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Fjalë e gjuhës së aramenëve. Përdoret në Dhjatën e Vjetër. Si rregull nuk përkthehet. Ka kuptimin “ushqim hyjnor i pasosur”. Fj. për fj. në hebraisht “manhu” do të thotë “ç’është kjo?!” Përmes Moisiut Perëndia vuri në provë “popullin e zgjedhur”, hebrejtë. Një prej provave ishte dhurimi i ushqimit të pasosur, me porosinë që askush të mos merrte më shumë se i duhej dhe të mos ruante për nesër. Populli i Moisiut, kur pa në mëngjes se toka ishte mbuluar me ushqimin hyjnor, tha:“Manhu?!” Përshkruhet si diçka që ka formë të bardhë, e përkryer, e përplotë, e patëmetë dhe parajsore, që iu dha njeriut në mes të shkretëtirës (“Bibla e ilustruar për të rinj”, Ferizaj 1987, f. 127). Dhurimi i “manna-së” për popullin e Izraelit pasoi “një prej dhjetë shuplakave / ndëshkimeve popullit të Egjiptit”, që nuk ishte i zgjedhuri i Perëndisë. “Many have speculated on the precise nature of this “manna”, and several partial parallels are known. To the present time in Sinai, certain insects produce honeydew excretions on tamarisk-twigs seasonally every June for some weeks. At night these drops fall from the trees to the ground, where they remain until the heat of the sun brings forth the ants which remove them. These drops are small, sticky, light-coloured, and sugary-sweet, quite strikingly like the biblical descriptions in Ex. 16 and Nu. 11. Other honeydew-producing insects are known in Sinai and elsewhere, e.g. certain cicadas. However, these products do not fit the biblical description in all particulars” (Bodenheimer, F. S.:BA 10, 1947, p. 1-6; Keller, W.: “The Bible as History”, 1956, plate between pp. 112-113). “In South Algeria in 1932 and also about 70 years before, after unusual weather ‘there were falls of a whitish, odourless, tasteless matter of a farinaceous kind which covered tents and vegetation each morning’” (Rendle- Short, A.:“Modern Discovery and the Bible”, 1952, p. 152). “Also in 1932, a white substance like manna one morning covered an area of ground 640 x 18 m on a farm in Natal and was eaten by the natives. None of these phenomena satisfies the biblical data, and the provision of the “manna” remains ultimately in the realm of the miraculous, especially in its continuity, quantity and 6-day periodicity. The partial parallels cited above may indicate, however, the kind of physical bases used by God in this provision. The “manna” was used by God to teach lessons for spiritual instruction as well as physical sustenance. Israel was told that with the failure of other food (‘suffered thee to hunger’), his provision of “manna” was to ‘make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord’. God used the provision of manna on 6 days and not the seventh to teach Israel obedience, and convicted them of disobedience (Ex. 16:19, cf. vv. 20, 25-30). Jesus Christ uses the “manna”, God-given ‘bread from heaven’, as a type of himself, the true bread of life, and contrasts the shadow with the substance:‘your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died’ (Jn. 6:49), but he could say, ‘I am the bread of life… which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever’ (Jn. 6:35, 51, and cf. vv. 26-59 passim). Eternal life was made available to man by the merits of Christ’s death (v. 51). In Rev. 2:17 the ‘hidden manna’ represents spiritual sustenance imparted by the Spirit of Christ”. (Kitchen, B.A.:“Reader in Egyptian and Coptic”, University of Liverpool; Douglas, J.: “New Bible Dictionary”).
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