God’s powers
are truly awesome to His creatures. “And
I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many
waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth” (Rev 19:6). God is all-powerful. “Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” (Gen 18:14). The answer is obvious. “Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy
great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee” (Jer
32:17).
Manifested in “miracles.”
God
often manifests His power to men in miracles – extraordinary, supernatural
phenomena that seem improbable or even impossible to the human mind. In
Scripture, they are called “signs and wonders.” Men’s unbelief is one reason
why God performs miracles. “’Unless you
people see miraculous signs and wonders,’ Jesus told him, ’you will never
believe’" (John 4:48 ,
NIV).
Some of
the most spectacular miracles recorded in the Bible are those God did before
and after the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt
The 10 plagues of Egypt Egypt Nile River 7:14 -25). (2) Frogs covered the land of Egypt 8:16 -19). (4) Flies swarmed into all the houses of the
Egyptians (Ex 8:20 -31). (5)
A plague killed all the livestock in Egypt Egypt Goshen 9:13 -26). (8) Locusts covered the
whole of Egypt Egypt 10:22 -23). (10) All the firstborn of
the Egyptians and their animals died (Ex 11:1-7,12:12 -13,29-31).
Miracles in the wilderness. (1) The parting of the Red Sea by an east wind that blew all night, enabling the
Israelites to walk across to safety from their Egyptian pursuers (Ex 14). (2)
The provision of quail in the evening of the day the LORD promised to give them
bread and meat (Ex 16:6-13), and when they longed for Egyptian food the LORD
sent them a whole month’s supply of quail (Num 11:4-32). (3) The daily supply of
manna (“bread from heaven”) that
appeared on the ground daily for forty years (Ex 16). (4) Water from the rock
in Horeb that Moses struck with his staff (Ex 17:1-6).
Miracles with the sun. (1) The sun stood still when
Joshua asked the LORD to stop the sun until they would have defeated the
Amorites (Josh 10:12 -14).
(2) The shadow moved back ten degrees on the sundial, the sign King Hezekiah
had asked for to confirm that the LORD had truly healed him and added fifteen
years to his life (2 Kings 20:8-11). (3) Darkness at noon over the whole land as Christ hung dying on
the cross, from 12:00 noon until 3:00 in the afternoon (Luke 23:44 -45).
Some miracles explained?
Unbelievers
in ancient times tried to dismiss God’s miracles as the works of magic or evil
spirits.40 In our modern day scholars offer reasons, scientific or
otherwise, to explain many Biblical miracles.
The ten plagues. The Nile’s turning into blood is
said to be a natural effect of its annual flooding, with the water first
turning green, then yellow, then ochre red starting around the 25th
of June due to the proliferation of algae and other microorganisms, similar to
“Red Tide” today. Frogs subsequently multiply in September. An infestation by
flies and outbreak of animal plague supposedly often follow in December. So do
a purported epidemic of boils, hailstones, a locust invasion, and darkness
caused by fine sand blown by the southwest wind from the desert, filling the
atmosphere.41 Hence, Egypt’s magicians were able to imitate the
first two miracles of turning water into “blood” and causing frogs to appear
(Ex 7:22; 8:7).
In
contrast, the feats of Moses were undeniably miraculous in the suddenness of
the change in the river and the over-abundance of the frogs. Trying to mimic
the third miracle, the magicians were unable to turn dust into lice (or gnats),
(Ex 8:18 ). It is doubtful
if they even attempted to copy Moses’s acts of bringing on swarms of flies, the
animal plague, and the boil epidemic, from which they themselves terribly
suffered (Ex 9:11 ), but not
the Israelites. The hailstorm and locust invasion could not have been normal
recurrences as they were said to be the worst ever in Egypt 9:24 ; 10:14 ). Lastly, the death of all the firstborn of both men
and animals in Egypt Israel
The Red Sea
divided. The “Red Sea ” that the LORD parted to let the Israelites
escape from the Egyptians is in the Hebrew original Yam Suf, which means “Reed
Sea Sea of Reeds Red Sea ,
where no reeds grow. Centuries after the Exodus, canal-building by pharaohs
trying to link the Nile delta and the Red Sea drained the Reed Sea Bitter
Lakes Reed Sea Red
Sea ”). In 300 A.D. Jerome had the name Mare Rubrum (“Red Sea ”) in his
Latin Bible, the Vulgate. Martin
Luther correctly translated Yam Suf as
Schilfmeer (“Reed Sea
In
short, the sea the LORD parted “with a
strong east wind all that night” (Ex 14:21) and the Israelites crossed on
foot was not the Red Sea, which has an average depth of 1,765 feet, but the
shallow Sea of Reeds. Does that make the event a non-miracle? Absolutely not.
Just the same, the shallow Reed
Sea
In
a computer-aided study, calculations by Nathan Paldor and Doron Nof of the
American Meteorological Society showed that a wind blowing at 40-45 miles per
hour for 10 hours would reduce the level of a shallow body of water by 10 feet.42
“Such heaping up of the waters by the wind is well known and sometimes amounts
to 7 or 8 ft. in Lake Erie (Wright, Scientific
Confirmations of the Old Testament, 106).”43 That would have been
enough to let the Israelites cross the sea and later drown the Egyptians and
their horses weighed down by war implements. The miracle was, how did that east
wind happen to blow with just the needed strength, at the right place, in the
right direction, all night?
The provision of quail. The quail that fell on the
Israelite camp were birds residing in or passing through Egypt and the Holy
Land on their migrations northward in March and southward in September.44
With strong wing muscles, quail can fly rapidly for a short time. When
migrating, they spread their wings for the wind to carry them along.45
The southeast wind blew the quail over the Red Sea ,46
across the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba and Suez Sinai peninsula . On their way north, they passed over
narrow portions of the sea, but arrived so exhausted they could easily be
caught by hand.47
It
was not a miracle if Moses knew about the annual migration and encamped in the
birds’ path. What was truly miraculous was the number of the birds. God gave
around two million Israelites enough quail to eat for a month! Can you imagine
how many birds that was? The quails fell “by
the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's
journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high
upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that
night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered
least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round
about the camp” (Num 11:31b-32).
A
“day’s journey” is about 20-22 miles,
so the quail extended some 40-44 miles on the two sides of the camp combined,
piled “two cubits” (3 feet) or about
waist-high on the ground!48 No wonder the people went sleepless for
36 hours gathering them. A homer
(“heap”) is about 8 bushels or one donkey-load. The birds were so many “they spread them all abroad,” that is,
they dried them in the sun.49
Some
commentators, theologians even, cannot believe they were quail. “It is
uncertain what sort of animals they were… The learned bishop Patrick inclines
to agree with some modern writers, who think they were locusts, a delicious
sort of food well known in those parts, the rather because they were brought
with a wind, lay in heaps, and were dried in the sun for use.”50 Now,
if the quail were not a miracle, what is?
The daily manna.
The World Book says: “Some historians
say manna was a gluey sugar from the tamarisk shrub.”51 The Encyclopaedia Britannica adds: “An
edible, white honeylike substance known as manna forms drops on the stem of a
tamarisk tree, Tamarix mannifera. A scale insect
either punctures the stem, triggering the exudation, or secretes the manna
itself.”52 Fausset's Bible
Dictionary provides more details, saying manna is “the sweet juice of the tarfa, a kind of tamarisk. It exudes in
May for about six weeks from the trunk and branches in hot weather, and forms
small round white grains. It retains its consistency in cool weather, but melts
with heat. It is gathered from the twigs or from the fallen leaves. The Arabs,
after boiling and straining, use it as honey with bread. The color is a
greyish-yellow, the taste sweet and aromatic. Ehrenberg says it is produced by
an insect's puncture. It abounds in rainy seasons, some years it ceases. About
600 or 700 pounds is the present produce of a year. The region wady Gharandel (Elim)
and Sinai, the wady Sheich, and some other parts of the peninsula, are the
places where it is found. The name is still its Arabic designation, and is read
on the Egyptian monuments (mennu, mennu hut ‘white manna’).”53
The Encarta
Encyclopedia advances another theory: “Some experts believe that the manna
of the Bible was the lichen Lecanora
esculenta, or a related species. Arabs still gather this lichen and mix it
with meal to produce bread. When dry, it can be torn from the soil and
transported by the wind, producing a ‘rain’ of food.”54 The Encyclopaedia Britannica concurs: “Manna
is the common name for certain lichens of the genus Lecanora native to Turkey Middle East
lichen bread and manna jelly are made from Lecanora.”55
The
manna God gave the Israelites, though, differs on several points: (1) It was
found on the ground after the morning dew had evaporated, not under trees. (2)
The quantity gathered in one day far exceeded the present yearly production. (3)
It appeared six days a week, all year round, not just occasionally or for several
weeks. (4) None was found on the seventh-day Sabbath. (5) It appeared for 40
years while Israel wandered in the wilderness, but disappeared the day after
the Israelites first ate of the produce in the Promised Land (Josh 5:10-12).
Now, decide whether manna was a miracle from God or not.
Tests
for our faith?
Some
miracles, like the ones we have just discussed have elements that leave the
door open for speculation. Why would the LORD, who is all-knowing, choose
circumstances that would allow room for doubt? Perhaps, God’s miracles are
tests for our faith as well. By allowing alternative possibilities, He allows us
to exercise our free will – to believe or not to believe. It is said: No
miracle is needed for those who believe, but no miracle is sufficient for those
who will not believe.
Yet, some
miracles are truly inexplicable -- the darkness at noon at the Crucifixion, for instance. A solar
eclipse was impossible, because it was the day of Passover, which always falls at
the time of the full moon, when the Earth is between the sun and the moon. “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them,
With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26 ; also Luke 1:37 ). God is omnipotent.
_______________
40Miracles, Fausset's Bible Dictionary, Electronic
Database, 1998
41Ibid.
42“Computer Takes
on the Bible,” St. Louis Post Dispatch,
March 12, 1992; cited by Robert Faid, A
Scientific Approach to More Biblical Mysteries, 1994, p. 69
43Moses, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia,
Electronic Database, 1996
44Animal Kingdom, The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, 1988
45Animals, Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1986
46Quail, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia,
1996
47Animal Kingdom, op. cit.
48Weights and Measures,
Fausset's Bible Dictionary, 1998
49Herodotus ii. 77;
cited in Quail, op. cit.
50Num 11:31-35, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole
Bible, New Modern Edition, 1991
51Manna, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)
52Manna, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and
Home Edition
53Manna, Fausset's Bible Dictionary, 1998
54Manna, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004
55Manna, Encyclopaedia Britannica op. cit.
(Excerpted from Chapter 1, Mysteries
of Our Maker, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven
and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)
