They thirsted, and they called upon you, and water was given to them out of the flinty rock, and healing of their thirst out of the hard stone.
Drinkable water can be extracted from solid rock by striking it, producing enough water to sustain an entire nation.
Geology
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The cited passage
What current science says
Rocks can contain water — aquifers are underground rock layers saturated with water, and striking certain porous rocks like sandstone or limestone can release water from fractures. This is essentially how wells work. But supplying water for the claimed 600,000+ men (plus women, children, and livestock — conservatively 2+ million people) would require roughly 6-10 million liters per day minimum. That's not a trickle from a cracked rock — that's the flow rate of a small river. The largest natural springs on Earth (like Florida's Silver Springs) produce about 2 million liters per hour, and those are fed by massive aquifer systems, not single rocks. A single struck rock in the Sinai desert doesn't sit on top of an aquifer large enough to hydrate a nation.
What the text says
This comes from the Wisdom of Solomon (likely 11:4), which references the Exodus story of water flowing from a struck rock — enough water for hundreds of thousands of people and their livestock in a desert with no other water source.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.