Exodus 17:1-7--Water From The Rock

Water from the Rock
17 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. 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?” 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.” 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. 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?”

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Once again, in a few short verses, we seem to be right back where we started with the people of Israel (again, put yourself in their situation and honestly evaluate if you would respond and react differently).  God had made the pillar of cloud/fire move, so they packed up camp and followed Him away from the oasis where they had plenty of fresh water and shade that we studied about, and they moved out towards Rephidim and set up camp there.  The people realize there is no water for them like the last place where they camped (my guess is they assumed the LORD would lead them to another oasis), so they quarreled and grumbled against Moses and the LORD saying to Moses, "Give us water to drink."  Moses correctly responds with, "Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you test the Lord?"  They are once again making it out as if this problem is too difficult for the Lord to handle and putting Him and His servant Moses to the test, and they are looking to the man, Moses, not to God for their provision.  We just talked last time about God supplying their daily bread, but we already talked before this about how vital water was in the desert, and how the first thing God showed them after they came across the Red Sea was that He could turn "bitter" water that they could not drink into "sweet" water that they could drink--but God had started off with water there and just transformed it.  Could He make water where none seemed to exist?  Surely this seemed like a harder, more difficult task.  Was it too hard?  The people seem to think so, though part of them still believes that crying out--even if it is with the wrong kind of spirit--will do them some good.

The people return to their same old tune of "We would have been better off back in Egypt."  Seriously?!?!?!  I really don't know how Moses continued to put up with this as we saw early in his life that he was not a patient person and was prone to rage.  God certainly transformed him during his 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, and we can only hope that the 40 years that Israel will spend there (they don't know that yet), will do the same for them.

Moses cries out to the Lord for help because he says the people are ready to stone him.  Moses seems like he can be a little dramatic at times, so I'm not sure the situation was that bad, but it very well might have been because all the people believed they were going to die.  He tells Moses for him to take the staff of God in his hand--the same one that was used to turn the Nile River into blood--and for him and some of the elders to pass before the people.  This should have been an indication to the people to calm down and that something miraculous was about to happen.  Then, on the very mountain where Moses met God at the burning bush, and we believe the very same mountain that would later be called Mount Sinai or "the mountain of the LORD," where the LORD would give the book of the Law (the Old Covenant) to His people, we see that God makes Living Water (you'll see why I capitalized this in a minute when I quote from the New Testament) flow from the Rock of that mountain when the Rock was struck with the staff of God.

I know this seems like a big jump to make, but this is a picture of Jesus being "struck" by the Father when He died on the cross, and "living water" (eternal life) flowing abundantly and freely from Him.  We'll come back to another place later where Moses is not told to strike the Rock, but prophesy to the Rock and he strikes it out of anger and God punishes him for it.  People wonder why it was such a big deal the second time since that is what worked the first time.  Well, first, it was disobedience and was out of anger, but the issue is that Moses messed up the imagery that God was using.  The Rock of our Salvation would only be "struck" once for our salvation--at the cross on a different mountain--Mount Calvary.  After that, all we need to do is speak God's words back to Him about the provision and salvation that He has promised and Living Water will flow forth from the Rock in abundant supply wherever and whenever we need it.

Before you think that I'm reading too much into this, let's see what the New Testament authors have to say about this.

1 Corinthians 10:1-5
English Standard VersionWarning Against Idolatry10 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

John 4:7-15
English Standard Version7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

We'll come back to this picture more and more throughout the Old and New Testament where the Messiah would be called the Rock and the Cornerstone, and we are told that the Rock that the builders rejected has become the Chief Cornerstone so that all who fall upon it will be broken, but all whom it falls upon will be crushed (synopsis of multiple Old and New Testament passages).  We do not go to Jesus to crucify Him a second time to receive new blessing, because Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient when He died once and once for all.  When He said "It is finished," He meant that the debt was "paid in full," and nothing more could be added to or taken away from the sacrifice that He had made.  This is why all we need to do now is call upon the name of the Lord, and we too will be saved, just like these people who realized they needed water in the desert and just like the woman at the well who eventually realized her need for the Living Water that would spring up in her to eternal life.  Jesus is all we've ever needed, and only Jesus, the Rock from which Living Water pours forth in abundant supply, can quench our spiritual thirst and meet our every need.