and smash their sacred stone pillars to bits."

To sum up, don't be friends with people who don't believe what you believe and also destroy the items that represent their cherished beliefs and so long as you follow these rules, women will never miscarry or be infertile, no one will get sick, people will live long full lives full of...hatred of other people.

Chapter 24:

Moses writes the rules down and asks everyone if they're cool with them. Everyone marks the the "I understand the terms and conditions" box without much thought then Moses throws a bunch of blood at them because pinky promises are for pansies. Moses then hangs out on a mountain for 40 days and 40 nights in a cloud with God.

Chapter 25: 

Moses spends this time chatting with God about a sanctuary God would like them to build for him. He wants it filled with fancy things like gold, silver, spices, gemstones...yarn...goat's hair, etc. God wants Moses to put the covenant of rules made with the COI in the sanctuary. Moses is to store the covenant of rules in a fancy gold chest in order to later melt Nazi faces.

God also tells Moses in excruciating detail how to make a sweet table and lampstand to his liking.

Chapter 26: God tells Moses how to build the sanctuary.

Chapter 27: God tells Moses how to build the altar, the courtyard for the sanctuary, and what olive oil to use for the lampstand. Moses has now been promoted from secretary to interior designer.

Chapter 28: God tells Moses how the priests should dress.

Chapter 29: More priest things.

Chapter 30: God tells Moses what to do for the incense altar and washbasin and oil and incense. He's real specific about his oil and incense needs.

I can't make these sections funny for you. I am sorry. Please accept this baby goat that has not been boiled in its mother's milk as penance for my failures.

Exodus 20-21

It's time for God to come on down and tell his holy chosen COI (Children of Israel) all the rules they now have to follow now that they're in a relationship with him. There's a lot of them. Nobody seems to question them. I might have raised my hands a few times.

This is me the whole time. 

Chapter 20: 

They can't have any other Gods. This is a monogamous relationship. God doesn't want them to worship any other idols. This is where things get a little intense:

"Do not bow down to them or worship them, because I, the LORD your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents' sins even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."

See what I mean about the intensity of this relationship? I would like to direct the COI to this article about the early warnings signs of an abusive relationship. Some of those signs are "He will want to commit--quickly" and "He will want you all to himself."

God doesn't want the COI to go throwing around his name like it doesn't have any meaning. He doesn't want them working on Sundays which sounds fine to me. I'm all for vacations where I can tell people I physically can't work or my God boyfriend will absolutely lose his shit. God wants you to honor your father and mother. This is where I would raise my hand and ask things like "What if my mother and father hate you and are cheating on you with other Gods? Should I still honor their wishes then? Or does it even matter because you said earlier that you would punish me for the sins of my family whether or not I actually committed those sins?" But nobody in the book asked that question so I'm not sure what God would have to say to that one.

Other basic rules involve not killing, committing adultery, stealing, and lying about your neighbor. Here I would shrug and mostly agree. Mostly. Then comes the more hand raising parts like not desiring your neighbor's house, wife, servants, ox, donkeys, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. It's not the gist of it that bothers me so much as the part where he threw in the neighbor's wife as a belonging equal to donkeys and servants...

Apparently God doesn't make time for a question answer session and leaves the COI shivering in fear with a thunder and lightening display before peacing out. The COI suggest that maybe only Moses talks to them from now on because God is super intense and kind of freaks them out. Moses is all "He's cool guys. You've just got to get to know him. And never ever break one of his many rules or contradict him and everything will be ok."

God passes some more rules along to Moses about worship. It's all basically just "I want you to make the worshipping altar out of this material instead of this kind" some might call him high maintenance but he's just been around long enough to know what he wants, you know? Then there's this sentence thrown in there:

"Don't climb onto my altar using steps: then your genitals won't be exposed by doing so."

Make what you will out of that.

Chapter 21:

This is a section on what to do with your slaves. It says "Free them. It's wrong to own human beings." Just kidding. The instructions are very very detailed. You can own a male Hebrew slave for 6 years but on the 7th year, you have to free him. If he started out single, he leaves single. As in if the slave married some other slaves and had children with her, the wife and children must still remain slaves. If the male slave does not want to leave his family behind, and remain a slave, he has to get an ear piercing and remain a slave for life.

See above: A slave. 

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, a different sort of sweet sixteen tradition, she is not to be treated the same way as a male slave. Of course. If she doesn't please the master, whatever the hell that means, she must be sold back to the family where I'm sure she'll be welcomed with open arms. If he makes her his son's wife, she must get daughter benefits which I'm sure are awesome. Basically what I'm getting from this is lady slaves remain slaves for life vs. the male slave's 6 years unless they displease the master in some way.

Next there's a section on human violence. Basically if you kill or hit anyone you die. If you kill someone on accident, the Lord will bring you to safety. So remember if you're a jury member on a murder trial. If they didn't do it, God would have hid them away and the police never would have found them in the first place. Glad we could save everybody so much time and taxpayer money with that one. If you hit your mother or father, you die. It's cool if they hit you though because children are barely people. If you kidnap someone, you die...which is totally different from buying someone as a slave against their will. Two totally different things.

If you hit someone with a stone or your fist and they die, you die but if they're only knocked out for a couple of days, you're totally fine you just have to pay off the labor costs they missed out on. If you hit a slave with a rod and they die on the spot, you will be punished, not die, just punished but if the slave is only out cold for a couple of days, you're totally fine, no fines to pay because that slave is your property. If fighting people injure a pregnant woman and cause a miscarriage, they have to pay a fine to be determined by the husband.

Then there's this really ominous quote:

"If there is further injury, then you will give a life for a life, (unless it's a slave because slaves don't count) an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a bruise for a bruise, a wound for a wound."

Then the chapter ends on a section that is entirely too long about the semantics of oxen violence and fines. Like just so long and detailed. Way more detailed than what happens to violence against actual human beings.

Next time on the bible blog: More rules. Just so many rules.

Exodus 17-19

Hi Bible readers. I know I mentioned this before but in case you missed it, there's also a facebook page  if you'd like to like it so you can be updated when there's a new blog. I try to blog every Tuesday but sometimes things get weird. Like last week, when I didn't blog at all. Sorry about that. Anyway, onward.

Chapter 17:

The COI (Children of Israel) get super whiny again about being thirsty, again. Moses literally says:

"Why are you arguing with me? Why are you testing the Lord?"

Which sort of sounds like something a parent would say to a whiny child.

Moses talks to God about the water problem and rather than drop bottled water from the sky, God decides to give Moses an elaborate set of instructions because he can. He tells Moses to gather all the Israelite elders and go to a rock where God will be chilling, then Moses will strike the rock with his mighty staff and water will come out. They do all this and the COI drink water and probably whine about something else about 2 seconds later.


There is a battle between the COI and Amalek. There is no explanation of the conflict. All you have to know is that the COI are the good guys because God is on their side and Amalek probably had it coming.

Moses looks over the battle and helps much like an orchestra conductor. When he raises his hand, the COI start winning the battle. When he lowers his hand, the COI start losing. Eventually Moses's arms get tired so they pull up a rock for him to sit on and literally hold his arms up for him until the battle is won. I picture it like this.

Chapter 18: 

This chapter feels a little out of place. It's much too simple, straight forward and logical. People solve their problems peacefully. There's no incest, no secret seductions, no removal of foreskins, just people talking it out and solving problems.

Moses's father-in-law Jethro decides "hey Moses is free now, he'd probably like to see his wife and kids." So he just brings them out to Moses even though I thought they were all kind of lost in the desert, Jethro can just navigate right to them for the weekend. This part feels more in line with what I've come to expect from this book. The next logical weird part is coming.

Jethro sits down and has a nice chat with Moses and asks his son-in-law what it's like to be a leader of thousands of people and talk to God and stuff. Moses tells him it's ok. Then people keep coming to Moses to sort out their minor issues and Moses tells them about how to resolve it through God's rules. Jethro tells Moses that this is too stressful for him, that Moses should pick other leaders among his people to help sort through minor issues like this and they can save the big issues to take to Moses. This had not occurred to Moses because he doesn't understand how politics of any kind work. So they do that and at least in this chapter, nobody dies.

Chapter 19: 

God tells Moses that he's going to come and have a meeting with him in front of everyone in 3 days, so that the COI will trust Moses forever. God is going to come down on a cloud on Mount Sinai. There must be a fence to go around the mountain because if anyone touches it before the 3rd day, they have to die because reasons. And if you touch someone who touched the mountain, then you have to get stoned but not in a good way. Also everyone must make themselves holy by washing up and not getting it on. Also when God arrives, no one can get too close because otherwise Lord God will "break loose against them." It sort of sounds like they're preparing for the arrival of a werewolf.

Buffy nerds anyone?

Exodus 14-16

I've been told by a few people that the version of The Holy Bible I was reading by King James and Jesus would be missing some interesting parts so a good friend of mine gave me another one called The Common English Bible because the one I was reading really wasn't long enough. Hopefully this one will mention something about the rock monsters.

Chapter 14:

The COI are still wandering the desert and God tells his secretary Moses to go to a certain area so that they seem like they are wandering aimlessly to trick the Pharaoh. Because you see, God is going to pull the puppet strings on the Pharaoh once again to harden his heart and make him go after the Hebrews with 600 elite chariots and all the other less elite chariots that Egypt has to offer to capture...600,000 Egyptian men (not including the women, children, and cows and the cows will put up a serious fight) God specifically says:

"I'll make Pharaoh stubborn, and he'll chase them. I'll gain honor at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD."

This scenario reminds me of something...

I think God is sort of doing the D.EN.N.I.S. method of dating with the Hebrews. God makes the Pharaoh's heart harden so he continually harm the Hebrews that way the Hebrews will rely on God to save them. i.e. when Dennis slashes women's tires so they have to call him for a ride or in a really eerily spot on analogy pretending to be an angry neighbor that calls and harasses the woman. This isn't a healthy relationship you guys.

When the Hebrews see the Egyptians coming, they start bitching about how Moses never should have saved them in the first place, how they’d be better off as slaves. Moses assures them that if they get into a relationship with God, that God will totally make these angry neighbors go away. He cries out to God and God’s all “Why are you bothering me? Just raise that fancy stick I gave you. Try some independence for once.”

Moses does this and parts the whole red sea! Waaaaay cooler trick than snake tricks, bloody rivers, and infanticide. So the COI walk on dry land surrounded on either side by a wall of water which is probably even cooler then those tunnel things they have at the aquarium. The Egyptians try to follow and when they’re far enough in, God jams their chariot wheels so they can’t turn back and he tells Moses to let the waters go and all the Egyptians straight up drown. 

All of the Egyptian soldiers die and the COI see their corpses wash up to shore and see the awesome power of their new boyfriend who they really better not piss off. 

by Brendan Powell Smith. all rights reserved "The Brick Testament" 
http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html

Chapter 15: 

The COI sing a grisly victory song in God’s name. There’s a whole lot of lines about God throwing Egyptians in the sea and their bodies sinking like stones. Here are some highlights:

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he hurled into the sea”

“The deep sea covered them; they sank into the deep waters like a stone”

“you overthrow  your opponents; you send out your hot anger; it burns them up like straw”

Then Aaron/Moses’s sister Miriam sings gets really into it and grabs herself a tambourine with all the other women. Presumably because singing the song celebrating the grisly drowning of hundreds of people with the men would be sinful. 

It doesn’t take long for the celebrations to end and for the COI to get whiny again. They have nothing to drink for 3 days until they come upon Marah who’s water was bitter. God throws a tree in the water that sweetens it up then says more stuff that sounds like something an abusive boyfriend might say: 

“If you are careful to obey the LORD your God, do what God thinks is right, pay attention to his commandments, and keep all of his regulations. then I won’t bring on you any of the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians. I am the LORD who heals you.” 

As long as you don’t talk back like my ex-girlfriend did, I’ll take care of you baby. 

Chapter 16:

The COI continue to bitch:

“Oh, how we wish that the LORD had just put us to death while we were still in the land of Egypt. There we could sit by the pots cooking meat and eat our fill of bread. Instead, you’ve brought us out into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death.” 

Hebrews really don’t like hiking. 

God tells Moses that he’s going to make it rain bread but they can only gather enough to last for the day. He really likes his little food tests. He tells the people that he will give them enough bread in the morning to last them for the day and give them meat at night. Moses lets them know that they shouldn’t try to save any extra, to only gather and eat what they need for the day. Some of them don’t listen, of course, and try to save the bread for the next day only to find it covered with worms. On the 6th day, God gives them enough food to last for 2 days because he is going to take a break on the 7th day, the Sabbath, and they should all take a break and stay inside too. Some people don’t listen, and try to go out on the break day to gather food and find nothing. God’s all “Why the fuck don’t they listen?” to Moses. 

Anyway this goes on for 40 years. The COI eats the special bread called Mana for 40 years. This is still preferable to 7 years of eating corn.