Water From the Rock (Exodus 17:1-7)

1 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages [led by God as he commanded by the pillar of fire and cloud], according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. [Rephidim was locate in the southern Sinai, close to Mount Sinai. God had purposefully led them to a location without water to yet again test Israel’s faithfulness.] 2 Therefore the people quarreled [protested] with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel [protested] with me? Why do you test the Lord?” [Moses knows that the protest of the people represents their attempt to manipulate God. What they are doing wrong is refusing to wait for God to take care of them. To test God is to demand or expect him to do something special for you, something you haven’t earned or you don’t deserve. Testing God is not to assess his loyalty but an attempt to get something out of him earlier or in greater quantity and to express to him he could or should have done a better job of provision.] 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.” [Moses’ mistake was to take the people’s side instead of God’s.] 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people [take the lead], taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff [God’s authority] 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.” [God already had a plan in mind.] And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah [“testing/trial/ temptation”] and Meribah [“protest/contention/strife”], because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” [The people insultingly doubt the Lord’s presence.]