Drink From The Rock
Last week in Exodus 16 we looked at the story of the manna, and I mentioned that there’s a key theme in the story that shows up all throughout the Old Testament. It’s the theme of human sinfulness and God’s gracious provision.
If the Old Testament is going to teach us anything, it’s going to teach us that people sin and deserve God’s judgment but God still gives grace.
Humans are God’s creatures, created in his image, made by him to find their fulfillment in him, and yet they — we — rebel against him. We have sinned against God. But God — who has every right to just be done with all of us — he chooses to show grace. We see this as early as Genesis 3 with Adam and Eve, and then of course with Noah, and then Abraham, and Issac, and Jacob, and then Joseph, and now with this new nation called Israel.
Here in Exodus 17 we see once again this theme of sin and grace, and it actually follows the same pattern we saw back in Chapters 15 and 16. Here’s that pattern:
First, Israel grumbles.
Second, God graciously provides.
Third, it’s called a test.
The main difference in Chapter 17 is that this time it’s not Yahweh who tested Israel, but Israel tested Yahweh — which is not good. And we need to talk about that. So that’s actually one of three lessons we find in our passage, and for the sermon we’re going to spend some time looking at each of these three lessons. I’m want to go ahead and tell you what they are, and I’m going to frame them as exhortations. Three lessons:
Beware the test you must fail to give.
Remember God’s presence transcends your circumstance.
Drink from the Rock in wonder and joy.
Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, we have tasted and seen that you, indeed, are good. You have given us spiritual food and drink, and we believe, right now, as Jesus has promised, that we will live forever. We are a people who are going somewhere, and we need you to lead us along the way, even in this moment. In Jesus’s name, amen.
1) Beware the test you must fail to give.
Let’s look at verse 1:
All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:1)
Now, again, this is not the first time we’ve seen the people of Israel be upset with Moses. (This is actually like the fifth time if we start counting back in Chapter 5.) But notice three key words in these first few verses. The words: quarrel, test, and grumble.
“Quarrel” is new word. “Test” has a different context and meaning than it did in Chapter 16. And “grumble” is exactly like we’ve already seen in the last two chapters — except I think these other two words help us understand grumbling better. We get a better glimpse into what grumbling is, mainly because we see it in this verbal package with to quarrel and to test. All these words together are supporting and giving meaning to one another. Let’s look at grumbling first.
Grumbling Again
Grumbling in verse 3 comes after the words quarrel and test, but since this is the third time we’ve seen the word we’re going to start with it. This really is like “Grumbling 3.0.”
We saw last week that the meaning of grumbling is to complain about someone in an accusatory way. It’s not just to decry a situation, but it’s to decry and situation and blame somebody for it. And remember, we saw that grumbling is different from groaning. We groan because of the suffering we experience in this world. Groaning is our cry to God for help. For example, it’s what we see in Romans Chapter 8 as part of a broken world. The apostle Paul says:
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruit of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22–23)
I think that is the perfect description of groaning. And notice that it is has a Godward hope. We groan here and now because of our suffering, because this world is broken, but we groan to God. We groan to God and we look to God in hope.
But grumbling is different. I mentioned last week that the Hebrew word translated as grumbling is always negative in the Bible. Rather than asking God for help, grumbling is a cynical spewing of pessimism. It’s to be angry with God the wrong way. And a question we should ask is where’s the line between groaning and grumbling?
Because if you read the Psalms, the psalmists are often extremely raw and honest before God. Like in Psalm 44, where the psalmist prays to God:
“But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies.” (Psalms 44:9)
And then he says, “Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!”
The psalmist in Psalm 44 is telling Yahweh to wake up. That’s an intense way to pray, but even that, I believe, is groaning, not grumbling, mainly because the psalmist is still looking to God in hope. The psalmist is still petitioning God for help. Grumbling doesn’t do that.
Now notice the word quarrel.
Quarrel As in Protest
This is in verse 2: “The people quarreled with Moses.” When we hear the word “quarrel” we might imagine something like a shouting contest back and forth. “Quarrels” are the sort of things that happen between football fans of opposing teams. …
When I was 12 I got to go to my first NFL game. It was in Atlanta — Falcons and Raiders at the Georgia Dome. And at that game I saw some quarrels. Until that point in my life, I had never seen grown adults shout profanities at one another. I didn’t know some of the words. “Dad, what’d he say?” “Nothing, son.” It was a quarrel.
Well, that’s not what is happening here in Exodus 17. A better translation of this Hebrew word is really “to protest.” Or as the old King James Version puts it: “Wherefore the people did chide with Moses.” That’s the idea. These people are chiding.
The word actually has a legal sense to it. It means to present a suit, or to contend against someone. And that’s what the people are doing. Because they didn’t have any water. The people are accusing/chiding/protesting Moses, and part of that protest includes a demand. They protested Moses and said: “Give us water to drink.”
Side-note here: when words are spoken they are never just words, but spoken words are actually doing an action. This is called speech-acts. And we as humans talk this way all the time. For example, the words “I do” in one sense are just two words: “I” and “do.”
Anybody want some pie? I do. — See, in that context that’s a claim.
Or what about those same two words on your wedding day? There “I do” is a commitment. In different contexts, our words are doing different actions. And there are all kinds of categories for these different actions, and one such category is demands. “Give us water” is a demand. And demands are the wrong way to ask God for something.
Another side-note: This is for parents. As parents, we want our children to know the difference between demands and requests. We need to help our kids with this. I’ve heard it said of one family that the kids are taught to never to start any sentence to their parents with the words: “Give me [blank].”
Or most of the time when we actually say the word it’s “Gimme…” Y’all heard it that way? “Gimme this or gimme that.” Well, in this one family when the kids say “gimme” the parents say back: “Who’s Gimme? Last I heard Gimme got his heinie spanked.” Gimme don’t come around anymore.
But here in Exodus 17 the people of Israel are protesting Moses and they’re saying Gimme.
And Moses knows exactly what they’re doing. It’s why he says to them: “Why do you quarrel [or protest] me? Why do you test Yahweh?” Now we are getting to this test.
Talking About the Test
And we need to talk about this test. Notice here how it corresponds to the gimme. Verse 2 starts with the people protesting Moses and saying gimme. And then Moses follows it, “Why do you protest me and test Yahweh? So the test is seen in the people’s demand.
And one tip in reading the Bible is that often the Bible can be its own commentary. Often we should ask: How do certain parts of Scripture interpret other parts of Scripture? Well, this testing in the Bible is always described as a bad thing. Moses tells Israel later in Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah” (Massah is what this place is called).
And then Jesus, in Matthew 4, when he was being tempted by Satan, he quotes Moses from Deuteronomy 6. Satan told Jesus to throw himself off the top of the temple and then the angels would have to come save him. But Jesus says to the devil, “As it is written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Do you see what he’s saying?
Listen to Psalm 78, verse 18. The psalmist looks back to this time after the exodus, and he says: “They [Israel] tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved.” See it there?
The test is the demand, partnered with the protest, spewing from a grumbling heart. The people of Israel are shaking their fist at God, accusing him of wrongdoing, and then presuming upon his provision. They’re basically saying: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! [shaking fist].
And that, church, is a test you must fail to give. What I mean is: Don’t do that.
The only way we could do that is if we’ve lost our entire perspective. Which is apparently what Israel has done here. God has made a way for them when there has been no way. He has already provided them water. He dropped meat in their laps and made bread magically appear on the ground every morning. They’ve seen him do that. They’ve experienced his supernatural provision. Now they arrive at a place that doesn’t have water and immediately they shake their fist. Like: Take it easy, Israel! Yahweh is going to provide.
But here’s the thing: at this point, Israel is not even sure if Yahweh is still around. We can see this over in verse 7, and it actually gives us another angle on the testing. This is our second lesson in the passage.
2) Remember God’s presence transcends your circumstance.
Look at verse 7. This is one of those concluding verses that show up every now and then, and it basically summarizes what happened before it. Verse 7:
And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested Yahweh by saying, “Is Yahweh among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7)
So part of Israel testing Yahweh — part of the gimme — was the belief that Yahweh was long gone. They thought he had left them.
Now why would they have thought that?
It’s simple. They thought Yahweh had left them because there was no water. And in there very broken theology, they could not conceive of a God who would lead them to a place that has no water. Which is what Yahweh had done in verse 1.
Verse 1 tells us that Israel moved in stages “according to the commandment of Yahweh.” So wherever Israel ended up during each move, they were there because Yahweh led them there. But they assumed that the “there” would always have the goodies.
Already, within a month of their rescue, Israel had collapsed together God and his gifts. And they had collapsed them together so badly that when the gift of water wasn’t there right away, they assumed Yahweh wasn’t there. They said: Gimme gimme — if you’re even here!
This is basically the prosperity gospel in Exodus 17. It’s the belief that God always wants you to prosper, and when you’re not prospering either it’s because you’re not doing something right or God has left you — because, according to this distorted way of seeing the world — there is no category that you could be in the right place, doing the right thing, and not be prospering under God’s blessing.
The problem with that is that here in Exodus 17, Israel had followed God to the place he commanded, but at the place he commanded “there was no water for the people to drink.” God led them to a bad circumstance, but they thought that God was nowhere near bad circumstances.
But of course he is. Otherwise, how could God ever raise the dead? The Bible shows us that God can be nearest in the worst of circumstances, but still we so prone to ask — like millions of God’s people over thousands of years — we are still so prone to ask, when things are hard: “God, where are you?”
Church, I want you to know that God’s presence transcends your circumstance. Wherever you’re coming from — whatever it is you have going on — because of Jesus, the presence of God is with you through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
And even long before Jesus sent the Spirit in Acts Chapter 2, the Old Testament saints of God understood this. My favorite passage to see this is Psalm 139. This is the psalmist, David, and he is just reveling in Yahweh’s sovereignty and nearness. He says:
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139:7-10)
God is always there, leading us, holding us. And if that was true for David, how much truer is that for you and me who have been given the Holy Spirit? We are, because of Jesus, indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us that because of our faith in Jesus God the Father “has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” That means that wherever you go, the Spirit goes, because he is in you.
So the circumstances don’t really matter. High, low, heavy, light, hot, cold, north, south, east, west — God’s presence transcends your circumstance. And this is something we need to remember. You hear it now, but I want you to remember it.
And the best way to remember this is to just simply acknowledge it — especially when you’re in the difficult spot. Maybe you’re burdened about something…
Maybe you’re at work and a few things go sideways, or
You’re at home and it’s chaos with the kids, or
You’re alone and you don’t want to be.
Remember, acknowledge: God, you are with me, right now. Even where it’s tough. Even when I’m here and I don’t want to be here. You are still with me here. You, God. Are here. With me.
Remember God’s presence transcends your circumstance.
And, in that place, whatever it is, he will provide what you need. Just like he does it here, again, in Exodus 17. This the third lesson for us:
3) Drink from the Rock in wonder and joy.
Look at verse 5 — Moses has done all he knows he can do: he brings it to Yahweh and asks for help:
And Yahweh said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the 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 shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:5-6)
A wonderful thing has happened here. Yahweh gives merciful, miraculous provision.
We should notice the mercy first. It’s maybe so obvious that we could miss it. The hearts of the people are not in a good place. They have been grumbling again, and protesting Moses, and shaking their fists at God. Even after everything God has done, they still don’t trust him. They still think that he’s not going to provide. They still lie to themselves that they were better off in Egypt.
This is a people who should be overcome by jaw-dropping thankfulness, and they’re just not. They’re angry and bitter, and we can read this story and roll our eyes — but look how Yahweh responds —
Israel shakes their fist and says Gimme … and Yahweh gives. He doesn’t tell Moses to strike the people like they deserved, but instead Yahweh tells Moses to pass on before the people and strike the rock.
Did you hear that?
Do you know of another place where the words “pass on” and “strike” are used together? It’s back in Exodus 12. The Passover. Listen to Exodus 12, verse 23,
For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
Back in Exodus 12, Yahweh told Israel that he would pass over their houses and not strike them if they had the blood on their door. Which was mercy. And the mercy was in the blood. The blood of a lamb that was struck was the only thing that kept Yahweh from striking the people. He passed over the people because of a struck lamb.
And in Exodus 17, Moses, on Yahweh’s behalf, passes over the people to strike the rock.
This would have meant something to them. To the people of Israel on the ground in this story, they would have remembered. They would have gotten the message. I think that’s why God tells Moses to bring some of the elders of Israel with him to see him strike the rock. God wants them to put the pieces together of what’s happening here. The earliest readers of this story would have done that. This is mercy! In a sense, Moses is reenacting the Passover. Hey, don’t you remember who Yahweh is? Remember, we know what he can do. We know we are only here because of his sheer mercy.
This rock is mercy. And it’s a miracle. Verse 6: “You shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it…” Now water doesn’t usually come out of a rock. Because it’s a rock.
None of us ever expects to get a cold glass of water from a rock, which is precisely the point. Water from a rock is like pie on the ground. It’s a miracle. These people are going to get their stomachs full of manna, and now their thirsts quenched by water by an absolute miracle of God.
My kids are loud drinkers. If you’ve ever been around a loud drinker before you know what I’m talking about. Our four-year-old does this the best. He’ll take a swig of his milk or something and then he goes: [swallow] ehhh! You can hear him do this from anywhere in the house. Everybody knows when Noah is drinking! You can hear the Ehh!
Well, imagine an entire nation of Israel doing that here. Verse 6 says “and the people will drink” and I imagine an entire nation lets out this sigh of relief, this outburst of satisfaction — and in that moment they know: this water came from a rock. … it’s from a rock!
This is a miracle, by mercy.
And maybe by then they all would have dropped the rocks they had picked up to stone Moses. Maybe by then they were all drinking from the rock in wonder and joy. Because what is this rock?!
We’re going to hear more about this rock later in the Bible. In fact, forty years after this moment, in the Book of Deuteronomy Chapter 32, Moses sings a song to Israel and he retracing Yahweh’s faithfulness to them, and in the song, five different times, Moses calls Yahweh the “rock.”
Deuteronomy 32, verse 4, “The Rock, his work is perfect…”
Verse 15, “the Rock of [Israel’s] salvation”
Verse 18, “the Rock that bore you”
In Deuteronomy 32 the “rock” is Yahweh, and the only other time that word for “rock” is used in Deuteronomy, it’s to describe this scene of Moses striking the rock (see Deut 8:15).
So here’s the thing: Moses understands that Yahweh providing water from the rock is Yahweh providing from himself. Remember Yahweh stood on the rock when Moses struck it.
The message of the rock in Exodus 17 is the self-giving grace of Yahweh, and that is so much the message that Yahweh himself is called the Rock.
This is all about the self-giving grace of God. Yahweh is the Rock. That’s what Moses is tells us.
And that’s also what the apostle Paul tells us. But listen to this.
1 Corinthians 10, verses 1–4, Paul is describing the exodus here; this is Israel in the desert:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)
So for Moses, Yahweh is the Rock — the Rock is the self-giving grace of God. Well, for Paul, he knows that the self-giving grace of God has a name — and the name is Jesus.
The self-giving grace of God is actually a person, and that person is Christ. That person is Jesus the Messiah. Jesus is the true Rock who was struck to provide for his people. For us.
Because we’re all thirsty, too. We were dying of thirst in the desert of our own sin. And maybe we shook our fist at God, or maybe we just ignored him, or maybe we had an idea of who he is that was just completely wrong. You might even be here this morning and not even know how thirsty you are.
But we’re all dying of thirst until we drink from the Rock that was struck. And Jesus was struck so that you might drink.
That is meaning of the cross where Jesus died. In his self-giving grace, Jesus took God’s judgment against us so that we would have God’s blessing over us. Jesus died so that we would live. Would you live? Drink from the Rock. Put your faith in Jesus.
That is what this Table is about.
Each week as we come to this Table we remember the death of Jesus for us. He was crushed, struck, for the forgiveness of sins, and anyone who trusts in him is indeed forgiven. And if that is you, if would put your faith in Jesus, if you are forgiven, we invite you to come and eat and drink. Drink from the Rock in wonder and joy!
