And all the assembly of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, according to their journeys, at the command of Jehovah; and they encamped in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink.
Exodus 17 opens with a march God Himself directed and ends at a camp with nothing to drink. Why would God's own guidance lead a redeemed people to a place with no water?
The verse says the people moved at the Lord's command. One writer asks whether redemption means smooth going from then on.
No fear of enemies on the way: to faith they are powerless. Full confidence belongs to redemption. Is it then, as men would say, all plain sailing now? Not at all. It is the wilderness, and there is no water; and note this — it was by the Lord's command they pitched in Rephidim.
Another writer separates the need itself from what Israel did with it.
Moving on from the wilderness of Sin, they camped in due course at Rephidim, with two stations in between, Dophkah and Alush (Num. 33:12-14). At Rephidim they wanted water, so they murmured again. Now there was nothing wrong in being hungry in the wilderness of Sin, or being thirsty at Rephidim. These are natural conditions of the creature no longer in Paradise. But their failure was in murmuring, and in seeing Moses as the cause of their condition — that is, of being without water. God, who had led them through the Red Sea, was leading them still, for they moved on "according to the commandment of the LORD" (17:1). If God was leading, then their arrival at Rephidim must be right.
Why bring a nation to a place with no supply at all? Because the absence is what makes room for the gift.
The wilderness was not part of His purpose, but it forms an essential part of His ways. It shows us that we have no resource of our own. It makes known the unfailing resources of divine power, grace and wisdom for every emergency of the wilderness path (see Deut. 8:2-6). Had they been able to get bread in the wilderness, there would have been no need to send bread from heaven. Had they found water, it would not have been necessary to bring water out of the rock. Everything was met by the fullness of divine resource. But God's provision is not measured by the needs of the wilderness. The need only gives Him the occasion. God displays His power in meeting the need, and also His grace in the overflowing abundance of His giving. … To be in the wilderness is not a condition of failure, but a consequence of redemption.
The manna had only just begun to fall.
If we did not know something of the humiliating evil of our own hearts, we could not explain Israel's astonishing insensitivity to all the Lord's goodness, faithfulness and mighty acts. They had just seen bread coming down from heaven to feed six hundred thousand people in the wilderness. Now they are "ready to stone" Moses for bringing them out into the wilderness to kill them with thirst. Nothing can exceed the desperate unbelief and wickedness of the human heart, except the superabounding grace of God.
The same writer sets three anxious questions against one answer.
Here are the questions of the wilderness: "What?" "Where?" "How?" Faith has a brief but comprehensive answer to all three, namely, GOD! … We certainly need to remember, when we are in trial, that "no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13). Whenever we get into trial, we may be confident that with the trial there is a way out. All we need is a broken will and a single eye to see it.
The thirst is answered later in the chapter, and one writer reads that scene as a picture of Christ.
In Exodus 17 we do not have Christ given from above, the bread of God for us while we are in the world. We have the rock struck with Moses' rod, and the waters flow out abundantly. It was the last place where anyone would have looked for refreshing streams. But the rod of God strikes the rock, and the people drink of the waters it gave out. … The free gift of the Spirit of God to us in our thirst and weariness rests simply on Christ suffering for us. He came under judgment, the rod of God applied to that rock.
- Commanded. The route was God's, not a wrong turn — so the dry camp at Rephidim was exactly where His leading placed them.
- Emptied. Having no water was not a failure of the guidance; it was the emptiness that made room for a supply only God could give.
- Exposed. Thirst was no sin; murmuring was. The need did not create the unbelief, it revealed it — just after bread fell from heaven.
- Answered. To the wilderness questions "What? Where? How?" faith replies with one word: God — and every trial He permits carries its own way out.
- Supplied. The water came from a struck rock — the last place anyone would look. That is the pattern: Christ suffering, and the Spirit given freely to the thirsty.
And the people contended with Moses, and said, Give us water, that we may drink! And Moses said to them, Why do ye dispute with me? Why do ye tempt Jehovah?
God had just fed Israel with manna, and now they camped at Rephidim, where there was no water. Their thirst turned into a quarrel with Moses, and he named the real problem: they were testing the Lord.
The people turned on Moses because God was not in their thoughts. One writer shows what testing the Lord meant:
There was "no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink." This is unbelief. It always forgets grace and always turns to second causes. God was not in the thoughts of Israel, who only quarrelled with Moses. This was tempting Jehovah. They doubted that He was among them, and doubted that He was there to care for them. And they doubted after He had given the most magnificent and varied proofs of His power on their behalf, right up to the last moment. Why not ask water from Him who had given them meat in the evening, and filled them with bread in the morning?
Moses stood before Israel on God's behalf. That is why the quarrel could not stop with him:
The people quarrelled with Moses. But in reality, as Moses said, they tempted the Lord (v. 2). By their actions they were saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?" (v. 7.) Moses was their appointed leader, and so he was Jehovah's representative for the people. To quarrel with him was to quarrel with the Lord. To complain of their hardships was in fact to doubt the Lord's presence, if not to deny it. If they had believed that He was among them, every murmur would have stopped.
The timing is what startles. Bread from heaven had only just fallen:
If we did not know something of the humiliating evil of our own hearts, we could not explain Israel here at all. Nothing moved them — not the Lord's goodness, not His faithfulness, not His mighty acts. They had just seen bread coming down from heaven to feed six hundred thousand people in the wilderness. Now they are "ready to stone" Moses for bringing them out into the wilderness to kill them with thirst. Only one thing goes beyond the desperate unbelief and wickedness of the human heart: the overflowing grace of God.
The chapter before asked about food; this one asks about drink. The same writer sets both beside faith's answer:
It is interesting to note the two great questions raised by unbelief, in this chapter and the one before. They are exactly like the ones that come up, within us and around us, every day: "What shall we eat? and what shall we drink?"... But here are the questions of the wilderness: "What!" "Where!" "How?" Faith has a brief but complete answer to all three: GOD!
Two names came out of this scene. Their meanings say what happened here:
Massah means temptation, and Meribah means contention. The Spirit uses these names on purpose. They describe the moral state of the people and prove beyond dispute their hardened hearts of unbelief toward God. In quarrelling or contending with Moses, God's representative, they were in fact contending with God. They put Him to the proof by doubting His presence among them, and in effect denying it.
Dennett names the cure for the same failure in us:
This shows how solemn the sin of murmuring and complaining about wilderness trials is. At the same time it teaches us that the essence of all such complaint is doubting whether the Lord is with us. So the antidote... is a firm, unwavering hold on the truth that the Lord is among us, and that He leads His people like a flock through every stage of their wilderness journey.
God answered the quarrel with water. The way it came carries its own meaning:
Israel, as we are, was in a "dry and thirsty land," and they needed water; they needed life. There is no life for the sinner unless the judgment of God — the wages of sin — falls on someone... God told Moses to take his rod, the rod he had received in the place of judgment, and to strike the rock with it. It spoke of the judgment of God falling. It fell not on the sinful, murmuring people, but on Christ, who on the cross was made sin for us. The Rock bore the blows due to them, and from the split Rock the waters flowed — the living waters.
- Thirst. The need at Rephidim was real. But Israel demanded instead of asking, because unbelief turns to second causes and not to God.
- Quarrel. They argued with Moses. He stood there as God's representative, so the complaint went straight past him to the Lord.
- Test. Testing God meant doubting He was there at all — asking "Is the LORD among us or not?" after proof upon proof of His power, right up to the manna.
- Names. Massah means temptation and Meribah means contention. The Spirit keeps both names as a record of what unbelief sounds like.
- Water. God answered with water from a struck rock. Judgment fell on Christ so that living water could flow.
And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why is it that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?
The camp had moved at God's command. At Rephidim there was no water, and thirst turned into open accusation against the man who led them out. Why does a real need make the heart blame the leader instead of trusting the God who is leading?
The need itself was no failure of faith. One writer separates the need itself from the sin. He also points out who chose the campsite:
There was nothing wrong in being hungry in the wilderness of Sin, or being thirsty at Rephidim. These are natural conditions for people who no longer live in Paradise. But their failure was in murmuring, and in viewing Moses as the cause of their condition — that is, without water. God, who had led them through the Red Sea, was leading them still... If God was leading, then their arrival at Rephidim must be right.
They spoke to Moses, but their words went further. Moses had already named the real target of their grumbling. Behind their accusation lay a question about God's presence:
The people quarrelled with Moses. But in reality, as Moses said, they tempted the Lord (v. 2). By their actions they were saying, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" Moses was their appointed leader, so for the people he stood as the Lord's representative. To quarrel with him was therefore to quarrel with the Lord. To complain about their hardships was really to doubt the Lord's presence, if not to deny it. If they had believed He was among them, they would not have murmured at all... The essence of all such complaints is doubting whether the Lord is with us. So the antidote is a firm, unwavering hold on the truth that the Lord is among us, and that He leads His people like a flock through every stage of the wilderness journey.
after
Bread from heaven had just fed the whole camp. Yet these same people accused Moses of leading them out to die. Their reaction exposes the human heart:
They had just seen bread descending from heaven to feed six hundred thousand people in the wilderness, and now they are "ready to stone" Moses for bringing them out into the wilderness to kill them with thirst. Nothing can exceed the desperate unbelief and wickedness of the human heart, except the superabounding grace of God.
Another writer traces the same blank spot: the gift already in their hands taught them nothing about the Giver.
The fact that God fed them with bread from heaven did not satisfy their longings, and it did not suggest to them that He who gave them bread could also find them water. They had no faith.
The chapter contains two reactions to the same shortage. The people demanded from a man; Moses asked God:
Again the people proved themselves a generation with no faith. So they had no ability to profit by their past experience of God's power. They demand water from Moses with bitter reproaches. They are so bitter that they are almost ready to stone him. Moses, however, was a man of faith. He knew where his resource lay, and referred the matter to the Lord.
What followed their accusation was not punishment. One writer weighs their need against their guilt:
They were perishing with thirst, and had no water to drink. But more than this. They were sinners — they murmured; they tempted God, and were ready to stone His servant. So they were unworthy as well as needy. God would have been just to let them perish, for they deserved His wrath and displeasure. But He took the occasion to deal in grace instead of judgment... By striking another in their place, His justice would be satisfied and His mercy could flow freely. This is the way of grace to sinful, helpless people in the cross of Christ, and it was pictured in the struck rock.
Their unbelief becomes the setting for a picture of Christ. One writer answers them from their own history at the Red Sea:
They forgot the power of Him who made water stand like a wall on each side while they passed between. If He made the water into rock, cannot He make the rock into water?... God commands Moses to strike the rock, and water flows freely. That rock is a picture of a greater Rock struck for them, and for us, from whom living waters flow for thirsty souls... In the gospel there is more. On the last day, the great day of the feast, the Lord Jesus stands forth as the Rock about to be struck. He cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink."
- Thirst — being without water was not sin. God Himself had led them to Rephidim, so the campsite was right even when it looked wrong.
- Murmur — the sin was blaming the leader for the circumstance instead of asking the God who had led them there.
- Target — Moses stood as God's representative, so quarrelling with him was quarrelling with the Lord. The real question was whether God was among them at all.
- Forgetfulness — yesterday's bread from heaven taught them nothing about today's water. Unbelief cannot learn from past experience of God's power.
- Grace — needy and guilty, they received no judgment but a struck rock. It points to Christ, who invites everyone who thirsts to come and drink.