The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 25

upon them that they were without a home. There wa.s no swift exchange from one Htorehouse of temporal comforts to another. For remember, Egy;,t with all its misery was IL sort of home; there the Israelites had been born and trained; there they had o-ot into a bondage of habits and traditions which was not to be removed in a clay. A~lll now Jehovah would have them understand that to be free and able to serve him meant that they must endure with these privileges the privations of the wilderness. We cannot have everything good all at once. If we would be clear of the bondage of this world's carnal ways, we must be ready for certain consequent and immediate privations. We cannot get away from Egypt and yet take with us the pleasant waters of Eo-ypt. Unless our springs be in God, and heaven begun in the heart, the needful change of external associations may bring little but pain. External circumstances, and to some extent external companionships, may remain the same; the new home feeling must be produced by the change within. 11. WHEN THE ISRAELITES FIND WATER IT 1B BITTER. Imagine, when they see the water after three days privation, how they run to it. But taste dues not confirm sight. The water is not drinkable. Possibly this wa.s a just complaint; although it may rather be suspected that the water, even if bitter, was not 80 bitter but that it could have been drunk by thirsty people. The Israelites, however, were thinking of the sweet waters of Egypt. A little longer privation and they might have, found sweetness even in bitter waters. Still one cannot but consider how it is there should be this difference between the bitter waters and the sweet, between Marah and Elim. And then we are at once reminded that bitterness is no essential part of water, but comes from foreign and separable matters. So the comforts and resources !lowing from Goel get mixed on the way with human and embittering elements; and these elements an, so strong and disturbing that we utterly forget the sweet Divine part because of the discomforts of tbe bitter human one. We are ready to cast all away as if the nauseou,; could not be expelled. When Jesus told his disciples certain things which required a changed mind, and the cr~ation of spiritual perceptivity in order to lay them to heart, they called these things hard sayings; not considering that hardness might be made easiness. In our early experiences of religioD there is sure to be something of the bitter. 'l'hc exhortation, "Taste and see that the Lord is good," is a serious and experimental QDe, yet maDy on their tasting find bitterness. The water of life has flowed through nauseating channels. Moses had his Marah : he got a taste of it even here, and he had full draughts afterwards. (Ch. xxxii. 19; Nu.m. x:i. 10-15; x:ii. l; xiv. 5; xvi. 3.) David also had his Marah. (Ps. xlii. 3 ; lxxx. 5; cii. 9.) One can see a good deal of Marah even in the letters of the Christian Paul to his brethren in Corinth and Ga.latia. He had expected great things from the gifts of the Spirit, and correspondiDgly bitter would be his disappoiDtment. We must have our Marah water to drink. Water may fail altogether for a while, and then when it does come it may seem worse than none at all. III. Gon QUICKLY MAKES THE WATER PALATABLE. Note the request of the people. 'l'hey do not stop to consider even for a moment whether this water, bitter as it is, may be made palatable. They turn from the whole thing in disgust and despair. "What shall we drink ? " If Moses had straightway replied, " Ye shall drink of Marnh," they would have counted him a mocker; yet his reply would have been correct. fo the very things from which we turn as obviously useless, we may be destiDecl to fiDd aD ample and satisfying hupply. Moses himself knew not at the momeDt what they were to drink, but he takes the wise course and cries to Jehovah. More and more does his now habitual faith come out in contrast with the unbecef of the people. With regard to the casting in of the tree, it may have been that the tree had iD itself some salutary effect; but the probability rather is that Moses was asked for aDother pure act of faith. 'l'his is more in harmoDy with the miraculous progressioD observed hitherto. When we remember the multitude that had to be supplied from these ..-aters, there is some- thing ludicrously inadequate in the supposit.ioD that the branches gathered to them- selves the saline incrustatioDs. 'l'he casting iD of the tree was rather a symbolic clrnnDcl for the swceteniDg than the actual cause of it. IV. Goo SEiz~;s THI,; Ol'l'ORTUNITY TO SHOW lsRAl!:L WHEREIN THEIR SA n:TY LIES. "He proved them" (vcr. 25). He points out, as it were, that they ha\'e been subjected to a test aud have failed. At Marnh they ,\re showu forth as iuattcntivc to p,ist expe-  26 THE IlOOK OF EXODUS. [ea. xv. 22-27.