1 Corinthians 10:4
New Testament
1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, 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 were all drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness.
Date: 55-57 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Numbers Rabbah 1:2
Aggadah
Rabbinic
When Aaron died, what does Scripture say? And the soul of the people became impatient because of the way (Numbers 20:4), because the sun beat down fiercely upon them. And the well was due to the merit of Miriam. For what does Scripture say? And Miriam died there, and was buried there (Numbers 20:1). And what is written after that? And there was no water for the congregation. How was the well constructed? It was rock-shaped like a kind of bee-hive, and wherever they journeyed it rolled along and came with them. When the standards under which the tribes journeyed halted and the tabernacle was set up, that same rock would come and settle down in the court of the Tent of Meeting and the princes would come and stand upon it and say, Rise up, O well (Numbers 21:17), and it would rise. After that? I brought you quails.
Date: 1200 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... It has been recognized for a long time that 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 is related to certain Jewish haggadic traditions; and so, for our purposes, only the salient features of these traditions and their scriptural background need to be rehearsed ... The image of the well or water following Israel in the wilderness appears to stem from Numbers 21:16-18 ... according to Midrash Rabbah on Numbers 1:1, the connection is made between the well and the "rock shaped like a bee-hive". Hence, there is no doubt that there was a connection between the rock and the well in the development of these traditions; and there is no reason to suppose that this connection did not emerge early in the development of these interpretative traditions. At least, it is evident from I Corinthians 10:4 that Paul was familiar with the tradition of the "following" rock which brought forth water to Israel ..."
Aageson, James W.
Paul's Use of Scripture: A Comparative Study of Biblical Interpretation in Early Palestinian Judaism and the New Testament With Special Reference to Romans 9-11
(pp. 264-266) Mansfield College, the University of Oxford, 1983
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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