Exodus 16:31

“And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna, etc.] For till now they had given it no name; which shows that the words are not to be read as we render them in (<021615>Exodus 16:15) it is manna, unless this is to be considered as a confirmation of that name; but rather as an interrogation, “what is it?” though, from thence, “man” being the first word they made use of on sight of it, might so call it; or as others, from its being now an appointed, prepared, portion and gift, which they every day enjoyed, ((see Gill on “<021615>Exodus 16:15”)), and it was like coriander seed, white that the colour of the manna was white is not only here asserted, but is plain from other passages, it…”

“manna - It was not indeed the common manna, as they then seem to have believed, but the properties which are noted in this passage are common to it and the natural product: in size, form and color it resembled the seed of the white coriander, a small round grain of a whitish or yellowish grey. return to 'Top of Page'”

“called the name: Exo 16:15 In consequence of the term manna having been given to a drug which is now much used in England, many persons have ignorantly supposed it to be the same sort of thing as that miraculously sent for the sustenance of the children of Israel in the wilderness. The manna of commerce comes from Calabria and Sicily, where it oozes out of a kind of ash tree, from the end of June to the end of July, and is a thick, clammy, sweet juice, partly drawn from the tree by the rays of the sun, partly by the puncture of insects, and partly by artificial means. The European manna is not so good as the Oriental, which is gathered in Syria, Arabia, and Persia, from the Oriental oak, and…”

“The manna was "like coriander-seed, white; and the taste of it like cake with honey." גּד: Chald. גּידא; lxx κόριον; Vulg. coriandrum; according to Dioscorid. 3, 64, it was called γοίδ by the Carthaginians. צפּיחת is rendered ἔγκρις by the lxx; according to Athenaeus and the Greek Scholiasts, a sweet kind of confectionary made with oil. In Num 11:7-8, the manna is said to have had the appearance of bdellium, a fragrant and transparent resin, resembling wax ( Gen 2:12). It was ground in handmills or pounded in mortars, and either boiled in pots or baked on the ashes, and tasted like השּׁמן לשׁד, "dainty of oil," i.e., sweet cakes boiled with oil. This "bread of heaven" ( Psa 78:24; Psa…”