Exodus
17:1 ¶ And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys,
according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there
was no water for the people to drink. 2
Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that
we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye
tempt the LORD? 3 And the people
thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said,
Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our
children and our cattle with thirst? 4
And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people?
they be almost ready to stone me. 5 And
the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the
elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine
hand, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand
before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and
there shall come water out of it, that the people may 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
chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying,
Is the LORD among us, or not?
Again,
the Hebrews complain. The complaint seems legitimate. This mass of people and
their animals must have water but again they are doubting God’s provision, even
His ability to sustain them or His will to preserve them. Here they are, probably
moving through the Sinai Peninsula and very uncertain about their fate, having
seen a tremendous miracle of the parting of the Red Sea but now uncertain again
of their survival. They are afraid.
The
body of the children of Israel are, in type, examples of the individual
Christian. In other words, we each are like the children of Israel as a group.
I am not talking about following God in how you dress, what you view as
entertainment, or whether or not your language is raw or you drink so-called
adult beverages. I’m talking about whether or not you actually believe God’s
promises as laid out in the Bible. God seems to be underscoring to us,
emphasizing that He places a great importance on our trusting Him, and not only
trusting Him, but accepting His timing and His judgments even if they are not
pleasant experiences to us.
One
thing missing from the Christian’s walk with God, one of probably many things
missing, is trust. We receive mercy after mercy, blessing after blessing,
deliverance after deliverance, and then complain loudly when faced with a
problem. We complain so loudly you would think we never knew God’s kindness at
all. How many Christians have even doubted the premise of their faith in God,
even doubted His very existence, because they are walking through a dry land
and are thirsty?
Moses strikes the
rock in front of the elders and water came out of the rock.
Psalm
78:15 He clave the rocks in the
wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. 16 He brought streams also out of the rock, and
caused waters to run down like rivers…20
Behold, he smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams
overflowed; can he give bread also? can he provide flesh for his people?
Psalm
105:41 He opened the rock, and the
waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river.
Part
of our problem spiritually is that we do not thirst after God’s righteousness
but are always thirsty for the wrong thing.
Matthew
5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and
thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
The rock is Christ
and in mankind’s first encounter with Him they struck Him.
1Corinthians
10:4 And did all drink the same
spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and
that Rock was Christ.
Isaiah
53:1 ¶ Who hath believed our report? and
to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of
a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. 3
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we
esteemed him not.
4 ¶
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the
LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he
is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is
dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He
was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation?
for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my
people was he stricken. 9 And he made
his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done
no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 ¶
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin…
This
had to be, God ordained it so. There is no other way for us to be delivered
from the consequences of our breaking fellowship with God by our sin than for
God Himself to pay the ransom He demanded for the sinner’s soul and to be the
propitiation to appease His own wrath.
The
Bible contains many pithy sayings that stick in your mind. There is I believe; help thou mine unbelief in
Mark 9:24 and Be still, and know that I
am God in Psalm 46:10 among many others that should ring in our brains in
practically every situation. Here also is one of the great ones that may come
to mind in many a church meeting where contention and strife are present; Is the LORD among us, or not?
The
Sinai Peninsula is about 150 miles wide and contains a million and a half
residents today. If this mass of people in Exodus is moving at the rate of only
ten miles a day they could traverse the peninsula in half a month, of course.
We will get a little more information in the next passage on where they
actually are at this point. Do not be confused by traditions or where some
Christian group has placed a monastery. It was not uncommon for Christian
groups to read back tradition into the Bible and declare a place as the
location of a Bible event when the truth is not known for sure. Traditions have
placed Mount Sinai in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula or in Arabia
based on what Paul said when Arabia covered a huge area, larger than we think
of today. Arabia Petraea was a Roman province that encompassed parts of present
day Jordan, the northwest Arabian peninsula, and the Sinai peninsula from the
second century. It was also bordered by Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix so
obviously this area was known as Arabia in Paul’s time.
It
is also the same with unbelievers who say that Mount Sinai must have been a
volcano and there is no volcano in the Sinai because they don’t believe in the
truth of God’s presence and the power He displayed as per the Bible. These same
people call Ezekiel’s vision a UFO because of their unbelief.
What comes next
suggests the Hebrews traveled more easterly than southerly.
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