What the Bible Says About the Meaning of Bread and Water

Scripture

¹ And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.
² He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth.
³ “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.”
⁴ Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree,
⁵ And I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”
⁶ And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.”
⁷ And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly.
⁸ He took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

Genesis 18:1-8

Exodus 16:4-15: ⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
⁵ On the sixth day they shall prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”
⁶ So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
⁷ and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us?”
⁸ And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”
⁹ Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”
¹⁰ And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.
¹¹ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
¹² “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”
¹³ In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp.
¹⁴ And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.
¹⁵ When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

Exodus 17:1-7: ¹ All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.
² Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”
³ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
⁴ So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
⁵ And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
⁶ Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
⁷ And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Deuteronomy 8:2-3: ² And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
³ And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

1 Kings 17:8-16: ⁸ Then the word of the Lord came to him,
⁹ “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
¹⁰ So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.”
¹¹ And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”
¹² And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
¹³ And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.
¹⁴ For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’”
¹⁵ She went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days.
¹⁶ The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

2 Kings 4:1-7: ¹ Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”
² And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
³ Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few.
⁴ Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.”
⁵ So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her.
⁶ When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
⁷ Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

Psalm 23:1-6: ¹ The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
³ He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 78:23-25: ²³ Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven.
²⁴ And he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.
²⁵ Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance.

Isaiah 55:1-2: ¹ “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Jeremiah 2:13: ¹³ for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Ezekiel 4:9-17: ⁹ “And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them.
¹⁰ And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from day to day you shall eat it.
¹¹ You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin; you shall drink at fixed times.
¹² And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.”
¹³ And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”
¹⁴ Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never defiled myself. From my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth.”
¹⁵ Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.”
¹⁶ Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the supply of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay.
¹⁷ that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment.

Matthew 4:1-4: ¹ Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
² And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
³ And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
⁴ But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 6:9-13: ⁹ Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
¹⁰ Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread.
¹² and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Matthew 14:13-21: ¹³ Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
¹⁴ When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
¹⁵ Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
¹⁶ But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
¹⁷ They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.”
¹⁸ He said, “Bring them here to me.”
¹⁹ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
²⁰ And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
²¹ And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Matthew 26:26-29: ²⁶ Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
²⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you,
²⁸ for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
²⁹ I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Mark 6:30-44: ³⁰ The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught.
³¹ And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
³² And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.
³³ Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.
³⁴ When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.
³⁵ And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late.
³⁶ Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.
³⁷ But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”
³⁸ And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”
³⁹ Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass.
⁴⁰ So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.
⁴¹ And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all.
⁴² And they all ate and were satisfied.
⁴³ And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
⁴⁴ And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

Luke 9:10-17: ¹⁰ On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida.
¹¹ When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing.
¹² Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.”
¹³ But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.”
¹⁴ For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.”
¹⁵ And they did so, and had them all sit down.
¹⁶ And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
¹⁷ And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

John 4:7-14: ⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
⁸ For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 6:1-14: ¹ After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.
² And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.
³ And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.
⁴ Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.
⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”
⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”
⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,
⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”
¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.
¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.
¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”
¹³ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.
¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

John 6:25-35: ²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”
²⁶ Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
²⁷ Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
²⁸ Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”
²⁹ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
³⁰ So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?
³¹ Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
³² Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
³³ For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
³⁴ They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

John 6:48-51: ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life.
⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
⁵⁰ This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

John 7:37-38: ³⁷ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’

Acts 2:42-47: ⁴² And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
⁴³ And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
⁴⁴ And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
⁴⁵ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
⁴⁶ And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,
⁴⁷ praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4: ¹ For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,
² and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
³ and all ate the same spiritual food,
⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26: ²³ For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
²⁵ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Revelation 7:16-17: ¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Revelation 22:1-2: ¹ Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,
² through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.