And they came to Marah, and could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah.
Israel has just come through the sea in triumph, and now they reach water they cannot drink — the place is named after the taste. Why did God lead a people He had just redeemed to a spring that could not refresh them?
The word "bitter" has appeared twice already in this story before it becomes the name of a place.
This is the third time the word "bitter" appears in this story. First the Egyptians made the lives of the Israelites bitter with hard slavery. That is recorded in chapter 1:14. Then in chapter 12:8 we read of the "bitter herbs" eaten with the Passover lamb. Now they find bitter water in the wilderness. This picture drives home the bitterness of sin. Sin enslaves people in bitter bondage. If we take the sacrifice of the Lamb of God as our own, we do so as people who must feel inwardly the bitterness of the judgement of death that it involves. In the world, which has now become a wilderness to us, bitterness still meets us. Water would normally speak of refreshment and life. But the world's water turns bitter to us, because its sweetest joys are spoiled by sin.
The taste had a physical cause, and one writer finds meaning in it.
The pools lie low by the shore, and the sea made the water salty then, as it still does. Notice that it is the sea itself that makes the bitterness of Marah. Now, if the sea stands for death, as we have seen, we can see how this shows the wilderness to be the place of death. It gives nothing for our thirst, and what is there only makes us thirstier. That is just what the wilderness is to us as a redeemed people. It is a place where the death we have passed through in Christ, as Israel passed through the sea, meets us and offers itself to our taste.
Up to Marah, everything had gone in Israel's favour.
Up to this point everything seemed to be going smoothly for them. Heavy judgements fell on Egypt, but they left Israel untouched. The army of Egypt lay dead on the shore, while Israel stood in triumph. All this was well enough, but things soon changed. Songs of praise gave way to the sound of discontent.
Israel was already redeemed when they reached Marah. So the hard road to Canaan, the land ahead of them, had another purpose.
It is the wilderness that tests how well we really know God and our own hearts... The discipline of the wilderness is needed. It is not there to give us a title to Canaan. It is there to make us know God and our own hearts, to bring us into the power of our relationship with Him, and to enlarge our capacity to enjoy Canaan when we get there.
One writer names what the bitter pool looks like today.
A Christian learns the joy of God's salvation and sets out on the journey with a bright and eager step. Then trouble comes. Hard times set in. Business losses follow. Old friends grow cold. There is no work to be had, and his children have no bread. He finds something that seems to be the answer. It turns out to be "bitter water."... It is Marah for that soul.
Sometimes the trouble comes because of the new allegiance itself.
People sometimes think that those who turn to the Lord will have no more difficulties or troubles from then on. But it is not so. In fact, troubles often thicken around them for that very reason... These are hard experiences. They are the waters of Marah. They are so bitter that we could not drink them at all. We would only complain and be discontented if the tree were not at hand to cast into them.
God does not drain the pool or replace it. He heals it with a tree cast into the water.
What a beautiful picture this is of Him! In infinite grace He was cast into the bitter waters of death, so that those waters would yield nothing but sweetness to us for ever. We can truly say, "the bitterness of death is past," and nothing is left for us but the eternal sweetness of resurrection.
- Bitter. The name records the taste. The same word described Israel's slavery in Egypt and the herbs eaten with the Passover lamb. Now it names the water of a free people.
- Bitter because of the sea. The pools lay low by the shore, and the salt of the sea spoiled them. The death Israel had passed through met them again on the other side.
- Bitter enough to stop the song. Praise on the shore became discontent at the pool. The change showed what the singing had not.
- Bitter by design. The desert did not buy their title to Canaan. It was how they came to know God and their own hearts before they enjoyed the land.
- Bitter made sweet. God did not remove the pool; He changed it. It pictures the One cast into the waters of death, so that death now yields nothing but sweetness to us.
And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
Three days after singing about the Red Sea rescue, the same crowd stands at water they cannot drink and turns on the man leading them. The complaint is short, but it exposes what redemption had not yet changed and raises the question of why God led them to bitter water.
The distance between the two moments is what strikes the commentators first. Praise on the shore gave way, within days, to protest in the desert.
People have often noticed this. The song that burst from redeemed Israel on the banks of the Red Sea had barely died away before they began to murmur against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" They had been slaves under the harsh yoke of Pharaoh, but they were not ready for the hardships of the desert. So rebellion filled their hearts, and murmurs filled their lips.
Moses had not chosen the route, and he had not made the water bitter. The pillar of cloud had led them to that spot.
Three days without water, and then water too bitter to drink! What a bad situation they seemed to be in. The water they had reached was bitter. They called it Marah, which means bitter… Who could change water that was bitter because of the rock it came from? The people murmured against Moses. But he was not responsible for the nature of the soil, nor for the character of the water. Had he misled them? That could not be, for the pillar of cloud was with them.
The trial was not a sign that God's love had cooled. It probed them, not Him — a test that brought hidden things to the surface.
Yet it is a dreadful thing to have no water; in those countries it meant certain death. Had He then brought them through the Red Sea and to Himself to kill them with thirst? When at last they did come to water, it was bitter. But this was to prove them, and to bring out what was in their hearts. The bitter water did not show what was in God's heart (redemption had shown that); but in their hearts lay much that God had to expose and correct. Being redeemed for ever, they must learn that there is nothing for them in the wilderness. Every supply must come from God Himself.
Complaint looks harmless. Writers treat it as one of the gravest failures of the whole journey, because of what it says about God.
Don't murmur, Christian, for it is a most unchristian, a most ungodly thing to do. Nothing dishonours God more, nothing does greater damage to the soul. Of all the sins Israel committed in the wilderness, it was the chief one. It meant that they did not believe their God was fit to be trusted. It did not change His merciful care for them, but it did stir up His just anger against them.
Yet God answers at Marah with patience, not rebuke. One writer notes that they were not yet under law but under grace: "He does not scold them for their murmuring, but warns them" (An Outline of Sound Words).
Set the people's question beside what Christ said when the Father gave Him His cup. The difference is total. The tree God gave for the bitter water points to the cross.
"And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, 'What shall we drink?'" Christ always said, no matter what was in the cup, "Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?" How different these two questions are!… If sorrow meets us, cast the tree in. Connect the cross with it, and the love of God shown there. Remember that Christ bore the bitterness of expiation, and everything will be sweet to you.
Nothing the people did changed the water. The cure came from God's side, on God's terms.
What could Moses do in such a situation? Only look up… So the Lord sweetens the bitter waters. Their murmurings did not sweeten them, and no method of their own devising did either. It was the Lord's own remedy, applied according to His own directions. He alone can sweeten the bitter cup, but He always can, and He always does — blessed be His name. Better to have a bitter cup with the Lord to sweeten it, than to have no bitter cup at all.
- Redeemed — The rescue at the Red Sea was real and complete. It never promised a road without bitter water.
- Tested — The bitter water showed nothing new about God's heart. Redemption had settled that. It showed what was in theirs.
- Murmured — The complaint hit Moses, but it was distrust of God. Writers call it the chief sin of the wilderness years.
- Looked up — Moses met the same bitterness by looking up. The remedy came from God, not from the people's protests or their own ideas.
- Sweetened — Put the cross into a cup you cannot drink, and you can drink it. Christ took His own cup from the Father's hand.