Living Water

By William J. McRae *

An Exposition of Exodus 17:1-7 

* Emmaus alumnus Bill McRae, well-known Bible expositor, author, and educator, presently serves at Tyndale College and Seminary (Ontario) as President Emeritus and Minister at Large. This is the twelfth in a series of expositions on the book of Exodus.

Introduction

In this section we join the children of Israel on the third leg of their journey from the Red Sea to Mt. Sinai. We have passed Marah where they faced their first problem—the bitter waters. There God graciously provided for them (Ex. 15:22–27). We have passed through the wilderness of Sin where they faced their second problem—no food. Once again God graciously provided for them: manna in the mornings, quail in the evenings (Ex. 16:1–36).

Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink (17:1).

Here they encountered their third problem. It was one that could be expected after a long journey in a parched wilderness.

Israel’s Problem (17:1-4)

There was no water for the people to drink (17:1b).

The people were without water. The welfare of the entire nation and all their flocks was threatened. Once again Israel was face-to-face with a trial of their faith. This was the third in the battery of tests administered during their wilderness experience. It was a test designed to prove them, to surface their true hearts and spiritual qualities. Ultimately it was designed to humble them (Deut. 8:2–3), to wean them from everything on earth and bring them to the place of complete reliance upon Him. The path of faith is always a path of trial.

The Response of Israel (17:2-3)

Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

They Quarreled with Moses (17:2a)

Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.”

The word “quarreled” or “chided” indicates that the people talked angrily with Moses. They reproached him and condemned him as the cause of their trouble. Pink comments:

When they said to him, “Give us water that we may drink,” it was either that they petulantly demanded he should give what God only could provide, signifying that he was under obligation to do so, seeing that he was the one who had brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness; or, because they had seen him work so many wonders, they concluded it was in his power to miraculously obtain water for them, and hence insisted that he now do this. [1]

As their thirst increased they grew more impatient and enraged. Their attack became more vicious.

They Grumbled against Moses (17:3)

Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?

They Tested Yahweh (17:2b)

And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”

By once more chiding the servant of the LORD they were trying His patience. Moses was their appointed leader, God’s representative. To complain against Moses was to complain against Yahweh. They were questioning His goodness and faithfulness. They were trying His patience. What a solemn thing it is to test the Lord.

And how did they do it? According to verse seven, in unbelief they doubted the gracious presence of the Lord to help them. Is this not sobering? In times of testing to doubt the Lord’s presence with us to help us through those times, is to tempt or test God.

It is a solemn thing to try the Lord’s patience. Year after year Israel did it, until finally He sent serpents among them to destroy many of them (1 Cor. 10:9).

It was Israel’s response to their crisis which led to the renaming of the place. Moses named the place Massah—“test” or “temptation,” and Meribah—“quarreling” or “murmuring (v. 7), that the sin of the people might never be forgotten.

Israel’s response to their problem was all the more appalling when two facts are remembered. First, this was not their first crisis. They could look back over the past two months to the Red Sea, Marah, Elim, and the wilderness of Sin and see crisis after crisis resolved, need after need met. God had proven lovingly loyal, totally faithful, absolutely adequate. And yet, faced with still another problem, they quarreled, grumbled, and complained. Where was their trust in God? How unvarying is the tendency of the human heart to distrust God. Israel’s evil heart of unbelief, ever ready to depart from God, was surfacing.

Remember also that the sons of Israel journeyed here to Rephidim “according to the command of the Lord” (17:1).

Pink comments:

He knew there was no water there and yet He directed them to this very place! Well for us to remember this. Ofttimes when we reach some particularly hard place, when the streams of creature-comfort are dried up, we blame ourselves, our friends, our brethren, or the Devil perhaps. But the first thing to realize in every circumstance and situation where faith is tested is that the Lord Himself has brought us there! If this be apprehended, it will not be so difficult for us to trust Him to sustain us while we remain there. [2]

Although Israel’s faith faltered and failed, this was not so with Moses.

The Response of Moses (17:4)

So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.”

More remarkable is what he didn’t say than what he did say. There is no reply to the cruel charges hurled at him. The people had become so angry they apparently were ready to stone Moses. Instead of an angry, bitter response, he sought the Lord. “What shall I do?”

The Lord’s Provision 17:5-7

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”

It Was a Great Display of God’s Power

The only reasonable and satisfactory explanation for the event is that God once again intervened miraculously. Here is one of the great miracles of the Old Testament. To the natural mind it is unbelievable. To the spiritual mind it is unassailable. Our God, who called the worlds into being and who upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3), is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think (Eph. 3:20, 21). He caused water to flow out of the hard dry rock.

He did not do it until Moses struck it with his staff, however. The people needed to acknowledge him afresh as the servant of Yahweh. Here was another credential reaffirming Moses as the representative of Yahweh.

Moses did it in the presence of the elders of Israel. They were to be eyewitnesses of the miracle that they might bear testimony to it before the unbelieving people.

Moses did it with Yahweh standing before him there on the rock at Horeb. The phrase translated “standing before you” “frequently denotes the attitude of a servant when standing before his master to receive and execute his commands. Thus Jehovah condescended to come to the help of Moses, and assist His people with His almighty power. His gracious presence caused water to flow out of the hard dry rock.” [3]

It Was a Gracious Display of God’s Faithfulness

Once again, Yahweh is more than equal to the occasion. Never did He lead His people into a testing situation for which He was not sufficient. Although Israel faltered often, God never failed them.

We can be sure He will not begin to fail with you or me. He abideth faithful (2 Tim. 2:13). God is faithful (1 Cor. 10:13).

It Was a Glorious Display of God’s Long-suffering

Without punishing them for their murmuring, He provided for their needs. This was the long-suffering of God. He has an infinite capacity to be injured without paying back. That is long-suffering. It is being long-tempered, slow to be aroused to resentment. It is the direct opposite of being short-tempered. It speaks of God’s self-restraint when injured and offended by man.

In Romans 9:22 we read that God endures with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.

What a wonderful God is our omnipotent, faithful, long-suffering God!

It Was a Divinely Intended Illustration of Christ

This was no cunningly devised fable. It was the Word of God Himself. Of this very generation of Israelites Paul centuries later writes:

They all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4).

Christ Was Struck by God

As this rock on Horeb was smitten by Moses, so our Lord Jesus Christ was smitten by God. Isaiah the prophet says:

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted (Isa. 53:4).

This is the story behind the story of the Cross. True, He was arrested, falsely accused, buffeted, mocked, scourged, unjustly condemned, and cruelly and shamefully crucified. But that is not the whole story. More than all this, He was smitten of God—struck down by Him. He was condemned and punished by God as a guilty lawbreaker. To be sure, it was not for crimes He had committed, but for our crimes, our sins. It was our guilt and judgment that He bore.

He was smitten of God! That substitutionary death has satisfied the claims of our righteous God against the sinner. He has made atonement. He has offered Himself in death as a sufficient and satisfactory payment to appease the righteous wrath of God. Those who trust Him personally as Savior, those who receive Him in a personal way into their life as their own Savior, those who place their faith in Him for their forgiveness and salvation, are saved from the certain judgment of God and enter into a peace relationship with Him forever. There is a suggestion of this in our illustration.

From Christ Flows the Living Water

As from the smitten rock of Horeb there flowed fresh, cool, thirst-quenching water, so from the smitten Son of God there flows living water, water of spiritual life.

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37–39).

Leon Morris helpfully suggests:

The drinking of which Jesus there spoke is possible only to him who comes in faith. And faith has its results. When the believer comes to thirst and drinks he not only slakes his thirst, but receives such an abundant supply that veritable rivers flow from him. This stresses the outgoing nature of the Spirit- filled life. [4]

On this difficult text, William Hendriksen writes:

In a land where water is not always within reach and the heat can at times make one feel very uncomfortable, water is “the one thing needful” in the physical realm. It is, therefore, a fit symbol of salvation, everlasting life. Metaphorically speaking, in a sense all men are thirsty; i.e. by nature all lack the water of life. In another sense, those only are thirsty who have been regenerated and have received the inner call. As a result of the operation of God’s sovereign grace within their hearts, these feel the need of the spiritual water. Though, accordingly, the well-meant invitation leaves all the listeners responsible, only those given to Jesus by the Father will actually come and drink…. When a person drinks of the Fountain, Christ, he never thirsts again (John 4:14, 6:35). [5]

This is beautifully expressed in one of our familiar hymns:

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Behold, I freely give
The living water, thirsty one,
Stoop down, and drink, and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream!
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.

Conclusion

Without doubt, the greatest privilege of my life is to invite you, my reader, as a servant of the Lord, to “come to Jesus and drink of that life-giving stream.” I invite you to believe in Him as the very Son of God who died under your guilt. I invite you to trust Him, and Him alone, with the welfare of your soul, your eternal destiny. I invite you to receive Him into your life as your personal Savior.

May God enable you to do this. As you do, your thirst will be quenched, your soul revived, and you will live in Him.

Notes

1. A. W. Pink, Gleanings in Exodus, reprint ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), 137.
2. A. W. Pink, Gleanings in Exodus, 137.
3. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, trans. James Martin, reprint ed., 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, [= 1864]), 2: 77.
4. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, NICNT, (rev. ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 376–77.
5. William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel according to John, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953–1954), 2:25.