What is the significance of Elim in the Bible?

The next thing was, "They came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees: and they encamped there by the waters" (Ex. 15:27). That is beautiful. They were tested, and they murmured, but God does not chasten them. No matter what you are passing through, if you take it from God, it is accepted as from Him, and blessing is always the result If you take the cup from the devil's hand, you will have to drink it with the devil. But if you take the cup from God you will have God's company, and God's support. Elim is a lovely picture of the tenderness of the ways of God with His people, in the very opening step of the wilderness pathway. When we are converted we are in the same circumstances outwardly perhaps, but all is changed in our souls, for we are no longer slaves of sin in Egypt, but saints of God rejoicing in the freedom wherewith Christ has set us free, and on our road to glory. Refreshment from God meets us at every step, just as He brought Israel to the twelve wells of water, and the seventy palm-trees. These are the very picture of what you would call grace in its fulness giving refreshment and shade. Twelve wells are the completeness of refreshment. Twelve in Scripture is the number expressing completeness in the way of human administration. Seventy palm-trees suggest the perfection of care, in giving shade. The Lord sent out twelve disciples, and then He sent out other seventy (Luke 9:1, Luke 10:1) to minister blessing, and one cannot but connect these numbers at Elim with the twelve and the seventy there. I think then that the twelve wells and the seventy palm-trees are the perfection of the love of the Lord in His desire to meet the need of His people.

Refreshment and shade, are wilderness mercies, and Israel found Elim a very beautiful place, doubtless, but they could not stop there, and you and I have to pass on. When we find an Elim, the very thing that suits our hearts, we would like to settle down, but that God will not permit, and we must again take the road. In Exodus 16 they "came to the wilderness of Sin." There is no mention here of a most pregnant fact, recorded in Numbers 33:10. "And they removed from Elim, and encamped by the Red Sea." Oh, you say, I thought they had done with the Red Sea for ever. Why were they there again? just because they had lost, if I might so say, the sense of the mighty power of the hand that had opened the Red Sea for them. In three days they were murmuring, and wondering what they were to do. God turns the bitter water into sweet, brings them to the twelve wells and the seventy palm-trees, and then says, Go and have another look at the way by which I have brought you out of Egypt.

However, the wilderness has its Elims as well as its Marahs; its wells and palm trees, as well as its bitter waters. "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters." (Ver. 27) The Lord graciously and tenderly provides green spots in the desert for His journeying people; and though they are, at best, but oases, yet are they refreshing to the spirit and encouraging to the heart. The sojourn at Elim was eminently calculated to soothe the hearts of the people, and hush their murmurings. The grateful shade of its palm trees, and the refreshing of its wells, came in, sweetly and seasonably, after the trial of Marah, and significantly set forth, in our view, the precious virtues of that spiritual ministry which God provides for his people down here. "The twelve" and "the seventy " are numbers intimately associated with ministry.

But Elim was not Canaan. Its wells and palm trees were but foretastes of that happy land which lay beyond the bounds of the sterile desert on which the redeemed had just entered. It furnished refreshment, no doubt, but it was wilderness refreshment. It was but for a passing moment, designed, in grace, to encourage their depressed spirits, and nerve them for their onward march to Canaan. Thus it is as we know, with ministry in the Church. It is a gracious provision for our need, designed to refresh, strengthen, and encourage our hearts, "until we all come to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ." (Eph. 4)

"And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out of the land of Egypt." (Chap. 16:1) Here we find Israel in a very marked and interesting position. It is still the wilderness, no doubt, but it is a most important and significant stage thereof, namely, "between Elim and Sinai." The former was the place where they had so recently experienced the refreshing springs of divine ministry; the latter was the place where they entirely got off the ground of free and sovereign grace, and placed themselves under a covenant of works. These facts render "the wilderness of Sin" a singularly interesting portion of Israel's journey. Its features and influences are as strongly marked as those of any point in their whole career. They are here seen as the subjects of the same grace which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and, therefore, all their murmurings are instantly met by divine supplies. When God acts in the display of His grace, there is no hindrance. The streams of blessing which emanate from Him, flow onward without interruption. It is only when man puts himself under law that he forfeits everything; for then God must allow him to prove how much he can claim on the ground of his own works.

Marah being passed, "They came to Elim where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters." They are the divine provision of refreshment for a thirsty people. When we have conformed ourselves to God's conditions we find that the water is not always such as must be sweetened for us, but refreshingly sweet — a pure unalloyed satisfaction and joy, which has no sorrow in it.

It is on this account that it is immediately added, "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters." That is, they at once found refreshment, rest, and shade — the wells and the palm trees being, as one has said, "types of those living springs, and of that shelter which had been provided, through instruments chosen of God, for the consolation of His people." How welcome the rest to the already weary pilgrims! and how tender of the Lord to provide such grateful refreshment for His people in the wilderness! As the Shepherd of Israel, He thus led them, as it were, into green pastures, and made them to lie down by the still waters, to comfort and strengthen their hearts.*

Then afterwards you find that they come to the sweet waters, as also the twelve wells of water and the seventy palm trees. Marah is practical tasting of the cross; Elim, the refreshings of God, in a certain sense complete in itself.

After this they come to Elim. Now they experience the natural consequence of being with God - the full streams of refreshment - as soon as they were really broken down. Had Elim come first, there would have been no sense of their dependence on the Lord for everything, and nature would have been unbroken. But trial produces dependence, and dependence, communion. It is only for this that He delays, for He delights in blessing His people. The numbers 12 and 70 are different figures of perfection: perfect refreshment, perfect shelter, and all this in the wilderness, and rest then.

From Marah now, too, we reach Elim, and here is divine and abundant refreshment for a thirsty people. When we are conformed to God's conditions we find that the water is not always and merely water that must be sweetened for us. There is water which is in itself sweet, — pure, unalloyed satisfaction and joy, which has no sorrow in it.

The twelve springs answering to the twelve tribes, seem to point to a provision for those under the manifest government of God — an obedient people. We must have been at Marah to find Elim. The sweet water must be tasted after the bitter. When we have stooped to drink the bitter water we shall have the sweet.

Elim means "trees," implying strong trees, clearly referring to the growth nourished by its flowing springs. The living water of the Spirit nourishes the "trees of the Lord," which "are full of sap" and the palm-tree is the figure of the righteous, — upright, and every way profitable, — bringing forth fruit still in old age (Ps 92:12, 14) perennial as the streams that nourish them.

As an encouragement from God, Israel is now brought to Elim (meaning “trees”) where were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees. Here was abundant supply of refreshment for the twelve tribes of Israel, with the palm trees furnishing shade from the desert sun. They may have been fruit palms, but we are not told this. But it was a place of rest and refreshment which was intended by God to give them fresh incentive to continue their journey. Believers today too are given such occasions for the stimulating of faith in the path of God.

1889 318 At Elim there is an oasis in the desert, representing the divinely appointed provision of ministry by earthly instruments. There are twelve well-springs (not "wells," b'ehr, but ngahyin, that is, Christ being the hidden well, there are channels or ducts from Him — as apostles, prophets, teachers, and so forth). Twelve; the earthly number, four, multiplied by the heavenly number, three, for it is spiritual ministration dispensed on earth; twelve tribes, twelve gates to the New Jerusalem, twelve apostles through whom the Holy Ghost, the living water, is given; but the palm-trees represent a more general ministry. "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree," (Ps. 92:12) a beautiful simile, expressing not only the elegance and grace that caused the name of the palm (Tamar) to be given to the Jewish maidens; not only that hardy vitality which can live where almost everything else dies; not only that its fruits are sweet and nourishing, its evergreen bough a worldwide symbol of victory and praise, its bark yielding medicine for the sick, or made into mats for the devout, its mass of perennial foliage making "the scorching sunlight dim, That drinks its greenness from the ground," or indicating to the weary traveller afar off across the desert, where the hidden springs are to be found, — that in fact there are three hundred and sixty different uses made of it, alive and dead, by the Arabs; — expressing not only all this, but above all, that participation in the sufferings and glories of the Messiah which caused its branches to be strewn prostrate before Him as He approached Jerusalem to die, and its boughs to be waved in joyous triumph at His ultimate exaltation in the feast of tabernacles. [ "Three" is the number of full testimony, "two" of sufficient. It applies to objects earthly no less than heavenly. Ed. Dr. Angus: Handbook. This remarkable tree, "The princess of the Sylvan race," has sometimes, according to Humbolt, 600,000 flowers, and many thousands of fruits (either dates, cocoa nuts or otherwise). The pith yields sago, etc. It produces everything some tribes use or need, from vegetable ivory to cordage. It gives its best fruit in old age.]

Then they come to Elim. How desirable was this resting-place to the weary pilgrims as they encamped at Elim beside the twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees. As the Shepherd of Israel, God graciously provides the "people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand" with that refreshment, rest and shade so much needed in the wilderness. The words of another will furnish us with the typical meaning of the wells and palm trees: "They are types of those living springs, and of that shelter which had been provided, through instruments chosen of God, for the consolation of His people." This is the place to which obedience leads us; it is not necessary to sweeten these waters — they are already refreshingly sweet to be enjoyed in communion with the Good Shepherd who leads us "by the green pastures and by the waters of quietness." Death's bitter waters met our thirst, Thy cross has made them sweet; Then on our gladdened vision burst God's shady, cool retreat.

At the close of the previous chapter we find the children of Israel enjoying the rest and shade of Elim. In all this we can discern the loving, tender care of their faithful God, in preparation for the next stage of their journey. Elim was but a temporary resting-place, they were still pilgrims; they had yet to traverse the "waste, howling wilderness" that lay between them and the inheritance God had given to them.