The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 22

lea,es us to taste the sharpness of privation, that we may be led to cry after him (Ps. cxix. 81, 82). 2. They came t-0 Mamh, whe,•e the wate1·s were bitte,-. This was a keen and poigna!lt disappointment to them-" sorrow upon sorrow." As usual, it drove the people to murmuring, and Moses to prayer. Bear gently with their infirn;ity. Do them the justice of remembering that there is no record of their murmuring duriug the three pMt days of their great privation in the wilderness. It was this disappoint- ment at the well of Marah which fairly broke them down. Would many of us have borne the trial better? It is ell.SY to sing when the heart is full of a great fresh. joy. But let trial succeed trial, and disappointment follow on disappoiutment, and how soou do the accents of praise die away, to be replaced by moaning and complaint I 'l'ho " Song of Moses," which WI\S so natural on the banks of the Red Sea, would have had a strange sound coming from these dust-parched throats, and faintiug, discouraged hearts. The note of triumph is not easily sustained when the body is siuking with fatigue, a.ud when the wells to which we had looked for refreshment are discovered to be bitter. 'l'ake Marah as an emblem (1) of life's di,sappointmer,ts. Our life-journey is studded with disappointments. Hard to bear in any case, these are doubly bitter to us, when they come on the back of other trials, and cheat us of an expected solace. When friends, e.g., turn their backs on us in time of need, or come with cold comfort when we eKpected ready help, or give chiding instead of sympathy; when trusted projects fail, or fond anticipations are not realised; most of all, when God himself seems to desert us, and grants no answer to our prayers; the waters given us to drink are bitter indeed. (2) Of life's bitter experiences generally. "c~u me not Naomi," said the mother- in-law of Ruth, "call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me" (Ruth i. 20). The only wells that never become bitter are the "wells of salvation" (Is. xii. 3}-the waters of Divine consolations (cf. John iv. 14). The waters of our creature-comforts admit of being very easily embittered- Relationships, friendships, possessions, business, social position---!lweet to-day, an:y or all of these may be made bitter to us to-morrow. The life of Israel was made "bitter" by bondage (eh. i. 14). God dealt "bitterly" with Naomi in ta.king husband and sons from her, and reducing her to poverty (Ruth i. 21). Hannah was "in bitterness of soul" because she had no child, and" her adversary provoked her sore, for to make her fret" (1 Sam. i. 6-10). Job was embittered by his afflictions (Job vii. 11; ix. 18; x. 1). The tears of the Psalmist were his meat day and night, while they continually said unto him, where is thy God? (Ps. x.lii. 3). Mordecai cried, when the decree went forth against his natiou, "with a loud and bitter cry" (Esther iv. 1). Bitter waters there a.re, too, in our own hearts, and in society, engendered by sin-by the presence of envy, jealousy, strife, hatred. malignity, and revengefulness. No scarcity, then, of Mara.h experiences, no want o,_ wells that stand in need of the healing tree being cast in to sweeten them. 3. Gal's ends in perm,itting Israel, to suffer these severe privations. We do not ask why God led the Israelites by this particular way, since probably there was no other way open by which they e-011,ld have been led. But we may very well ask why, leading them by this way, God, who had it in his power to supply their wants, permitted them to suffer these extreme hard.ships? (1) We may glean one hint in reply from Paul's experience in 2 Cor. xii, " Lest," he says, "I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Sa.tan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" ( ver. 7). (~) A second hint is to be drawn from ver. 25-" There he proved them" Of. Dent. viii. 2 -" To humble thee, and prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whe_tjier thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no." We do not know what ~nbelief, what rebellion, what impatience there is in our hearts, till trial comes to dr_aw 1t out. II. THE BITTER cHA.NGED INTO THE SWEET. Moses, we read, "cried unto the Lord, and he showed him a tree which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were ma.de sweet" (ver. 25). Observe, 1. The agency employed. '!'he tree ~ad probably some peculiar properties which tended in the direction of the result which was pro- duced thouub of itself it was incompetent to produce it. The supernatural does not., as a ~ule, c~n'travene the natural, but works a.long the existing lines, utilising ~he natural so far as it goes. 2. The spiritunl meaning. Tha~ Go?_ intended _t~e healmg of these bitter waters to be a "siun " to Isra.el--a. proof of his ab1hty and w1llmgness to heal them of all their natw·al aml~piritual diseases, is abundantly plain from vers. 25, 26. CH. XV. '.l'.l-'.li.] THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 23