15. Why did Jehovah permit the Israelites to experience hunger, and in what sense was the manna an expression of his mouth?

¹⁵ Jehovah indeed humbled them by letting them experience such helplessness. His purpose in doing so was to teach them that, when the common supply of food failed, the expressions of Jehovah’s mouth could sustain man. The miraculous manna was such an expression, for Jehovah gave the command and the manna came to be. Since Jehovah God kept a whole nation alive in a wilderness for 40 years, we can have every confidence that the expressions of his mouth can also sustain us today.

he humbled you and let you go hungry and fed you with the manna, which neither you had known nor your fathers had known; in order to make you know that not by bread alone does man live but by every expression of Jehovah’s mouth does man live.” (Deut. 8:2, 3)