Our Daily Bread

Old Testament

Psalm 145:15-16, 18 

The eyes of all look expectantly to You,
And you give them their food in due season.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing....
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth....

Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Incline your ear, and come to Me.
Hear, and your soul shall live.   

And in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: "Let every man gather it according to each one's need..."

And the house of Israel called its name Manna. And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it, and ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.

[Elijah said to the widow] "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." So she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel: 'The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.'" So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days...

He had commanded the clouds above,
And opened the doors of heaven,
Had rained down manna on them to eat,
And given them of the bread of heaven.
Men ate angels' food;
He sent them food to the full.

He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.

He will feed His flock like a shepherd.

The New Testament

"'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" 

"Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread."

 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither so nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?...Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?"...For your heavenly Father knows that you need al these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." 

And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things. When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, "This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat." But He answered and said to them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to Him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?" But He said to them, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." And when they found out they said, "Five, and two fish." Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in ranks, in hundreds and in fifties. And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all. So they all ate and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish. Now those who had eaten the loaves were about five thousand men. 

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

"Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life...." Therefore they said to Him... "Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as it is written, "He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always." And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.... Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

The Heavenly Doctrines

Worship and Instruction

[W]hen the Lord was in the world, and united His Human to the Divine Itself, He…made the Sabbath day a day of instruction in the doctrine of faith and of love.

When the Lord came into the world, the Sabbath became a day of instruction in Divine things and for meditation on things relating to salvation and eternal life.

The reason why the Word is the source of enlightenment and instruction is that in its first origin the Word is God’s truth itself emanating from the Lord, and on its way down into the world it is adjusted to suit all the heavens. Therefore when a person possessing a heavenly love reads it the Word links him to heaven and through heaven to the Lord, as a result of which he receives enlightenment and instruction. It is different when a person possessing a worldly love reads the Word. He is not linked to heaven and consequently has no enlightenment or instruction.

The Word has the Lord present within it. He is present there because the Word consists of Divine Truth that comes from Him and He resides with angels in Divine Truth that is His, and also with members of the Church who receive Him.

All instruction regarding the truths and forms of the good of faith and love which compose the Church and constitute worship is obtained from that [the outward or external] sense of the Word.

[A]ll worship in its beginning is natural, and afterwards by truths from the Word, and a life according to them, becomes spiritual. For a person is born natural, but is educated in order that he may become civil and moral, and afterwards spiritual, for thus he is born again.”

Everyone receives enlightenment and instruction from the Word according to his affection for truth and degree of desire for it, and according to his ability to receive it…. Those are enlightened who are governed by heavenly loves; for heavenly loves receive and like sponges soak up heaven’s truths, and are also of their own accord joined to them in the manner of soul and body.

Priests are to teach truths, and by these lead to good, and thus to the Lord.

It is the duty of priests to teach people the way to heaven and also to guide them. They must instruct them in the teachings of their Church and guide them to lead lives in keeping with those teachings. Priests who teach truths and guide people by means of them to goodness of life and so to the Lord are good shepherds.

Spiritual Food/Nourishment

Eating and drinking, in the Word mean to eat and drink spiritually, which is to be instructed, and by instruction both to infill the life, and appropriate to oneself good and truth, consequently intelligence and wisdom.

Bread, food, wine, and drink, in the spiritual sense, mean the nourishment of the mind. To be spiritually nourished is to be instructed and imbued, consequently it is to know, to understand, and to be wise; unless a person enjoys this nourishment together with the nourishment of the body, he is not human, but a beast.

Jesus said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever" (John 6:51). Heavenly bread is plainly meant here. Heavenly bread consists in all the good of love and faith which comes from the Lord.

In the Word, mention is frequently made of eating and drinking, and he who does not know the spiritual sense supposes that these expressions mean nothing more than natural eating and drinking; whereas they mean to nourish oneself spiritually, consequently, the appropriation to oneself of good and truth, eating meaning to appropriate good to oneself, and drinking, to appropriate truth to oneself.

Because "bread" meant all the good of love in its entirety ...therefore the Lord calls Himself "the bread which comes down from heaven" (John 6:48, 50, 51). For the Lord is the Good itself of Love.

[S]piritual food consists in every good of faith that is a source of wisdom, while spiritual drink consists in every truth of faith that is a source of intelligence.

All this now makes clear what the meaning is of the words which say that the disciples' eyes were opened and they recognized the Lord when the Lord broke the bread and gave it to them (Luke 24:29-31). For in the spiritual world "breaking the bread and giving it to them" means instructing them in the good and truth of faith, by means of which the Lord is seen.

In the internal sense "pasture" is that which supports spiritual life; in particular it is truth contained in factual knowledge, for the human soul desires such truth just as the body desires food. Nourishment is derived from it, and for that reason "feeding" means receiving instruction. That factual knowledge and truths sustain the human soul is quite evident from a person’s desire for knowledge, as well as from the correspondence of food with factual knowledge.

Manna

"Manna" symbolized spiritual food, which is knowledge (scientia), intelligence, and wisdom.

"[M]anna" in the highest sense means the Lord. The reason why is that "manna" is the good of truth; but all good comes from the Lord, so that the Lord is within good and is Himself that good.... Good which comes from the Lord brings the life of heaven to a person, and from then on nourishes and sustains it.

As the "manna" was heavenly bread, in the supreme sense it symbolized the Lord as to the Divine good. The "dew" in which and with which the manna descended, in the supreme sense symbolized the Divine truth and in the relative sense, the spiritual truth with people.

Because 'the manna' meant the Divine truth which came down from the Lord by way of heaven, it is the Lord's own Divine Human, as He Himself teaches in John 6:51, 58. For the Lord's Divine Human is the source from which every truth that is Divine springs.... This being so, the manna, the taste of which gave delight and pleasure, is described as being 'like wafers made with honey' - 'taste' being the delight which good provides and the pleasure that truth affords.

It is called the "bread of the heavens," because it rained down from heaven with the dew, but in the spiritual sense it is called the "bread of the heavens" because it flows down from the Lord through the angelic heaven. In that case no other heaven is meant, and no other bread than that which nourishes the soul of a person. That it is in this sense that "bread" is to be understood here is evident from the words of the Lord Himself in John: "That He is the manna, or bread, that came down out of heaven" (John 6:31-58). And in Moses: "That Jehovah fed them with manna, that He might make them to know that man doth not live by bread only, but by all that is uttered by the mouth of Jehovah" (Deut. 8:3). "What is uttered by the mouth of Jehovah" is everything that proceeds from the Lord, and this, in a special sense, is Divine truth united with Divine good.

The appearance and taste of the manna was such because "Coriander seed, white" symbolizes truth from a heavenly origin, "cake," the good of heavenly love, "honey" its external delight, "oil" that love itself, and its "juice," from which was the taste, its internal delight. The "rain with dew," in which the manna was, the influx of Divine truth in which that delight is.

Elijah Helps the Widow Feed Herself and Her Son

Elijah represented the Lord as to the Word. This is evident from the miracles done by Him, all of which symbolized such things as belong to Divine truth or the Word.

A widow means one who has good and has a desire for truth.... Obedience, and the desire that good has for truth, is described by her giving the prophet water, as she had been commanded to do, and then by her making a cake for him first from the little she had, and for herself and her son after that. Consequent enrichment in the good of truth is meant when it says that the pot of flour was not used up and the flask of oil did not fail. "Water" in the internal sense is truth. "Flour" is truth derived from good. "Oil" is the good of love. "A cake" made from these ingredients is truth joined to its own good. From all this it is plain that "a widow" means one who has good and a desire for truth. Good and its desire for truth is described by her charity towards the prophet, greater than towards herself and her son, "a prophet" being teachings that present truth....

A "stick" (or wood) symbolizes the good of life....

[T]he reception of good depends entirely on truths, truths being the objects into which good flows. For good is the active force and truth the recipient, and therefore all truths are recipient vessels. And as truths are the vessels into which good flows, truths set the limit to the inflow of good. The implications of this are briefly as follows: The truths that a person knows, no matter what kind they may be, enter his memory by means of affection, that is, of some delight that accompanies his love. Without affection or delight accompanying his love nothing is able to enter a person, for it is in these that his life consists. The things which have entered in are reintroduced when a similar delight returns, together with many other things which have allied or joined themselves to them. And in a similar way when the same truth is reintroduced by the individual himself or by somebody else, the affection or delight that accompanied his love when it entered is likewise stimulated, for having been joined together they adhere to one another.

The more genuine and pure truth is, the better is good from the Lord able to be accommodated to it as the recipient vessel. But the less genuine and pure truth is, the less is good from the Lord able to be accommodated. For they must each answer to the other; and to the extent that they do, they are joined together. Goods cannot possibly be received into falsities, nor evils into truths as their recipient vessels, for they are by nature and disposition contrary.

Feeding the Five Thousand with Loaves of Bread and Fishes

"[L]oaves" symbolize the goods and "fishes" the truths of the natural person. "Eating" symbolizes spiritual nourishment from the Lord. And the "twelve baskets of fragments" symbolize the knowledges of truth and good in all abundance and fullness.

To eat, in the spiritual sense, means to receive in the will, and to do, whence comes conjunction.... It was for the same reason that the Lord fed five thousand men, besides women and children, with five loaves and two fishes, and that after they had eaten and were filled they took up twelve baskets of fragments (Matt. 14:15-21; John 6:5,13,23); and that He fed four thousand men, from seven loaves and a few fishes (Matt. 15:32). This miracle was performed because the Lord had previously been teaching them, and because they received and appropriated to themselves His doctrine. This was what they spiritually ate, from this the natural eating followed, that is, it flowed in with them out of heaven unknown to themselves, as the manna with the children of Israel. For at the will of the Lord, spiritual food, which is also real food (for spirits and angels) is turned into natural food, just as it was turned into manna every morning.

The Lord fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes (Matt. 14:15-22; Mark 6:38-43; Luke 9:13-16; John 6:9-13). The taking up of twelve baskets of the fragments on that occasion symbolizes fullness, thus fullness of instruction, and also full benediction.

[E]ating and drinking symbolize to eat and drink spiritually, consequently to eat denotes to receive, perceive, and appropriate to oneself the good of heaven from the Lord, and to drink denotes to receive, perceive, and appropriate to oneself the truth of that good. For to eat is used in reference to good, because bread symbolizes the good of love, and to drink is used in reference to truth, because water and wine (vinum) symbolizes the truth of that good. So again, in Luke: "Blessed is he that eateth bread in the kingdom of God" (16:15).