Water from The Rock at Massah

Exodus 17:1-7. Now the people of God were at Rephidim and again there was no water. You would have expected they would have by now learned that God would supply their water needs, but no they just started to grumble again.

Moses was told to hit the rock so that water would come out for the people to drink. Moses was obedient to God’s commands and the water poured forth.

Did the people learn that God would look after them? – No! They just complained again when something was not to their liking.

However, on a later occasion also involving rock and water Moses was disobedient.

Background Reading:

God Provides Water from a Rock

17:1 The whole congregation of the Israelis set out from the desert of Sin, traveling from place to place according to the command of the LORD. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

2 The people quarreled with Moses: “Give us water to drink.”

Moses told them, “Why are you quarreling with me? Why are you testing the LORD?”

3 But the people were thirsty there for water, so they complained against Moses: “Why did you bring us up from Egypt to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”

4 So Moses cried out to the LORD: “What am I to do with these people? Just a little more and they’ll stone me.”

5 Then the LORD told Moses, “Go over in front 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. 6 I’ll be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock and water will come out of it, so the people can drink.” Moses did this in front of the elders of Israel.

7 He named the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelis quarreled and tested the LORD by saying: “Is the LORD really among us or not?”
Exodus 17:1-7
Also: Numbers 20:1-13.


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