What a set of people these children of Israel were?
They loved God they hated God, they give praise they cursed; they said thank
you Lord for delivering us; they said Lord why did you bring us out of Egypt to
die? If those very people who were the
immediate recipients of his goodness, mercy and grace turned against Him in
their day, is it any wonder that future generations shouted crucify Him?
God gave
them manna in the wilderness of Sin, and filled, they journeyed on from there
to Rephidim where they found that there was no water there. Of course they needed water. The water they had drunk at Marah was water
already past the gullet and could not refresh them there; it would have been
reasonable and meet for them to cry out to the Lord and ask for water; but true
to their fickle nature they murmured against Moses and against God.
“Moses,”
they shouted at him angrily, “why hast thou brought us to this place out of Egypt to kill
us of thirst?”
Therefore
Moses took the complaint of the people to the Lord. “Lord,” Moses cried unto Him, “What shall I
do with this people? They are ready to
kill me.”
God
instructed Moses to go on before the people, taking the elders of the people
with him and also the rod with which he had struck the red sea. “Behold said God,
I will stand before you upon the rock at Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock
and there shall come water out of it for the people to drink.”
So in the
presence of the elders, Moses smote the rock and water came out. And Moses
called the name of the place Massah and Meribah; because of the striving of the
children of Israel ;
and because they tested the Lord and said, “Is He still among us or not?” More
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