The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 66

feeling for the wa.ter supply; and, missing it, they ask for it. Then they wait awhile, ,rnd, of cour~e, the longer they wait the more thirst begins to assert itself. Their childre~ cry; and all the cattle signify, in an equally impressive way, their want of water. (Remember what a terrible calamity the want of water is in eastern countries.) No wonder then that increasing thirst drove the Israelites to the bitter complainings ofver. 3. It was not without a profound reason in the plans of God that waterless Rephidim lay so near Sinai. He will make his people to know the utter privations that belon" to Rephid.im as well as the bitterness of Marah and the abundance of Elim. Thus they passed in a very remarkable way, and in a very short time, through three gteat repre- sentative experiences with regard to the resources of nature. They found those resources existent but impaired at Marah; well-nigh perfect at Elim; and at Rephid.im alto- gether absent. Then, to add further to the significance of Rephid.im, God made the people to wait there till their want of water became little short of agony. Not that he delights in inflicting pain; but pain is often needful to teach great lessons. He seems to have made them wait longer at Rephid.im where there was no water, than at Marah where the water was only bitter. Hence the exasperation, defiance, almost despair which find utterance in their second cry. For all they can see, they are on the point of death; they, their children and their cattle. And yet this very reference-excusable as it might be in their half-maddened state-suggested at once its own confutation. God had worked by special interventions to bring those very children and cattle out of Egypt intact. Those first-born especially, for whom the lamb had been slain and the blood ~prinkled, was it likely they would perish from a thing so entirely within Divine control as lack of water? The truth seems to be that one more great discovery had to be made by Israel before they came to Sinai. They had known Jehovah appearing to them in bondage and more and more manifesting his power; giving them at last an exceeding abundant deliverance from bondage and overwhelming their great enemy in all his strength.. These were all completed experiences. There remained one thin;.( more, namely that they should be made to feel their dependence on Jehovah for bread. and water. That dependence must be taught in the most practical way, before he pro- ceeded formally to ask as he did at Sinai, for the unreserved regard and obedience of his people. IV. 'l'ms OCCASION EVIDENTLY BECAIIIE THE 111:EANII OF DRAWING MOSES filMBELF !-"'EAREB TO GoD. We feel that he was coming into peril from the exasperated people. 'J'hey were, indeed, past all argument and expostulation-suffering themselves, and made more frantic still by the cries of their children and the threatened damage to their property. So here a,gain we see how Moses' own path was the path of faith. Jehovah has ever some fresh revelation of power to deepen the impression already made on the mind of his servant with regard to his omnipotence. Moses must be brought to feel by all sorts of illustrations that God can do everything which is not by its very nature impossible and which does not contradict his own character. V. OBSERVE THE METHOD OF SUPPLY. 1. God has the elders called out from among tl,e pwp'le. Thus, for his own purposes, he still further extends the period of waiting. Possibly it was through these very elders, chosen and responsible men among the people, that the complaints and threats had come. The Israelites, even in their unbelief and worldliness, did not degenerate into a rabble. They had their leaders, whom they chose, recoanised from the human point of view, as well as that leader whom God had sent, and ~horn they so often had despi.JSed and rejected. The time had come to make these elders feel their responsibility. Many who made light of Moses looked to them; and according to the way they spoke and acted, they would do much either to produce faith throughout the people, or, on the other hand, to produce unbelief. 2. God brings the rod ouce more into requisition, and as he does, makes a special connection of it with one accomplished work in particular. Wi_th that rod Moses had be~n the me~ns of smiting tbe river and turning it to blood; the import of the reference evidently bemg that water evervwhere is under the Divine control. By this time there must surely have been great virtue in the sight of the rod to call forth faith a!ld expec~ation. Hitherto it had been used to destroy-it delivered, indeed, at tho same time that 1t destroyed-but now it is called to a work of unmixed beneficence. All that had been done so far was right and necessary; but it is well that there should now be one work of the rod which, in blessing _ Israel, does not inflict harm on a single human being. 3, The source whence the water CII. XVII, 1-7.] THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 69