Thou Shalt Not Covet Toilet Paper

Yep, its true. The ancient people essentially horded bread, meat, toilet paper and Purell hand sanitizer too. Ok, not toilet paper or hand sanitizer but definitely meat and bread. How do I know? Exodus 16 said so. The Israelites once out of Egypt in the desert wilderness away from Pharaoh immediately started complaining to God about not having food and possible starvation.

Exodus 16:2-3 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

So, God provided for their needs. He gives them explicit instructions on how to plan ahead.

Exodus 16:4-5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

Why does God do this? Moses tells the people why.

Exodus 16:6-8 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. …. Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him.”

The Lord also provided meat.

Exodus 16:13 That evening quail came and covered the camp…

God instructed them to gather… verse 17…“just as much as they needed”. They were then told by Moses that, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” They were not allowed to horde the quail and manna. In this way they would need to rely on God for provision. This of course is echoed by Jesus in Matthew.

Matthew 6:25-27 ~ “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

In other words, plan ahead a little but don’t be a certifiable moron hording toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bread, meat or milk.

Of course, true to human nature the Israelites ignored sound advice given to them for their own well-being and followed their own poor decisions to their own detriment. This is surpassingly like people being advised to stay in their homes during the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. The fallout of this is a vastly higher death toll than should’ve been necessary.

Exodus 16:20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So, Moses was angry with them.

So, the pattern of disobedient behavior continued. Somehow humanity seems to always extrapolate the wrong conclusion from a scenario/incident. How often do we assume that because a person has not been punished it is okay to do something wrong? God’s silence is often mistaken for his approval when in reality it is God restraining his hand of judgment.

But then came the Sabbath.

Exodus 16:25-27 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?”

In truth the Israelites went out again the seventh day. In the Sabbath when they should’ve been resting as commanded by God. Why did they go out? The same reason people were beating one another over the head for toilet paper and hand sanitizer. They were hording. Why, because they didn’t trust God to provide for their needs. They attempted to take things into their own hands. They tried to control the outcome God intended. What happened when the Israelites kept hording and taking for themselves? Spiritually their hearts were corrupt. God inevitably punished them for their disobedience,  ungratefulness and complaining.

Numbers 11:31-33 ~ Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.

So why was hording considered an offense worthy of being killed? It’s because hording isn’t an act of survival. At it’s heart it is an act completely repulsive to God. At its heart hording is greed and worse a complete distrust of God. You therefore assume and make God a liar. It also has you acting the exact opposite the way God wants you to. You become a taker not a giver. You try to control. You try to play god.

Stop hording people. Bread, meat, toilet paper. What's the difference? Look outwards right now not inwards. Help others and love your neighbor as yourself. Realize God's always on his throne...therefore you don't need to be on yours.