Commentary - Exodus 17:1-7

Bird's-eye view

This episode at Rephidim is a potent display of Israel's persistent unbelief and God's stunning, redemptive grace. Fresh from the miracles of Egypt and the provision of manna, the people find themselves without water and immediately pivot to contention and accusation. Their grumbling is not just a logistical complaint; it is a theological lawsuit against God Himself. They put Yahweh on trial, questioning His goodness and His very presence among them. Moses, caught between a rebellious people and a holy God, finds himself in mortal danger.

God's response is not what we would expect. Instead of raining down judgment, He arranges a different kind of striking. In a profound display of typological foreshadowing, God instructs Moses to strike a rock, promising that water will flow from it. As the New Testament makes plain, that Rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). God, in essence, puts His own Son forward to be struck in place of the people, absorbing the judgment they deserved and providing the life-giving water they needed. This event is therefore a gospel tableau, demonstrating that God's answer to human rebellion is the substitutionary suffering of His Son. The names given to the place, Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling), serve as a permanent memorial of both Israel's sin and God's astonishing, Christ-centered salvation.

Outline

Commentary

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

The journey is "according to the command of Yahweh." This is crucial. Their location, and the subsequent lack of water, is not an accident or a miscalculation by Moses. It is a direct result of their obedience to God's explicit guidance. God leads them to a place of thirst. This is a pattern we see throughout Scripture. God frequently leads His people into situations of apparent lack in order to test them, to reveal what is in their hearts, and to display His power to provide. The wilderness is a crucible, designed to burn away the dross of self-reliance and to forge a faith that depends entirely on Him. They were led by the pillar of cloud and fire, so there is no ambiguity here. God Himself has brought them to this waterless place.

2 Therefore the people contended with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you test Yahweh?”

The word for "contended" here is a legal term. The people are bringing a lawsuit, a formal charge, against Moses. Their demand, "Give us water," is not a polite request. It is an ultimatum. They treat Moses as the source of their problem and the one obligated to fix it. But Moses, in his spiritual clarity, immediately sees past the surface complaint. He understands that the quarrel with him is a proxy war. Their real fight is with God. "Why do you contend with me?" is immediately followed by the real issue: "Why do you test Yahweh?" To test God is to put Him on trial, to demand that He prove Himself according to our terms and timetable. It is an act of profound arrogance, treating the Creator as though He were a defendant in the dock, required to justify His actions to the creature.

3 But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to put us and our children and our livestock to death with thirst?”

The grumbling escalates. Their thirst is real, no doubt about it. But their response reveals the deep-seated slavery still in their hearts. They interpret their present hardship not as a test of faith, but as a malicious plot. They accuse Moses, and by extension, God, of murderous intent. "To put us...to death with thirst." This is the language of paranoid unbelief. They have already forgotten the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and the daily provision of manna. In their minds, the God who miraculously delivered them from Pharaoh's army now intends to kill them with dehydration. This is what sin does to the mind: it erases the memory of grace and replaces it with suspicion and accusation. They see their deliverance from Egypt not as a salvation, but as a cruel trick, a bait-and-switch that has led them to a miserable death.

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

Moses is at his wit's end. He is pressed on two sides, by a mutinous people and by the holy standard of God. He doesn't rebuke the people further; he turns to God. This is the proper recourse for every leader in a crisis. He lays the problem, and his own raw fear, before the Lord. The threat of stoning is not hyperbole. The mob is agitated, thirsty, and has already demonstrated its capacity for irrational rage. Moses' life is genuinely in danger. His cry is one of desperation, but it is a desperation rightly directed. He knows that the only solution to this impossible situation lies with Yahweh.

5 Then Yahweh 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.

God's instruction is filled with rich, symbolic meaning. Moses is to "pass before the people," to walk out in front of them, not run from them. He is to do this with the elders as witnesses, establishing this as a formal, public act. And he is to take the staff. Not just any staff, but the specific one "with which you struck the Nile." That staff was an instrument of judgment upon Egypt, turning their life source into blood. Here, it is to be used again, but in a startlingly different way. The instrument of judgment will become an instrument of salvation. This connects God's acts of judgment and mercy, showing they flow from the same sovereign hand.

6 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.

Here we have the heart of the passage, and one of the most profound types of Christ in the entire Old Testament. God says, "Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock." God identifies Himself with the rock. He places Himself on the rock, in the place where the blow will fall. So when Moses is commanded to "strike the rock," who is he truly striking? The Apostle Paul tells us plainly that "that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:4). God is instructing Moses to strike His own Son, typologically. The people deserve the blow. They deserve the judgment represented by the staff. But God, in an act of breathtaking grace, substitutes the rock. He takes the judgment upon Himself. And what is the result of this striking? Life-giving water flows out for the undeserving people to drink. Judgment falls on the substitute, and grace flows to the rebellious. This is the gospel in granite. Moses' simple obedience, "And Moses did so," is a picture of faith acting on God's absurdly gracious command.

7 So he named the place Massah and Meribah because of the contending of the sons of Israel, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, “Is Yahweh among us or not?”

The naming of the place serves as a permanent record. Massah means "testing," and Meribah means "quarreling" or "contending." These names are not a celebration, but a memorial of shame. They are a perpetual reminder of Israel's sin. Yet, in the wisdom of God, they are also a reminder of His grace. At the very place where they put God on trial, He provided for them through the smitten rock. Their ultimate question was, "Is Yahweh among us or not?" This is the fundamental question of faith in every generation. Is God truly with us, especially when circumstances are grim? The irony is that in the very act of their faithless testing, God gave them the most profound possible answer. Yes, He was among them, so much so that He was willing to stand on the rock and take the blow they deserved, turning judgment into a fountain of life.