their being miraculously fed was their Lord's Supper. They were as signal marks of the divine presence and favour as sa- craments are to us. If their privileges did not prevent their perishing in the wilderness, ours will not save us. If the want of self-denial and vigilance destroyed them, it will destroy us.
4. And did all drink the same spiritual drink ; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them ; and that Rock was Christ.
The water which they drank was spiritual^ because derived from the Spirit, i. e. by the special intervention of God. They all drank {tinov) of it once when first provided, and they con- tinued to drink (cTrtvov) of it, for it followed them. Whatever difficulties may be connected with the interpretation of this verse, two things are therein plainly taught. First, that the Israelites were constantly supplied in a miraculous manner with water ; and secondly, that the source of that supply was Christ. The principal difficulties in the passage are, the de- claration that the rock followed the Israelites ; and that the rock was Christ. How are these statements to be under- stood? 1. Some take the passage literally, and assume that the rock smitten by Moses actually rolled after the Israelites during all their journey. Such was the tradition of the Jews, as is abundantly proved by the quotations from their writings, by Wetstein, Schoettgen and Lightfoot.* According to the local tradition, as old at least as the Koran, the rock smitten by Moses was not part of the mountain, but a detached rock, pierced with holes whence the water is said to have flowed. This view of the passage makes the apostle responsible for a Jewish fable, and is inconsistent with his divine authority. Those who adopt this interpretation do not suppose that the rock actually followed the Israelites, but that the apostle was misled by the tradition of his times. 2. Others say that by the rock following them is meant that the water out of the rock followed them. There is nothing unnatural in this. To say that the vines of France follow the people wherever they go, would be no violent figure to express the fact that the wine produced by those vines followed them. No man at least would be disposed to understand the expression literally.
* Fuit (ille putcus Num. 21, 16) sicut petra, sicut alvcus apum et globosus, et volutavit, &c., ct ivit cum ipsis in itineribus ipsorum. Bammidhbar R S. 1.