Before, the Israelites asked Moses what they were to drink Since Moses had been able to miraculously sweeten the waters at Marah and to produce quail and manna, the people appear to be demanding that he perform another miracle for them. It is bad enough that the Israelites argued with Moses and demanded that Moses provide them with water, but the text informs us that they were also challenging God here as well.
The issue, however, is not only whether Moses had the right to continue to lead this people, but whether God was among His people. Unable to dissuade the people, Moses could only cry out to the Lord for help Among other things this indicated that Moses was making no retreat.
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It also reminded the congregation of Israelites that Moses was their leader, because when water was provided from the rock the people had to follow Moses to get to it. Some of the elders were taken along by Moses to witness, it would seem, this new miracle. As commanded, Moses took along his staff—the same one with which he had struck the Nile When Moses did this, water came forth in abundance, providing for the needs of the Israelites. He named the place Massah test and Meribah quarrel , an epitaph which the Israelites would gladly have stricken from their history. There are many scholars who would attempt to interpret this miraculous provision of water as a merely natural phenomenon.
This sounds more like the television description of how Jeb Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies accidentally discovered oil on his place—a shot fired from his rifle accidentally released oil hidden underground.
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The incident at Massah and Meribah is seminal in two very different ways. The events of this chapter are developed into two major themes in the Scriptures. Second, Massah and Meribah is an evidence of the grace of God and of His presence and provision for His people. We shall explore both of these themes and their relationship to each other. Moses informed them that it was typical of their stubbornness and rebellion against God:.
Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. Remember this and never forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the desert. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord. The grumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness was therefore a persistent problem, not a rare and infrequent one. Furthermore, the sin of this first generation of Israelites was almost identically reproduced by the second generation of Israelites, some years later cf.
The problem of grumbling is one that is common to every generation, in every age.
Thus, we find the events of Massah and Meribah frequently referred to in the Old Testament. We must therefore conclude that the problems which underlie Massah and Meribah are universal.
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It was good for God to test the Israelites, for it revealed the sinful condition of their hearts. It surfaced their willfulness and waywardness and revealed that God was always blessing them on the basis of His grace, not their works. God has every right to test His creatures, and His tests are always for our good Deut. God had proven Himself more than sufficiently in the miracles of the exodus. Israel did not lack evidence; they only lacked faith. If God were among them, then let Him prove it by giving them water, then and there. The creature demands that the Creator jump through his hoops.
They did not believe His promise. They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord Ps. Satan challenged our Lord to prove that He was the Son of God by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple, but our Lord rebuked him with a reference to the evil committed by the Israelites in putting God to the test at Massah and Meribah Matt. Satan had no right to challenge the Son of God to act in a such a way, for this would suggest that God is so unreliable He must be proven. The Jewish religious leaders persistently challenged Jesus to prove Himself by giving them a sign cf.
When we demand that someone prove themselves to us we reveal our lack of trust in them. For example, the United States and Russia frequently attempt to come to some kind of nuclear arms agreement. Demanding that God prove Himself to us betrays our lack of trust in Him. It is not He who is untrustworthy; it is us. When we demand that Russia give proof of their integrity, we are wise.
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When we demand such proof from God, we are fools. When they spoke to the king, they said: Faith trusts in God, even when the result appears to be fatal. And yet when they ran out of water, they doubt the presence of God and demand a miracle so that God may prove Himself to them once again. God would not have allowed His people to die of thirst, as they accused. Had they but waited, God would have provided for them.
Their lack of faith was manifested in their impatience: In every instance where Israel lacked either food or water, Israel acted prematurely. Unbelief is often hasty; faith is patient and endures. The first instance of thirst at Marah Exod. I find the key to be in the first verse of chapter The guidance which God gave the Israelites was by command our text informs us. When Israel resisted Moses and insisted that he had led them into the wilderness to die of thirst, they rebelled against the guidance of God, and thus they disobeyed His command.
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In the previous lesson, I likened grumbling to disobedience. God had evidenced His presence and power so many times in their very recent past—in the plagues, in their passing through the Red Sea, and in His provision of food and water. Nevertheless, the absence of water causes the Israelites to suspect the absence of God. The amazing thing about the incident at Massah and Meribah is that God graciously provided His grumbling people with water in abundance, through the rock at Horeb.
In spite of the great sin of the people in disputing with Moses and in putting God to the test, they were abundantly provided for. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! Both had their baptisms Israel in the cloud and in the sea, and unto Moses; the Corinthians in the baptismal waters, and unto Christ cf. Other explanations of this text have also been offered.
In what sense then is our Lord to be identified with the rock in the wilderness? I do not believe that we should go so far as to say that our Lord actually manifested Himself to Israel as a rock. There is a world of difference between our Lord standing by that rock and being that rock. Nevertheless, our Lord was closely associated with the rock, as Paul suggests.
What we do need to understand is that Paul informs us that God was present with the Israelites in the person of His Son. Although the Israelites believed that the absence of water in the wilderness was sufficient evidence for them to conclude that God had abandoned them, Paul tells us that Christ Himself was present with them. Here is the irony of the passage. At the very time when the Israelites are inclined to doubt or at least dispute the presence of God, the text informs us that God was very present, and the New Testament goes so far as to tell us that Christ was present as well.
Was God among them? More so than they could have dreamed! The issue is this: I would suggest that we, like the Jewish religious leaders of old, tend to look primarily at external appearances—success, popularity, a life free from struggles, suffering and sorrow. It is no wonder that our church leaders are so often chosen from the upper echelons of the socio-economic strata.
Most often, we look at the size of the church, its staff, and its budget. This is why we find it very difficult to believe that God is present when things are not going well.
Desert Lessons: 7 Things We Can Learn from the Israelites' Wandering Years
We find it hard to believe that God would lead His people or His church into times and circumstances of difficulty. Write a customer review. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. The Light in the Wilderness: Set up a giveaway. There's a problem loading this menu right now.
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