Manna from heaven. Where did this phraseology come from?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

Often in the process of conversation with someone we use certain phraseological units, the origin of which we do not even guess. However, a very large number of them came to us from the Bible. They are distinguished by the imagery of thought, and today we will talk about the phrase "manna from heaven." This phraseologism is usually used in the meaning of "wonderful help" or "unexpected luck."

Why is that? Because, according to the Bible, God sent this legendary food every morning to the hungry Jews for all forty years that they followed Moses through the desert, in search of the promised land - Palestine. They saw one day that on the surface of the sands lies something white, small and grainy, similar to hoarfrost. Not knowing what it was, the Jews asked each other in complete bewilderment, and Moses answered them that it was bread sent down by the Lord for their food. The sons of Israel rejoiced and called this bread “manna from heaven”: it looked like a coriander seed, white in color, andtastes like honey cake.

Perhaps that's how it all happened, but scientists suggest that this bread is on

really was… an edible lichen, which is very abundant in the desert. This assumption appeared in the 18th century, when the famous Russian academician and traveler P. S. Pallas, being on an expedition to the territory of present-day Kyrgyzstan, observed the following picture: during the famine, local residents gathered the so-called “earth bread” throughout the desert. The academician was interested in this product, and having carefully studied it, he discovered that it was not just a lichen, but a completely new species for science. The same "manna from heaven" was found by another traveler in the vicinity of Orenburg.

Today this kind of lichen is called "edible aspicilia". Why is there so much of it in desert areas? Because it's a rolling stone. Such a lichen grows in the mountains of the Carpathians, Crimea and the Caucasus, in Central Asia, Algeria, Greece, Kurdistan, etc. at an altitude of 1500 to 3500 meters, attached to the soil or rocks. Over time, the edges of the lichen thallus lobes bend down and, gradually enclosing clay or other substrate inside themselves, grow together.

After that, the "manna from heaven" completely comes off, shrinks and takes the form of a ball, which is then carried away by the wind. But, despite the fact that this lichen is edible, its taste bears little resemblance to bread, cereals or any other product. Simply put, only a very, very hungry person can eat such food,who is ready to eat anything, just to survive. Therefore, it is possible that the Jews, who wandered through the Egyptian desert for 40 years, ate precisely this lichen, because there was no other food in the vicinity. However, this theory has some inconsistencies. The fact is that a lichen cannot grow overnight, and the Jews had manna from heaven every morning. It is also impossible to eat lichen for a long time, because it tastes very bitter, unlike the “honey cake”, and there are very few nutrients in it. And, probably, the most important discrepancy: aspicilia is practically not found either in Palestine or on the Arabian and Sinai Peninsulas.

Whatever it was, but the expression "manna from heaven" has one meaning: "unexpected life blessings, got just like that, for nothing, as if they fell from heaven."