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Exodus

About this book
Chapter 17

1 The whole community of the Israelites traveled on their journey from the wilderness of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. Now there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So the people contended with Moses, and they said, “Give us water to drink!”⁠ Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people were very thirsty there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said, “Why in the world did you bring us up from Egypt—to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” 4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What will I do with this people?—a little more and they will stone me!” 5 The Lord said to Moses, “Go over before the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go. 6 I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb,⁠ and you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink.”⁠ And Moses did so in plain view of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”⁠ 8 Amalek came and attacked Israel in Rephidim. 9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out, fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 10 So Joshua fought against Amalek just as Moses had instructed him, and Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Whenever Moses would raise his hands, then Israel prevailed,⁠ but whenever he would rest his hands, then Amalek prevailed. 12 When the hands of Moses became heavy, they took a stone and put it under him, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, and so his hands were steady until the sun went down. 13 So Joshua destroyed Amalek and his army with the sword. 14 The Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in the book, and rehearse it in Joshua’s hearing; for I will surely blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”⁠ 15 Moses built an altar, and he called it “The Lord is my Banner,” 16 for he said, “For a hand was lifted up to the throne of the Lord—that⁠ the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 17:2 and Judith 7:27

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

In Exodus 17 the Israelites face a water crisis and demand that Moses surrender, preferring slavery to death by thirst. Judith 7 reworks this scene with Bethulia's people making the same desperate plea during the Assyrian siege.

Passages

Exodus 17:2

Hebrew Bible
1 The whole community of the Israelites traveled on their journey from the wilderness of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. Now there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So the people contended with Moses, and they said, “Give us water to drink!” Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people were very thirsty there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said, “Why in the world did you bring us up from Egypt—to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” 4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What will I do with this people?—a little more and they will stone me!”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Judith 7:27

Deuterocanon
24 “God be judge between all of you and us, because you have done us great wrong, in that you have not spoken words of peace with the children of Asshur. 25 Now we have no helper; but God has sold us into their hands, that we should be laid low before them with thirst and great destruction. 26 And now summon them, and deliver up the whole city as prey to the people of Holofernes, and to all his army. 27 For it is better for us to be captured by them. For we will be servants, and our souls will live, and we will not see the death of our babies before our eyes, and our wives and our children fainting in death. 28 We take to witness against you the sky and the earth, and our God and the Lord of our fathers, who punishes us according to our sins and the sins of our fathers. Do what we have said today!”
100 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Judith

References

"... The clearest hints are an allusion to Exodus 17:7 in Judith 13:11 and allusions to the blessing of Levi in Deuteronomy 33:8-11 in Judith 9:1, 9 and 13:4, 7, which imply an analogy between Judith and Levi. As we have seen, the Massah and Meribah episode in Exodus 17:1-7 ends with a short flashback: "He [Moses] called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying: 'Is the Lord among us or not?'" (17:7). The brief question at the end of verse 7 "Is the Lord among us or not?" can be connected with the situation in Judith 7-8 and the theme of testing through water shortage. ..."
Silvia Castelli and Jan Willem van Henten, “Massah and Meribah Re-interpreted: Biblical Accounts, Judith, and Josephus,” in The Early Reception of the Torah, ed. Kristin De Troyer et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), 32–33.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Exodus 17:2 and Judith 7:27

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