From
the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by
stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no
water for the people to drink. 2)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?” 3)But the people thirsted there for water,
and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us
out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst? 4)So
Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are
almost ready to stone me.” 5)The LORD said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the
people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you, take in your hand
the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there
in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come
out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of
the elders of Israel. 7)He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the
Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or
not?”
And all the community of
Israelites journeyed onward from the Wilderness of Sin on their journeyings
by the LORD’s direction, and they encamped at Rephidim, and there was no
water for the people to drink. And the people disputed with Moses and they
said, “Give us water, that we may drink.” And Moses said to them,
“Why do you dispute with me
and why do you test the LORD?”
And the people thirsted for water there, and the people murmured against
Moses and said, “Why is it you brought us up from Egypt to bring death on
me and my children and my livestock by thirst?” And Moses called out to
the LORD, saying,
“What shall I do with this people?
Yet a little more and they will stone me.”
And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some
of Israel’s elders, and the staff with which you struck the Nile take in
your hand, and go. Look, I am about to stand before you there on the rock in
Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out from it and
the people will drink.” And thus did Moses do before the eyes of
Israel’s elders. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah,
Testing and Dispute, for the disputation of the Israelites, and for their
testing the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?” Robert
Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New
York:W.W. Norton & Co., c.2004), 410-413.
“Gripe, gripe, gripe.” It is one way of describing
the days following God’s great act of freeing Israel from their slavery in
Egypt. Three days out into the wilderness and these people are complaining
because there is no water visible to them, and when they find some, it is
bitter. The LORD provides for them through Moses by having him throw a tree
into the water and make it good. (Ex.15:22-27) Two months later they are
griping about the lack of food, saying that the meat and bread provided for
them by the Egyptians had been better. The LORD produces manna in the morning
and quails in the evening, and Moses tells them that it will remind them Who
brought them out of Egypt – the LORD. (16:1-17) Yet the next time they find
themselves without water they blame Moses and demand that he provide it for
them. (17:1ff.)
The path they have been following and the location and
duration of the stops have been the decision of the LORD and not choices of
Moses at all. But Moses is human and he can be bullied by their accusations,
so it is Moses about whom they complain, as though he is the reason for their
discomfort. Perhaps the intensity of their suffering also needs to be
questioned. Their willingness to return to slavery suggests that they do not
want freedom so much as full stomachs. But when they were in Egypt they
complained about their plight, so they may be ready to gripe no matter what
their circumstances. If so, they are a lot like people we know today; perhaps
even ourselves, avoiding the questioning of our own righteousness by giving
attention to the faults of others. From the child days of claiming, “He
pushed me!” to the times when we would rather defeat our enemies than love
them, we do not change that much.
To be the spokesman of God is not always a pleasant
vocation. What God has to say is not always what people want to hear, and
those who speak for God cannot be sure that those who are addressed will
distinguish between the Source and the messenger. We are willing to share the
gratitude of people when God’s message to them is a pleasant one, but, like
Moses, we worry more about their rejection of us than about the rejection of
their God, and we complain like him: “What shall I do with this people? They
are almost ready to stone me.”
The calling of prophets is not to provide what people
want but to point to what God provides. Use of the staff Moses had used to
part the Nile waters for the exodus points to God as the one who is providing
the drinking water for the people by the same power which led His people to
freedom in the very presence of their slave masters. Moses gives names to the
place which will always remind Israel of their behavior there: Quarrel and
Testing. The testing here means not that God tested Israel but that they
presumed to test God. After He had led them out of Egypt and had provided
water and food for them on two occasions already, and after He had brought
them to the location where there was no obvious water, they presumed to
question whether God’s prophet will provide for them again. They had not
even given God the honor of questioning Him, though it was He and not the
prophet who had been the source of their help before.
Their experience should have taught them who had given
them help and who would help them again. They could not recognize Him, just as
the Samaritan woman at the well could not recognize Jesus or see that her help
was coming through Israel. We have the same difficulty and are always
wondering if God is going to help. God did not abandon the people of His
promise and, thank God, He has not abandoned us.
W.E. Mueller