Exodus 17. Water from the Rock

Water from the Rock

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. 

• We are now in Rephidim : Rephidim (רְפִידִים) likely means “resting place” or “support”
• See map below
• We see the third test for Israel
  • Marah: water is bitter
  • Wilderness of Sin: no food
  • Rephidim: no water

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?” 

• There are many times Israel does the wrong thing, and complains even though God provides. This specific instance I get confused about, because no water is pretty dangerous. I feel like I too as an Israelite would complain to Moses if he hadn’t contacted God yet. My question is what would have been the correct response of Israel?
  • verse 7 says that Israel tested God by questioning His provision and if He was actually with them. So perhaps they should have had faith, and gone to God immediately.

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.” 

• Why did Moses wait until Israel was about to stone him to ask God what to do?

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. 

• 1 Corinthians 10:4 “…and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”
• God states He will stand before them. First Israel questioned if He was even there, now He will stand before the people

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?”

• I always got confused about there being two instances with water coming from a rock with Moses.
  • In Exodus 17, God commands Moses to strike the rock, but in Numbers 20, doing the same thing is a serious disobedience leading him to not see the promised land.
• Massah (מַסָּה, “testing”) and Meribah (מְרִיבָה, “quarreling”).
• Psalm 95: 8-9 “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test…”

Israel Defeats Amalek

⁸ Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 

• Amalek was the grandson of Esau through Eliphaz. This attack was probably the first battle they experienced after slavery.

⁹ So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 

• Here we meet Joshua for the first time!
• Interesting insight from Spurgeon: the staff can be identified with Moses (Exodus 17:5), while Moses calls it “the staff of God” (17:9). “God calls it the rod of Moses; Moses calls it the rod of God; and both these expressions are true.”
  • (Spurgeon, “Both Sides of the Shield,” Sermon No. 2233, 1891).

¹⁰ So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 

• Deuteronomy 25:17-18 gives us a bit more insight to the battle: “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God.”

¹¹ Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. ¹² But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

• Unsure who Hur is, some Jewish traditions say Miriam’s husband.
  • Bezalel, the chief craftsman of the tabernacle, is Hur’s grandson

 ¹³ And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.

¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 

• This is the first explicit instance in the Torah where YHWH commands Moses to write something down.

¹⁵ And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner, ¹⁶ saying, “A hand upon the throne of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

• The Lord Is My Banner: יְהוָה נִסִּי YHWH Nissi