There are 3 stories in these two chapters:
- Water from the rock
- The battle with Amalek
- Jethro’s advice
Ya gotta love the children of Israel. God brought 10 supernatural plagues on Egypt, freed them from slavery, gave them the treasures of Egypt, led them by a cloud, parted the waters for them, and drowned Pharaoh’s army. Oh, and gave them manna too. But water? Yeah- not sure God can provide water.
It might be helpful to start a Why-did-we-ever-leave-Egypt counter. This would be #2. The first time was just before the Lord parted the waters in 14:11-12.
Now they’re thirsty. Maybe when you’re thirsty, the part of the brain that does logic is the first to shrivel up like a prune. Because here is their logic:
God did ALL those miraculous things to rescue us and He is personally leading us in the form of a cloud so that He can bring us out to the desert…to kill us.
Sure. Yeah. That makes complete sense. 🙄
Wouldn’t it have been much simpler for God to let Pharaoh kill them? God has already had many opportunities to do them in if that’s what He wanted. Why would God go through all this rigamarole to bring them out of Egypt if He didn’t have a plan and the ability to get them to Canaan?
Like I said, prune brains.
But… I’m going to put down the stones I’d like to cast because I can’t exactly say I haven’t been guilty of nearly the same thing. Not about water. No. You and I are more likely to have doubts about jobs and money and parenting, marriage or a diagnosis or plans for the future. Not sure God can handle those. Sure He might’ve saved us from sin and hell and all, but that stack of bills… that’s a biggie.
😏 And yes- I’m being sarcastic.
If the Lord is big enough to get you out of Egypt, He’s big enough to provide everything you need to get to Canaan.
Somebody needs to read that twice and write it on a note to put on your mirror.
And… while I’m on zingy one-liners, here’s one of my favorite “Lacyisms”:
“The LORD does not require favorable circumstances.”
The desert 🏜️🐪🦂🌵🦂 is about as unfavorable a place as you can go. There’s nothin’ out there. There’s not enough food for a goat- and they’ll eat about anything.
There may be as many as 2 MILLION people in this group. 😳 PLUS all the livestock. That’s a very large metropolitan population- roughly the size of Houston, TX or Phoenix AZ. There is another view that has Israel’s number in the tens of thousands rather than millions. Either way, it’s a lot of people and they need a lot of water.
We really need to stop limiting God. It’s like asking a Michelin star chef to microwave a tv dinner. It’s insulting.
Here’s what God says to Moses:
“Look, I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out from it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.”
Exodus 17:6 LEB
I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed that God was standing on this rock. Hmmm. What did that look like?! 🤔
And Moses was to “strike” the rock where God is standing. It’s the Hebrew word nakah (naw-kaw), and it does mean to “hit” but it carries a violent sense and is elsewhere translated slay, slaughter, wound, give stripes.
This event is only referenced once (that I’m aware of) in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian church that the Israelites “all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
1 Corinthians 10:4 LEB
So if the rock was Christ, and God is standing on it and Moses wounds the rock- gives it stripes, kills it… and water flows out from it to give life to the people… are you seeing the picture here?
I feel like we pretty much run into a picture of Jesus about every 1.75 chapters. No wonder Jesus said to the Pharisees and the people: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,”
John 5:39 ESV
This wasn’t a little spout like a water fountain. This rock opened up and a stream just ripped outa there.
I live in Missouri. We have one of the top 3 largest springs in America. It’s also a contender for the 3rd largest IN. THE. WORLD. It was given the wildly creative name “Big Spring.” 🙄
The children of Israel probably didn’t need quite as much water as Big Spring but you get the idea. They got a river in the desert.
And everyone was happy until…
“Then came Amalek…” Dun dun Duuun!!!👀
😧😲😰🫣
Genesis 36:12 gives us the origin of Amalek. He was the grandson of Esau. Esau’s eldest son had a child by a concubine. That was the original Amalek. This is his tribe. Not sure what provoked them to attack Israel- perhaps they thought Israel would be easy pickings and they could plunder them and make off with a bunch of stuff. Or maybe they felt threatened by them. Amalek started the fight but God finished it.
I don’t have any deep insights into this story other than what we’ve all heard in Sunday school: You need friends to hold up your hands when you get weary. Watch out for weariness of body or soul. The enemy tends to get an advantage when we are weary. That’s why we need to rest.
Amalek ticked God off though with their unprovoked attack on Israel. Yahweh declares war on them and vows to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Yikes! Would not want to be in Amalek’s sandals. Remember that name though. Like the Terminator, Amalek and the Amalekites will be back.
After the dust settles, Jethro shows up bringing Moses’ wife Zipporah and their two sons.
“Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home,” Exodus 18:2 ESV
It’s really hard to not read something negative into that. It’s unclear when Moses sent her back home but commentators point back to 4:24-26 and wonder if Moses sent his wife back to her father (which kinda feels a bit like divorce) after the “bridegroom of blood” incident. It’s interesting that in the NT, the Pharisees point out that Moses permitted divorce. Just sayin.
This is the last time Zipporah is mentioned in the text. It does seem that she remains with Moses since it sounds as though Jethro is alone when he departs to return to his home. Later, in the book of Numbers, Moses marries a “Cushite” (Ethiopian) woman. This does not sit well with Aaron and Miriam but we’ll get to that story later.
Jethro helps Moses set up a judicial system for the nation. There are small-claims judges, district-level judges, and federal judges. Moses functions like the supreme court.
The court system is just in time. Next stop: Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law- which takes way longer and is way more complicated than you remember.
To The Reader 