In Ps. 105, 41, it is said, "He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out ; they ran in dry places like a river," which at least proves that the supply of water was very copious, and flowed to a considerable distance. 3. It is not necessary, however, to assume that either the rock or the water out of the rock fol- lowed them. The rock that followed them was Christ. The Logos, the manifested Jehovah, who attended the Israelites in their journey, was the Son of God who assumed our nature, and was the Christ. It was he who supplied their wants. He was to them the fountain of living waters. He was the spiritual rock of which they drank. The word spiritual may have the same general force here as in the preceding clauses. The bread and water are called spiritual because supernatural. So the rock was a supernatural rock, though in a somewhat different sense. The manna was supernatural as to its origin ; the rock, as to its nature. It is not uncommon for a word to be taken in the same connection in different, though nearly allied senses. Compare the use of this word spiritual in 2, 15 and 3, 1 ; and cfy^etpu and c^^cpet in 3, 17. But in what sense was the rock Christ ? Not that Christ appeared under the form of a rock ; nor that the rock was a type of Christ, for that does not suit the connection. The idea is not that they drank of the typical rock ; it was not the type but the anti- type that supplied their wants. The expression is simply figurative. Christ was the rock in the same sense that he is the vine. He was the source of all the support which the Israelites enjoyed during their journey m the wilderness.
This passage distinctly asserts 'not only the preexist ence of our Lord, but also that he was the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He who appeared to Moses and announced him- self as Jehovah, the God of Abraham, who commissioned him to go to Pharaoh, who delivered the people out of Egypt, who appeared on Horeb, who led the people through the wilder- ness, who dwelt in the temple, who manifested himself to Isaiah, who was to appear personally in the fulness of time, is the person who was born of a virgin, and manifested himself in the flesh. He is called, therefore, in the Old Testament, an angel, the angel of Jehovah, Jehovah, the Supreme Lord, the Mighty God, the Son of God — one whom God sent — one with him, therefore, as to substance, but a distinct person. Our Lord said, Abraham saw his day, for he was before Abraham, John 8, 58 ; John says, 12, 41, Isaiah beheld his glory in the temple ; Paul says, the Israelites tempted him in the wilder-