A prayer – daily bread

Sometimes context doesn’t matter. Things seem clear by themselves. At face value.

Like a request for bread. What could be more simple? “Give me food today. (Please).”

For the people hearing this prayer for the first time, the request was only partly about the future or about today. It had everything to do with the past.

Israel was in the desert, having left Egypt (with God’s assistence). They were, they thought, without food (though they did have flocks of animals with them.)

They...