1. By stages - "after their journeys." It is well to discipline the mind to look at life as a succession of stages. "Most people can bear one day's evil; the thing that breaks one down is the trying to bear on one day the evil of two days, twenty days, a hundred days."

2. According to God's commandment - following still the guiding cloud.

3. It brought them in due course to Rephidim, the scene of a new trial, and of a new theocratic mercy.

I. THE SITUATION. Its horrors can be better imagined than described.

1. The want of water. "There was no water for the people to drink" (ver. 1). Even where water was comparatively abundant, it would be a task of no small difficulty to supply the wants of so immense a multitude. Now they are conducted into a region where water absolutely fails them. The last drop in their water-skins is exhausted. There is a famine of the needful element. Scouts bring in the intelligence that the place is one of utter drought, without streams, wells, rivulets, oozing rocks, or any other means of renewing the supplies. Consternation sits on every face. Dismay is in every heart.

2. The consequent thirst. "And the people thirsted there for water" (ver. 3). The pangs of unallayed thirst constitute an intolerable torture. Hunger is attended by gnawings and tearings in one organ of the body - that concerned in the reception of food. But thirst possesses the whole being. It mounts to the brain. It burns and rages like fever in the blood. Draining the body of its juices, it causes every nerve to throb with acute suffering. "Heart and flesh" cry out for the boon of water. It has been remarked that "I thirst" was the only expression of bodily suffering wrung from our Lord upon the cross.

3. The spiritual analogue. God brought the people into a situation in which they not only experienced acute thirst, but were made to feel that in their sore strait, nature could do nothing for them. If left to the resources of nature, they must inevitably perish. They cried for water, but it was not to be had. The depth said, It is not in me. The thirsty sand said, It is not in me. The sky that was as brass above them said, It is not in me. The dry, dead rocks around said, It is not in us. From no quarter could they extract so much as a drop of the precious liquid. The analogue to this is the condition of the spirit which has become awakened to the emptiness and unsatisfyingness of the world around it, of the finite generally; which feels the need of a higher life than the world can give it. In the renewed nature, it becomes definitively the thirst for God, for the living God, for his love, his favour, for knowledge of him, for participation in his life (Psalm 42:1, 2; Psalm 63:1-3). Under conviction of sin, it is specially the thirst for pardon and holiness (Psalm 51; Psalm 119:41, 81, 123, 166, 174). By bestowing on the Israelites supernatural water to quench their thirst, God declared at the same time his ability and willingness to supply these higher wants of the soul; nay, held out in type the promise of this gift. This is not a far-fetched application of the incident. The word spoken to the Israelites at Marah, "I am Jehovah that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26), gave them a key to the interpretation of this whole series of miraculous facts. We cannot say to what extent they used it; but the key was there. Just as at Marah, the healing of the waters was a symbol of the truth that Jehovah would be their healer in every sphere of their existence; as the gift of manna was the type and pledge of the gift of "that meat which endureth unto everlasting life" (John 6:27); so, in the case before us, was the water from the rock, this supernatural water, an emblem and token of a supply in God for the satisfaction of spiritual thirst, and a pledge to his people that this supply would actually be made available for their wants.

II. THE CHIDING (vers. 1-5). The behaviour of the people (making all allowance for their sore necessity) showed how little they had profited by past experiences of God's kindness.

1. They chided with Moses. This is, they blamed, rebuked, reproved, reproached him for having brought them into this unhappy situation. How unreasonable was this, to chide with Moses, when they knew that in every step by which he had led them, Moses had only done God's bidding. It was God's arrangements they were quarrelling with, not the arrangements of Moses. But it is usually in this indirect way that murmuring against God, and rebellion against his will are carried on. Because of this chiding of the people, the place was called Meribah (ver. 7).

2. They asked Moses for the impossible. They said, "Give us water to drink" (ver. 2). Here was further unreasonableness. They knew very well that Moses could not give them water. There was none to give. Probably they meant that he should supply their wants by miracle. If so, the spirit of their demand was wholly unbecoming.

(1) They addresed themselves to Moses, not to God. They ought to have addressed themselves to God, but they did not.

(2) They did not in a becoming manner ask for the water, but violently demanded it.

(3) The demand was made in a spirit of unbelief. This is evident from verse 7 - "they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?" They did not believe that water could be provided for them.

3. They taunted Moses with design to kill them. This was a further disclosure of their unbelief. Twice, on previous occasions, they had made the same complaint, ostensibly against Moses, but really against God (Exodus 14:11; Exodus 16:3), and twice had God shown them how unfounded were their ungenerous suspicions, lie had saved them from the Egyptians. He had supplied them with bread. Could they not now trust him to supply them with water? Perhaps, as a writer has remarked, had the combination of circumstances been exactly the same as before, their hearts would not have failed them. "But when are combinations of circumstances exactly the same? and when the new combination arises, the old faith is apt to fail" (Gibson on the miracle at Marah, "the Mosaic Era"). This, however, was part of the design, to reveal the Israelites to themselves, and show them the strength of this "evil heart of unbelief" within them, which was ever prompting them anew to depart from the living God (Hebrews 3:12). We have equal need to beware of its operations in ourselves.

4. They were like to stone Moses. Moses speaks, in verse 5, as one driven to his wits' end by the unreasonableness and violence of the mob. He did, however, the right thing - betook himself in his strait to God. There is perhaps no prayer, which in the discharge of public duties, servants of God are more frequently tempted to offer, or do offer with greater heartiness than this, that they "may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for all men have not faith" (2 Thessalonians 3:2).

III. THE DELIVERANCE (vers. 5, 6). God, as before, grants a supply for the people's wants. By bringing streams out of the rock for them, and causing waters to run down like rivers (Psalm 78:15, 16; Isaiah 48:21), he showed how wanton and ungrateful had been their suspicions of him, and how foolishly they had limited his power. Notice -

1. God's loving-kindness in this gift. This was very marked, when we remember how soon the people had forgotten previous mighty works.

(1) The water was given without chiding and rebuke. Save, indeed, as it was itself the most pointed of all rebukes of the unbelief of the murmurers. They had chided with Moses; but God, in return, does not chide with them. He is merciful to their unrighteousness, and seeks to overcome it by showering on them his undeserved benefits. He does not return them evil for evil, but seeks to overcome their evil with his good. It is the same loving-kindness which we see in the Gospel. God seeks to conquer us by love.

(2) The gift was plentiful. All scripture allusions to the miracle confirm this idea (Psalm 78:20; Psalm 105:41; Isaiah 48:21). The tradition was, that the waters continued to flow, and followed the Israelites wherever they went. The Rabbins had a fable that the rock itself, in some way, accompanied the people in their journeys. In a figure, or parabolically even this was true, for the real rock was God himself, whose presence and agency in the miracle is denoted by the words, "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb" (ver. 6). It was probably in the parabolic sense that the Rabbins used the expression.

2. The manner of the gift. This is to be carefully noted.

(1) Elders were to be taken as witnesses of the transaction (ver. 5). This denoted that in what he did, God was looking beyond the immediate supply of the people's bodily wants. The design was, of course, to secure for posterity a properly authenticated account of the miracle. The importance attached to evidence in this whole series of transactions is very marked (cf. Exodus 4:1-10; Exodus 7:9). A similar importance is attached to evidence in the law (Deuteronomy 17:6, 7; Deuteronomy 19:15-21). This suggests to us how far we are, in believing scripture, from relying on "cunningly-devised fables" (2 Peter 1:16). God took pains that his mighty works should not lack contemporary authentication. Christ, in like manner, took security for the transmission to posterity of a faithful account of his words and works, by appointing twelve apostles (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:21, 22). What additional confidence all this inspires in the historic ground-work of our religion! The direction for the appointment of formal witnesses had no doubt in view the character of the miracle as a pledge and type of spiritual blessings. As myths, these miracles might still suggest to us certain spiritual ideas; but their value would be gone as Divine acts, positively pledging the Divine fulness for the supply of "all the need" of the children of faith.

(2) Moses was to work the miracle by means of the rod (ver. 5). The rod appears here as the symbol of the authority with which Moses was invested, and also as the vehicle of the Divine power. The personal character of Moses sinks in this miracle as nearly out of sight as possible. God stands before him on the rock, and is all in all in the cleaving of it, and giving of the water. God is everything, Moses nothing.

(3) The rock was to be smitten (ver. 6). The distinction made between this miracle and that at Kadesh in the 40th year (Numbers 20:7-12), where the rock was only to be spoken to, shows conclusively that the act of smiting was meant to be significant. The smiting was, first, a cleaving of the way for the passage of the waters, which otherwise would not have flowed, as contrasted, in the later miracle, with a renewal of what was practically the same supply. God would plainly have the people recognise a continuity in the supply of water at different-stages of the journey, the outward rock merging in the spiritual and invisible one from which the supply really came, and which was with them at all times and places (cf. l Corinthians 10:4). But this is not the whole. The singular fact remains that the rock was to be smitten, and smitten with the rod wherewith "thou smotest the river." In other words, the way was to be opened for the waters by an act of violence, the smiting here, as in the case of the river, almost necessarily suggesting judgment. If there were indeed in this any typical allusion to the actual mode in which living waters were to be given to the world, viz. by the smiting of the rock Christ, it must have remained an enigma till later prophecies, and ultimately the event itself, threw light upon it. There is, however, nothing extravagant in believing that this form was given of design to the transaction, that, when the truth was known, believing minds, reverting to this smitten rock, might find in it all the more apt and suggestive an emblem of the great facts of their redemption.

3. Its spiritual teaching. The rock points to Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). The waters which flowed from it, accordingly, are to be taken, not simply as streams of literal refreshment for the Israelites, but spiritually, typically, symbolically - may we not almost say sacramentally? - as representative of spiritual blessings. So, in the above-cited passage, the apostle calls the water "spiritual drink," even as the manna was "spiritual meat" (1 Corinthians 10:3, 4). See below. We may extend the figure, and think of Christ, in turn, smiting with his cross the hard rock of the human heart, and causing living waters to flow forth from it (cf. John 7:38). While this obvious lesson is taught in addition, that in providing and ministering spiritual refreshment to his people, God can, and will, break through the greatest outward hindrances and impediments (cf. Isaiah 35:6).

IV. TEMPTING GOD. "They tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?" (ver. 7). The peculiarity of this sin of Rephidim deserves to be carefully noted. Rephidim, it is true, is not the only instance of it; but it is the outstanding and typical one, and, as such, is frequently alluded to in Scripture (cf. Deuteronomy 6:16; Psalm 95:8, 9; Hebrews 3:8, 9). The allusion in Psalm 78:18, 19 - "They tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" is to the incident in Numbers 11. Comparing the different scripture references to this sin of "tempting," it will be found that both in the Old and New Testaments, it is invariably connected with the idea of proposing tests to God, of putting him in some way to the proof, of prescribing to him conditions of action, compliance or non-compliance with which is to settle the question of his continued right to our trust and obedience. It is the spirit which challenges God, and is even peremptory in its demand that he shall do as it requires, if, forsooth, he is not to fall in its esteem. It is, as in the gospels (Matthew 16:1, etc.), the sign-seeking spirit, which, not satisfied with the ordinary evidences, demands exceptional ones, and lays down conditions on which belief in the revealed word is to be made to depend. Cf. Renan's demand for "a commission, composed of physiologists, physicists, chemists, and persons accustomed to historical criticism," to sit in judgment on the miracles ("Life of Jesus," Introduction). It is, in short, the spirit which requires from God proofs of his faithfulness and love other than those which he has been pleased to give us, and which even presumes to dictate to him what these proofs shall be. It is, therefore, a spirit which carries distrust on the face of it, and is, besides, daringly presumptuous and irreverent. This furnishes the key to Christ's second temptation in the wilderness. It was a temptation to put his father's care and faithfulness to the test by casting himself down from the pinnacle of the temple (Matthew 4:5-8). And he repelled it by quoting the passage in Deuteronomy which alludes to this sin of Massah, "Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 6:16). It is forgotten by those who are guilty of this sin, that God brings us into situations of trial, not that we may test him, but that he may test us. Professor Tyndall's proposal of a prayer-test may be cited as a not irrelevant illustration of the type of transgression referred to. - J.O.

II. THE ALTAR A RECORD OF RELIGIOUS DUTY.

1. The duty of diligently using the means at hand in doing our proper and appointed work. Moses chose the general. Joshua chose the fittest men. The men chose their weapons.

2. The duty of encouraging those who may be in peculiar danger. Moses to Joshua (ver. 9).

3. The duty of rendering willing sympathy and aid. Israel hastening to the rescue of the feeble, etc., who were attacked.

III. THIS ALTAR AN EXPRESSION OF PIOUS SENTIMENTS.

1. Of faith. Flushed with success, remembering much individual prowess, they acknowledge that their victory was from another source.

2. Of gratitude. The altar left behind would teach all desert travellers to trust in the Lord.

3. Resolution for the future. They would only fight for the right, and under this banner. We too have a banner (Isaiah 11:10). Must be united (Isaiah 11:12, 13), and rally round it (Psalm 60:4; Song of Solomon 2:4).

(J. C. Gray.)