Exodus 17:1-4
They be almost ready to stone me
The thirst is real and the anger is aimed at the man in front of them. He takes it straight to God rather than answering it.
Objects of the Bible
The water from the rock
It happened twice, forty years apart, and the difference between the two is the reason Moses died outside the land.
At Rephidim there is no water and the people chide with Moses, and the complaint escalates fast: wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst. He says they are almost ready to stone him, which is probably accurate. The instruction is to go on before the people, take the elders as witnesses, take the rod, and smite the rock in Horeb, and I will stand before thee there upon the rock.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The water from the rock
- 01
- 02
Exodus 17:5-6
I will stand before thee there upon the rock
Elders are brought as witnesses, the rod is the same one that struck the river, and the promise is about who will be standing there.
- 03
Exodus 17:7
Massah and Meribah
The place gets two names for two failures, and the question underneath both is recorded: is the LORD among us or not.
- 04
Numbers 20:7-11
Must we fetch you water out of this rock
Forty years on, one verb has changed and he does not. The pronoun in his question is the part that gets quoted afterwards.
- 05
1 Corinthians 10:4
That Rock was Christ
Paul reads the whole episode forward and makes the rock that followed them a figure, which is why this object reaches both testaments.
Why it matters
He names the place twice over, Massah and Meribah, temptation and strife, because of the chiding and because they asked is the LORD among us or not. Forty years later the same thing happens at Kadesh and the instruction changes by one verb: speak ye unto the rock. He calls them rebels, lifts his hand, and smites it twice. Water comes out abundantly either way, which is the hard part: the miracle is not withheld, and the sentence still falls, because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel.
3 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
