Context No. 3127 of 4322 · Exodus

Exodus 17:1-7: in context

1All the congregation of the children of Israel traveled from the wilderness of Sin, starting according to the LORD’s commandment, and encamped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. 2Therefore the people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” 3The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?” 4Moses cried to the LORD, saying, “What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5The LORD said to Moses, “Walk on before the people, and take the elders of Israel with you, and take the rod in your hand with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7He called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us, or not?”

At Rephidim there is no water, and the people quarrel with Moses, so bitterly that he fears they will stone him. Their complaint carries a deeper doubt: they test the LORD, asking, is the LORD among us, or not? God tells Moses to strike the rock at Horeb, and water pours out for the people. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah, testing and quarreling.

The people's question is the deep one: is the LORD among us or not? Their thirst was real, but their response was to doubt God's presence and turn on Moses, forgetting all that the LORD had just done for them. And God's answer to their faithless testing is, again, grace, water from the rock. But the place-names remember their sin as well as his provision: Massah and Meribah, testing and quarreling, a warning etched into the map. Paul says that rock was Christ. The water that saved a grumbling people flowed from a struck rock, a picture of the greater provision that flows from a stricken Savior.

When circumstances make me ask "is the LORD really among us?", do I turn on others in doubt, or trust the God who brings water from the rock?

Sources

Exodus 17:6: "You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink."
Exodus 17:7: "He called the name of the place... Meribah, because the children of Israel... tested the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?"
1 Corinthians 10:4: "They drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."