Exodus 17.1-7

Water from the Rock

Water from the Rock: Exodus 17.1-7

The Israelites journey from Sin by stages to Rephidim. There is no water there, and the people quarrel with Moses, demanding he give them water. "Why do you quarrel with me?" Moses responds. "Why do you test the Lord?" (Ex. 17.2)

Yet the people still complain: "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?" (Ex. 17.3). This parallels the congregation's accusations when there was no food: "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger" (Ex 16.3).

In fact, the three episodes of complaint build to a climax in this chapter. When encountering bitter water, the people simply complain, "What shall we drink?" (Ex. 15.24). When there is no food they accuse Moses (and therefore the Lord) of tryign to kill them. By the time they again thirst at Rephidim, the people demand water and accuse Moses of trying to kill them. Their hostility is so great that Moses cries out to the Lord, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me" (17.4). We can see the anger of the Israelites building like waters behind a dam - and the dam is ready to burst.

Again the Lord has a plan. Moses is to go before the elders of Israel with the very staff he used to strike the Nile. As the Lord stands in front of the rock at Horeb, Moses is to strike it, releasing water that the people may drink.

Moses does this, and calls the place Massah (test) and Meribah (quarrel).

On Dialectical Tensions
The Moses narrative, as noted in a previous post, if fraught with dialectical tensions, and these three consecutive stories serve very well to demonstrate the these tensions - the dissonances of desires experienced between God and God's people.

God needs to work hard to keep his people believing. After the Israelites cross the Red Sea, we read:

Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

(Ex. 14.31)

They had complained before, but see God's power. They even sing out the triumph of the Lord in the Song of Moses that immediately follows.

Immediately afterwards the people are back at it, complaining about bitter water. After the bitter water is made sweet, the Lord makes the following "statute" and "ordinance":

If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.

(Ex. 15.26)

This does not directly address the situation. The complaint about bitter water is a matter of trust. The Israelites must trust in the Lord. What this ordinance addresses, however, is the Israelites' following of God's commands, which does not necessarily include actually trusting him to deliver water and food. God and the people are speaking about two different things. The Israelites want to be nourished, God wants them to do what is right in his sight. The two are not mutually exclusive.

They soon again complain against the Lord. And since Moses is the Lord's ambassador on earth, any complaint against Moses is also a complaint against the Lord. Here, however, Israel's disobedience, warned about in the previous chapter, is executed. Not only do the Israelites not trust in God, they do not keep the Sabbath and disobey God's command to not keep manna overnight.

This time, God has Aaron keep manna as a reminder of how the Israelites were fed in the wilderness, a symbol of the Lord's protective power. This time, God and the Israelites seem to be speaking the same language. God gives a sign (as though of a covenant) that the people will be protected.

But the people still do not feel protected and demand water at Rephidim. Even when the Israelites and God agree on the issue, there is still a tension over God's execution.

A Word on Water
Moses' staff is frequently associated with water. It turns the Nile to blood, parts the Red Sea, and releases water from a rock. But was it in fact Moses that struck the Nile, as the Lord claims? In Genesis 7, the chapter in question, the Lord in fact instructs Moses twice with what to do with his staff. This is the result of two different traditions. The first has Moses striking the river, the second has Aaron striking the river. The actual execution is ambiguous:

Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood.

(Ex. 7.20)

But through contextual clues we discover that in fact it is Moses that strikes the water. Aaron is commanded simply to take the staff and stretch his hands over the waters of Egypt. It is Moses who is to strike the Nile.

Tomorrow: A fight in the wilderness.