The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 3 — Section 57

The iucideut is, no doubt, thus poetically recalled to the mind of the restored exiles, in order to assure them that God, in his power to provide, and his power to meet emer• gencies, was all that he had ever been; and this suggests a very suitable subject of meditation, which may be very effectively applied to our times and needs. But a less usual topic is suggested by the discovery of what is probably the very spring that Moses brought to light. As our knowledge advances, we are coming more and more fully to apprehend that the natural and the supernatural are inextricably blended in human life, and that in God's working out of his purposes the natural and the super- natural are one. See how this is suggested by the smiting of the rock and the result which followed. No one would suggest that God put the water into the rock specially and on purpose for the Israelites. It was there. It was its natural habitat. The fountains of water, the pools into which the waters drain, are always in the rocks. Miners have to be careful lest they let in upon them the floods of waters that are stored in the rocks. Onr towns are often supplied with water that is pumped up from the reservoirs of the rocks. It was quite natural for the water to be in the rock. And man brings the water out of the rock by smiting the rock. Just now the workmen of our town have been engaged in tunnelling the chalk rock to get a fresh supply of water; and the other day a workman, smiting with his pick, opened a fissure, from which a stream is pouring abundantly. To get water out of the rock by smiting the rock was also quite natural. It is fancy that makes Moses only give the rock a gentle pat. He smote it; on the second occasion he even roughly smote it twice before the fissure opened. So far the provision was natural, and the method of obtaining it also natural. But how evidently the supernatural was blended with the natural I Direct Divine direction fitted the time and the place. No mere human wisdom could have thus immediately discovered the exact spot where the rock would yield to a single smiting, and send forth its treasures. Only a divinely ordered man would think of such a way of relieving the necessities of a caravan. The supernatural character of the incident comes at once to view if we think of the leader of an ordinary caravan in that Sinaitic district going about tapping the rocks, hoping to meet with a fissure in which was a water-store. God directed Moses, and he went straight to the place. And the marvel that grows ever greater to devout souls, as they pass through the experiences of life, is not the mere presence of supernatural forces, but the way in which the super- natural blends with the natural, until the deepest feeling is that the natural is lost in the supernatural and God, working everywhere, in everything and through every- thin"' becomes the roost cherished thought. Men make sharp lines of distinction bet.;;en the natural and the supernatural. When men come experimentally to know what God can do in their own souls and in their own lives, they cease to feel any interest in those sharp lines of distinction, for their sphere is the sphere of God. 'l.'o them there is no natural. God is in it aii, and his presence and actual working makes it all supernatural...,.-R. T. Vers. 1-8.-The spiritual exodus. I. WE MAKE OUR ESCAPE FROM A _STATE OF BONDAGE-EGYPT. 1 . .A life of sin is a life of spiritual bondage. (Rom. VI. 16.) 2. Such a life of bondage brings us into "strange " and unnatural relations. (Ver. 1.) Egypt was not the home of the Israelites. I!. 'l.'HE SPIRITUAL EXODUS BRINGS US INTO OUR TRUE, OR DIVINE, RELATIONS, (Ver. 2.) 1. We become consecrated temples for the indwelling of God. (Ver. 2.) "Judah was bis sanctuary." 2. We are kingdoms over which God reigns, "Aull Israel bis dominion.'' III 'l.'ms EXODUS rs ACCOMPANIED BY GREAT EXC[TEMENTS, 1. There is a grand reveldtwn of the presence of God. (Ver. 7.) 2. .A wonderful procla"':ation of the _Law of God. Sinai is shaken by it, and so is the soul of man. Moses s111d, "I exceedingly 1ear and quake.'' 3. There is 11t revelation of ~he abundant_ mercy of God•. (V_er. 8.) 'l'his manifestation of God "turned the rock mto a standmg water, the flmt mto a fountain of waters."-$. PS, OXV, 1-18.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 61