Coriander

Coriander appears in the UPDV only in the wilderness narrative, and only as a point of comparison. In both passages it is the seed of the coriander plant — small, round, recognizable — that supplies the image for what manna looked like.

A Comparison for Manna

The first reference comes when Israel names the bread fallen from heaven: "And the house of Israel called its name Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers [made] with honey" (Exod 16:31). Two attributes are joined to the coriander image — the color "white" and a taste compared to honey-wafers — so that coriander seed sets the shape and size while other terms carry color and flavor.

Numbers picks up the same comparison and pairs it with a different visual quality: "And the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance as the appearance of bdellium" (Num 11:7). Where Exodus reaches for honey-wafers to describe the taste, Numbers reaches for bdellium to describe the appearance, but the controlling image — coriander seed — holds steady across both.

A Single Use Across Two Books

Coriander has no other role in the UPDV. The two verses agree that it is small, seed-like, and the right size and shape to picture manna; everything else that is said about manna is added by other comparisons. The umbrella is that narrow — a remembered spice from Egypt held up against the unfamiliar bread of the wilderness, twice, in nearly the same words.