(3) [God] afflicted you and made you hungry and fed you the manna to eat, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, in order to let you know that a person does not live on bread alone, but that a person lives on everything that comes out of THE ETERNAL's mouth.
Idioms and echoes:
"What comes out of X's mouth - motsa pi x": This phrase appears nowhere else in Tanach. But "what comes out of x's lips - motsa s'fatei x" occurs several times. It refers to vows. You have to fulfill what comes out of your lips.
"THE ETERNAL's mouth - pi adonai": This is usually an idiom for God's command or instruction. The people rebel against "God's mouth," the journey and encamp "according to God's mouth," etc.
What do we make of the use of those idioms and echoes in this verse?
Lately I've been thinking - or, actually, learning from the organizer Pat Speer and others, - that we hear the word of God when we listen deeply to one another. And, in fact, sufficient, equitably distributed physical nourishment is encouraged by hearing that divine word from one another. As Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says (Pirkei Avot 3:17), "If there's no flour, there's no Torah; If there's no Torah, there's no flour."
Davar acher - another approach: Besides commandment/instruction, the other main thing that issues from God's speech is existence itself - heavens and earth and all they contain.
What's the implication?
EVERY THING THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE ETERNAL. It means that which God has decreed. Compare, As the word went out of the king’s mouth (Esth. 7:8). The meaning of our verse is: a person does not live by bread alone but by the power (or: energy), or with the power/energy, which comes from on high by the command of God. This is the meaning of that proceeds out of the mouth of the ETERNAL. The fact that you did not eat bread and you lived is proof of this.
By "on high," Ibn Ezra isn't referring to God, since he uses a plural word for 'on high.' He likely means the intermediaries in the chain of causality between God and us, which he took to include the astronomical/astrological cosmos. A secular reader can affirm this: We do live on the energy that comes to us from the cosmos, particularly from the sun. A religious reader might see God in this process.
(Rav Jeremy translation from a Hebrew translation of the German original)
“Bread – lehem” is the food which a person battles to obtain from nature (The word “milhamah – war” comes from the root “lehem”) in a contest with their fellow human beings. …. Bread is the joint product of nature and human intelligence through which a person gains dominion in the world. Therefore, bread represents human intelligence through which, in social cooperative effort, people fashion the means of their own existence.
But it would be a mistake to think that this creative human power is the only thing required for human life on earth. The primary causal factor in nourishing humanity is divine providence. God’s wide-open, full hand can be seen in every slice of bread with which we provide for another minute of existence. To forget this is to fall prey to a most dangerous fantasy, which would topple our willingness to be subject to any obligation. The very concern to provide for wife and children is such a well-justified motivation for our actions, that it can easily remove any other considerations from our vision should we come to the conclusion that we and only we ourselves are able to supply a living for us and those who depend on us.
Davar acher: When else does God "afflict" us? On Yom Kippur. What are we nourished by on Yom Kippur? Prayers. Maybe manna is prayers that you eat.
Another wonderful expression of the need for something other than bread in human life is the song Bread and Roses set to a poem by James Oppenheim, first published in The American Magazine in 1911. The song has its roots in speeches by Helen Todd at suffragist and workers' rallies, and strike signs inspired by the speeches. It has also been associated with the Lawrence textile strike of 1912 and speeches by Rose Schneiderman, though those followed the original publication. The first tune for the song was by Caroline Kohlsaat (or Kohl-saat, not Kohsleet or Coleman, as one finds in various sources). I believe the Village Harmony New England Teen Camp is singing that tune here. A new tune was composed in the 1970s by Mimi Fariña . Here is a recording of her singing it with her sister, Joan Baez. Or watch this wonderful scene, featuring the Fariña melody, from the movie "Pride," based on a true story, in which a group of lesbian and gay activists sets out to support a Welsh miners' strike.
As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing, "Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses."
As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men—
For they are women's children and we mother them again.
Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes—
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient song of Bread;
Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew—
Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too.
As we come marching, marching, we bring the Greater Days—
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler—ten that toil where one reposes—
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.