The Hebrew verb mana (מָנַע) means to withhold, restrain, or keep something back from someone. It appears in both positive and negative contexts: God withholds evil from His servants (Genesis 23:6), yet sin causes God to withhold His blessings (Jeremiah 5:25). The word captures the theological reality that both blessing and discipline involve divine decisions about what to give and what to withhold.
The theology of mana touches on divine sovereignty in blessing and restraint. When God does not withhold — "He who did not spare his own Son" (Romans 8:32, Greek pheidomai) — it is the supreme act of grace. Jeremiah 5:25 makes the sobering observation that "your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have kept good from you" — sin becomes the mechanism of self-withholding. Psalm 84:11 turns this around gloriously: "no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly." The believer who walks in righteousness need fear no withholding from God's hand.