Exodus 17:1
Hebrew Bible
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?”
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Numbers 20:8
Hebrew Bible
6 So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting. They then threw themselves down with their faces to the ground, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 8 “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth its water, and you will bring water out of the rock for them, and so you will give the community and their beasts water to drink.” 9 So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, just as he commanded him. 10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the community together in front of the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring water out of this rock for you?” 11 Then Moses raised his hand, and struck the rock twice with his staff. And water came out abundantly. So the community drank, and their beasts drank too.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Numbers 21:18
Hebrew Bible
16 And from there they traveled to Beer; that is the well where the Lord spoke to Moses, “Gather the people and I will give them water.” 17 Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well, sing to it! 18 The well which the princes dug, which the leaders of the people opened with their scepters and their staffs.”And from the wilderness they traveled to Mattanah; 19 and from Mattanah to Nahaliel; and from Nahaliel to Bamoth; 20 and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the country of Moab, near the top of Pisgah, which overlooks the wastelands.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (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
Tags:
Notes and References
"... In Exodus 17:1-7, the people of Israel are encamped at Rephidim but there is no water for them to drink. Because of their thirst, the people grumble against Moses, and Moses calls out to God. He is instructed to strike the rock at Horeb, whereupon water will flow from the rock. Having done this and received the water, Moses names the place Massah and Meribah. In Numbers 20:1-13, a related story is recorded. On this occasion, the people of Israel are at Kadesh, but once again they are without water. Moses is instructed to tell the rock to bring forth its water. He strikes the rock with his rod and water comes forth; in the scriptural text, it is announced that these are the waters of Meribah. That the waters from the rock at both Rephidim and Kadesh are called Meribah has apparently suggested that water from the same rock is present in both places ... The image of the well or water following Israel in the wilderness appears to stem from Numbers 21:16-18 and in Midrash Rabbah on Numbers 1:1 it is written ..."
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. 264-265) 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.
Your Feedback:
User Comments
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.