Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. When they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink from the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore its name was called Marah. The people murmured against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” Then he cried to Yahweh. Yahweh showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there he tested them.
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Exodus 15:22-25 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. When they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink from the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore its name was called Marah. The people murmured against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” Then he cried to Yahweh. Yahweh showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there he tested them. He said, “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you.”
Parallel Translations
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Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
When they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink from the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore its name was called Marah.
The people murmured against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
Then he cried to Yahweh. Yahweh showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there he tested them.
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So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.
And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,
Show all 3 translations
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And Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.
And the people murmured against Moses, saying: 'What shall we drink?'
And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD showed him a tree, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There He made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them;
Cross-references (44)
- Deuteronomy 8:2 (v25) You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to test…
- Psalms 66:10 (v25) For you, God, have tested us. You have refined us, as silver is refined.
- Exodus 16:2 (v24) The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness;
- Judges 3:1 (v25) Now these are the nations which Yahweh left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan;
- Numbers 33:8 (v23) They traveled from before Hahiroth, and crossed through the middle of the sea into the wilderness. They went three days’ journey in the…
Show all 44 cross-references
- Judges 2:22 (v25) that by them I may test Israel, to see if they will keep Yahweh’s way to walk therein, as their fathers kept it, or not.”
- Judges 3:4 (v25) They were left to test Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to Yahweh’s commandments, which he commanded their fathers by…
- Ruth 1:20 (v23) She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
- Exodus 16:4 (v25) Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every…
- Deuteronomy 8:16 (v25) who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers didn’t know, that he might humble you, and that he might prove you, to do you…
- 2 Kings 2:21 (v25) He went out to the spring of the waters, and threw salt into it, and said, “Yahweh says, ‘I have healed these waters. There shall not be…
- Exodus 14:11 (v24) They said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you treated us this…
- Numbers 20:2-5 (v24) There was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. The people quarreled with…
- Genesis 16:7 (v22) Yahweh’s angel found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain on the way to Shur.
- 1 Peter 1:6-7 (v25) Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved in various trials, that the proof of your…
- Numbers 14:1-4 (v24) All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. All the children of Israel murmured against Moses…
- Psalms 50:15 (v25) Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
- Psalms 78:19-20 (v24) Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out,…
- Psalms 91:15 (v25) He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him.
- 1 Corinthians 1:18 (v25) For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
- Genesis 25:18 (v22) They lived from Havilah to Shur that is before Egypt, as you go toward Assyria. He lived opposite all his relatives.
- Exodus 3:18 (v22) They will listen to your voice. You shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall tell him, ‘Yahweh, the…
- Exodus 14:10 (v25) When Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were very…
- Exodus 17:3-4 (v24) The people were thirsty for water there; so the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill…
- Numbers 11:1-6 (v24) The people were complaining in the ears of Yahweh. When Yahweh heard it, his anger burned; and Yahweh’s fire burned among them, and…
- Joshua 24:21-25 (v25) The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve Yahweh.” Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have…
- 1 Samuel 15:7 (v22) Saul struck the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, that is before Egypt.
- 2 Kings 4:41 (v25) But he said, “Then bring meal.” He threw it into the pot; and he said, “Serve it to the people, that they may eat.” And there was nothing…
- Proverbs 17:3 (v25) The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but Yahweh tests the hearts.
- Jeremiah 9:7 (v25) Therefore Yahweh of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?
- Exodus 16:8-9 (v24) Moses said, “Now Yahweh will give you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to satisfy you, because Yahweh hears your…
- Exodus 17:4 (v25) Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
- Numbers 16:11 (v24) Therefore you and all your company have gathered together against Yahweh! What is Aaron that you complain against him?”
- Numbers 16:41 (v24) But on the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed…
- Numbers 17:10 (v24) Yahweh said to Moses, “Put back the rod of Aaron before the covenant, to be kept for a token against the children of rebellion; that you…
- Numbers 21:5 (v24) The people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread,…
- Deuteronomy 13:3 (v25) you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you, to know whether you…
- Psalms 81:7 (v25) You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.”
- Psalms 99:6 (v25) Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel was among those who call on his name. They called on Yahweh, and he answered them.
- Matthew 6:25 (v24) Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear.…
- 1 Corinthians 10:10 (v24) Don’t grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer.
- Philippians 2:14 (v24) Do all things without complaining and arguing,
- Jude 1:16 (v24) These are murmurers and complainers, walking after their lusts—and their mouth speaks proud things—showing respect of persons to gain…
- Jeremiah 15:1 (v25) Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight,…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (25 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 25 Which was called Etham, Num. 33:8.
Which was called Etham, Num. 33:8.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Exo 15:22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red…
Exo 15:22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
Ver. 22. And found no water.] Thirst and bitterness was their first bad omen on their journey.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv22, 25 Shur; so usually called, Gen 16:7; and by the…
Shur; so usually called, Gen 16:7; and by the Israelites, Etham, as may be gathered by comparing this place with Num 33:8, for both there and here it is said they went three days in this wilderness.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v22 It should seem, it was with some difficulty that…
It should seem, it was with some difficulty that Moses prevailed with Israel to leave that triumphant shore on which they sang the foregoing song. They were so taken up with the sight, or with the song, or with the spoiling of the dead bodies, that they cared not to go forward, but Moses with much ado brought them from the Red Sea into a wilderness. The pleasures of our way to Canaan must not retard our progress, but quicken it, though we have a wilderness before us. Now here we are told,
I. That in the wilderness of Shur they had no water, Exo 15:22. This was a sore trial to the young travellers, and a diminution to their joy; thus God would train them up to difficulties. David, in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, reaches forth towards God, Psa 63:1.
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II. That at Marah they had water, but it was bitter, so that though they had been three days without water they could not drink it, because it was extremely unpleasant to the taste or was likely to be prejudicial to their health, or was so brackish that it rather increased their thirst than quenched it, Exo 15:23. Note, God can embitter that to us from which we promise ourselves most satisfaction, and often does so in the wilderness of this world, that our wants and disappointments in the creature may drive us to the Creator, in whose favour alone true comfort is to be had. Now in this distress, 1. The people fretted and quarrelled with Moses, as if he had done ill by them. What shall we drink? is all their clamour, Exo 15:24. Note, The greatest joys and hopes are soon turned into the greatest griefs and fears with those that live by sense only, and not by faith. 2. Moses prayed: He cried unto the Lord, Exo 15:25. The complaints which they brought to him he brought to God, on whom, notwithstanding his elevation, Moses owned a constant dependence. Note, It is the greatest relief of the cares of magistrates and ministers, when those under their charge make them uneasy, that they may have recourse to God by prayer: he is the guide of the church's guides and to him, as the Chief Shepherd, the under-shepherds must upon all occasions apply. 3. God provided graciously for them. He directed Moses to a tree, which he cast into the waters, in consequence of which, all of a sudden, they were made sweet. Some think this wood had a peculiar virtue in it for this purpose, because it is said, God showed him the tree. God is to be acknowledged, not only in the creating of things useful for man, but in discovering their usefulness. Or perhaps this was only a sign, and not at all a means, of the cure, any more than the brazen serpent, or Elisha's casting one cruse full of salt into the waters of Jericho. Some make this tree typical of the cross of Christ, which sweetens the bitter waters of affliction to all the faithful, and enables them to rejoice in tribulation. The Jews' tradition is that the wood of this tree was itself bitter, yet it sweetened the waters of Marah; the bitterness of Christ's sufferings and death alters the property of ours. 4. Upon this occasion, God came upon terms with them, and plainly told them, now that they had got clear of the Egyptians, and had entered into the wilderness, that they were upon their good behaviour, and that according as they carried themselves so it would be well or ill with them: There he made a statute and an ordinance, and settled matters with them. There he proved them, that is, there he put them upon the trial, admitted them as probationers for his favour. In short, he tells them, Exo 15:26, (1.) What he expected from them, and that was, in one word, obedience. They must diligently hearken to his voice, and give ear to his commandments, that they might know their duty, and not transgress through ignorance; and they must take care in every thing to do that which was right in God's sight, and to keep all his statutes. They must not think, now that they were delivered from their bondage in Egypt, that they had no lord over them, but were their own masters; no, therefore they must look upon themselves as God's servants, because he had loosed their bonds, Psa 116:16; Luk 1:74, Luk 1:75. (2.) What they might then expect from him: I will put none of these diseases upon thee, that is, "I will not bring upon thee any of the plagues of Egypt." This intimates that, if they were rebellious and disobedient, the very plagues which they had seen inflicted upon their enemies should be brought upon them; so it is threatened, Deu 28:60. God's judgments upon Egypt, as they were mercies to Israel, opening the way to their deliverance, so they were warnings to Israel, and designed to awe them into obedience. Let not the Israelites think, because God had thus highly honoured them in the great things he had done for them, and had proclaimed them to all the world his favourites, that therefore he would connive at their sins and let them do as they would. No, God is no respecter of persons; a rebellious Israelite shall fare no better than a rebellious Egyptian; and so they found, to their cost, before the got to Canaan. "But, if thou wilt be obedient, thou shalt be safe and happy;" the threatening is implied only, but the promise is expressed: "I am the Lord that healeth thee, and will take care of thy comfort wherever thou goest." Note, God is the great physician. If we be kept well, it is he that keeps us; if we be made well, it is he that restores us; he is our life, and the length of our days.
III. That at Elim they had good water, and enough of it, Exo 15:27. Though God may, for a time, order his people to encamp by the waters of Marah, yet that shall not always be their lot. See how changeable our condition is in this world, from better to worse, from worse to better. Let us therefore learn both how to be abased and how to abound, to rejoice as though we rejoiced not when we are full, and to weep as though we wept not when we are emptied. Here were twelve wells for their supply, one for every tribe, that they might not strive for water, as their fathers had sometimes done; and, for their pleasure, there were seventy palm-trees, under the shadow of which their great men might repose themselves. Note, God can find places of refreshment for his people even in the wilderness of this world, wells in the valley of Baca, lest they should faint in their mind with perpetual fatigue: yet, whatever our delights may be in the land of our pilgrimage, we must remember that we do but encamp by them for a time, that here we have no continuing city.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv22–25 And when they came to Marah,.... A place in…
And when they came to Marah,.... A place in the wilderness, afterwards so called from the quality of the waters found here; wherefore this name is by anticipation:
they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; and they must be very bitter for people in such circumstances, having been without water for three days, not to be able to drink of them: some have thought these to be the bitter fountains Pliny (f) speaks of, somewhere between the Nile and the Red sea, but these were in the desert of Arabia; more probably they were near, and of the same kind with those that Diodorus Siculus (g) makes mention of, who, speaking of the Troglodytes that inhabited near the Red sea, and in the wilderness, observes, that from the city Arsinoe, as you go along the shores of the continent on the right hand, there are several rivers that gush out of the rocks into the sea, of a bitter taste: and so Strabo (h) speaks of a foss or ditch, which runs out into the Red sea and Arabian gulf, and by the city Arsinoe, and flows through those lakes which are called bitter; and that those which were of old time bitter, being made a foss and mixed with the river, are changed, and now produce good fish, and abound with water fowl: but what some late travellers have discovered seems to be nearer the truth: Doctor Shaw (i) thinks these waters may be properly fixed at Corondel, where there is a small rill, which, unless it be diluted by the dews and rain, still continues to be brackish: another traveller (k) tells us that, at the foot of the mountain of Hamam-El-Faron, a small but most delightful valley, a place called Garondu, in the bottom of the vale, is a rivulet that comes from the afore mentioned mountain, the water of which is tolerably good, and in sufficient plenty, but is however not free from being somewhat bitter, though it is very clear: Doctor Pocock says there is a mountain known to this day by the name of Le-Marah; and toward the sea is a salt well called Bithammer, which is probably the same here called Marah: this Le-Marah, he says, is sixteen hours south of the springs of Moses; that is, forty miles from the landing place of the children of Israel; from whence to the end of the wilderness were six hours' travelling, or about fifteen miles; which were their three days' travel in the wilderness, and from thence two hours' travel, which were five miles, to a winter torrent called Ouarden; where, it may be supposed, Moses encamped and refreshed his people, and from thence went on to Marsh, about the distance of eight hours, or twenty miles southward from the torrent of Ouarden:
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therefore the name of it is called Marah; from the bitterness of the waters, which the word Marah signifies; see Rut 1:20.
(f) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 29. (g) Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 172. (h) Geograph. l. 17. p. 553. (i) Travels, p. 314. (k) A Journal from Grand Cairo to Mount Sinai, A. D. 1722, p. 14, 15.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv23, 25 The name of it was called Marah - That…
The name of it was called Marah - That is, Bitterness.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Verse 22. The wilderness of Shur] This was on…
Verse 22. The wilderness of Shur] This was on the coast of the Red Sea on their road to Mount Sinai. See the map.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv22, 25 Exo 15:22. They went three days and found no…
Exo 15:22. They went three days and found no water — Here we see that deliverances, however great, do not exempt from future difficulties and trials. Never was a greater deliverance, of a temporal nature, wrought out for any people than that of the Israelites from Pharaoh and from Egypt. It is the most wonderful act of God’s almighty power, next to the creation of the world, and its destruction by, and subsequent restoration from the flood, which we read of in the Old Testament: or rather, it is a series of acts, each more wonderful than the other. And yet the very people, thus delivered, find themselves, immediately on their deliverance, with their numerous flocks, and herds, and little ones, in danger of perishing with thirst! And when, after three days of distress on this account, they found water, could not drink of it because it was bitter. But this was for the trial of their faith and patience; and after the wonderful things God had done for them, they were perfectly inexcusable in murmuring against Moses, which was, in effect, murmuring against God. How marvellous was the patience of God with this people!
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 25 So Moses - Literally, And Moses. The history of…
So Moses - Literally, And Moses. The history of the journey from the Red Sea to Sinai begins in fact with this verse, which would more conveniently have been the commencement of another chapter.
From the Red sea - The station where Moses and his people halted to celebrate their deliverance is generally admitted to be the Ayoun Musa, i. e. the fountains of Moses. It is the only green spot near the passage over the Red Sea. There are several wells there, which in the time of Moses were probably enclosed and kept with great care by the Egyptians, for the use of the frequent convoys to and from their ancient settlements at Sarbutel Khadem and the Wady Mughara.
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The wilderness of Shur - This name belongs to the whole district between the northeastern frontier of Egypt and Palestine. The word is undoubtedly Egyptian, and is derived probably from the word Khar which designated all the country between Egypt and Syria proper.
Three days - The distance between Ayoun Musa and Huwara, the first spot where any water is found on the route, is 33 geographical miles. The whole district is a tract of sand, or rough gravel.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 25 Sur, which is called Etham, "Pough," (Numbers xxxiii. 7,)…
Sur, which is called Etham, "Pough," (Numbers xxxiii. 7,) on which account both sides of the Red Sea are described by the same name; hence some have groundlessly asserted that the Hebrews came out of the Red Sea by the same way they entered it. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v22 The journey through the wilderness to Sinai. Want of…
FIFTH SECTION
The journey through the wilderness to Sinai. Want of water. Marah. Elim. The Wilderness of Sin. Quails. Manna. Rephidim (Massah and Meribah). The Amalekites. Jethro and his advice, a human prelude of the divine legislation
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Exo_15:22 to Exo_18:27
The stations as far as Sinai
1. Marah
Exo_15:22-26
22So [And] Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. 23And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the [drink the] waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? 25And he cried unto Jehovah, and Jehovah showed him a tree, which, when he had cast [and he cast it] into the waters, the [and the] waters were made sweet: there he 26made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved [tried] them, And said, If thou wilt diligently [indeed] hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these [the] diseases upon thee, which I have brought [put] upon the Egyptians: for I am Jehovah that healeth thee.
2. Elim. Exo_15:27
27And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells [fountains] of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.
3. The Wilderness of Sin. (The Manna and the Quails.)
Exo_16:1-36
1And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. 2And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God [Would that] we had died by the hand of Jehovah in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and [flesh-pots,] when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with 4hunger. Then said Jehovah [And Jehovah said] unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate [a daily portion] every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no [not]. 5And it shall come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. 6And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then shall ye know that Jehovah hath brought you out from the land of Egypt. 7And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of Jehovah; [since] he heareth your murmurings against Jehovah: and what are we, that ye murmur against us? 8And Moses said, This shall be, when [And Moses said, Since] Jehovah shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that [since] Jehovah heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him, and [against him,] what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against Jehovah. 9And Moses spake [said] unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before Jehovah: for he hath heard your murmurings. 10And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the 11glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud. And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, 12I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God. 13And it came to pass that at even [at even that] the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host [camp]. 14And when the dew that lay [the layer of dew] was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay [the wilderness] a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. 15And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna [What is this?],7 for they wist [knew] not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the 16bread which Jehovah hath given you to eat [for food]. This is the thing which Jehovah hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man [a head], according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which [that] are in his tents [tent]. 17And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. 18And when they did mete [And they measured] it with an [the] omer, he [and he] that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. 19And Moses said [said unto them], Let no man leave of 20it till the morning. Notwithstanding [But] they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them [and some] left of it until the morning, and it bred worms,8 and stank: and Moses was wroth with them. 21And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. 22And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man [each man]: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23And he said unto them, This is that which Jehovah hath spoken, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath [is a day of rest, a holy sabbath] unto Jehovah: bake that which ye will bake to-day [bake], and seethe [boil] that [that which] ye will seethe [boil]; and that which [all that] remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. 24And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. 25And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a sabbath unto Jehovah: to-day ye shall [will] not find it in the field. 26Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the [onthe seventh day is a] sabbath, in [on] it there shall be none. 27And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to [day to] gather, 28and they found none. And Jehovah said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? 29See, for that Jehovah hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. 30So the people rested on the seventh day. 31And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made [like cake] with honey. 32And Moses said, This is the thing which Jehovah commandeth, Fill an omer of it [An omer full of it] to be kept for [throughout] your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. 33And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot [basket], and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay 34it up before Jehovah, to be kept for [throughout] your generations. As Jehovah commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. 35And the children of Israel did eat manna [the manna] forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna [the manna], until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. 36Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.
4. Rephidim. The place called Massah and Meribah
Exo_17:1-7
Exo_17:1 And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys [journey by journey], according to the commandment of Jehovah, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the 2people to drink. Wherefore [And] the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water, that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt Jehovah? 3And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast [Wherefore hast thou] brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? 4And Moses cried unto Jehovah, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to [a little more, and they will] 5stone me. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Go on [Pass on] before the people, and take with thee of the elders of the people; and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine [thy] hand, and go. 6Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that [and] the people may [shall] drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted Jehovah, saying, Is Jehovah among us, or not?
5. Amalek. The dark side of heathenism
Exo_17:8-16
8Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. 9And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow I will 10stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine [my] hand. So [And] Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12But Moses’ hands were heavy: and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. 13And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge 14of the sword. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a [the] book, and rehearse [lit. put] it in the ears of Joshua: for [that] I will utterly put 15[blot] out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an 16altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi: For [And] he said, Because Jehovah hath sworn that [For a hand is upon the throne of Jah;9] Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
6. Rephidim and Jethro. The bright side of heathenism
Exo_18:1-27
1When [Now] Jethro, the priest of Midian, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and [how] that Jehovah had brought Israel out 2of Egypt; Then [And] Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back [after she had been sent away], 3And her two sons; of which [whom] the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien 4[a sojourner] in a strange land: And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine [my] help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh: 5And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped [was encamped] at the mount of God: 6And he said unto Moses, I thy father-in-law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her. 7And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent. 8And Moses told his father-in-law all that Jehovah had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and [sake] all the travail [trouble] that had come upon them by the way, and how Jehovah delivered them. 9And Jethro rejoiced for [over] all the goodness [good] which Jehovah had done to Israel whom he had delivered [in that he had delivered them] out of the hand of the Egyptians. 10And Jethro said, Blessed be Jehovah, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. 11Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all [all the] gods: for [yea], in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above [dealt proudly against] them. 12And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt-offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God. 13And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. 14And when Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? Why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even? 15And Moses said unto his father-in-law, Because the people come unto me to inquire of God: 16When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make 17[I make] them know the statutes of God, and his laws. And Moses’ father-in-law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. 18Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this [the] thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself [able to do it] alone. 19Hearken now unto my voice. I will give thee counsel, and God shall be [God be] with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward [before God], that thou mayest bring [and bring thou] the causes [matters] unto God: 20And thou shalt teach [And teach] them ordinances and laws [the statutes and the laws], and shalt shew [and shew] them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. 21Moreover [But] thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness [unjust gain]; and place such over them, to be [as] rulers of thousands, and [thousands,] rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: 22And let them judge the people at all seasons [times]: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they [they themselves] shall judge: so shall it be [so make it] easier for thyself, and they shall [let them] bear the burden with thee. 23If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt [wilt] be able to endure, and all this 24people shall also [people also will] go to their place in peace. So [And] Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in-law, and did all that he had said. 25And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. 26And they judged the people at all seasons [times]: the hard causes [matters] they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves. 27And Moses let his father-in-law depart; and he went his way into his own land.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[Exo_16:15 מַן הוּא. Gesenius and Knobel derive מַן from מָנַן, to apportion; Fürst (Concordance) from the Sanscrit mani. But most scholars, following the evident implication of the narrative itself, regard מַן as the Aramaic equivalent of מַה. Even Fürst so renders it in his “Illustrirte Pracht-Bibel.” Comp. Michaelis, Supplementa ad Lexica Hebraica.—Tr.].
[Exo_16:20. “And it bred worms:” וַיָרֻם תּוֹלְעִים. The Heb. word seems to be the Fut. of רוּם defectively written, and therefore to mean: “rose up into (or with) worms.” Kalisch says, that the form וַיָרֻם is used instead of וַיָוָם to show that it comes from רָמָה (רָמַם?) in the sense of putrefy. So Maurer and Ewald (Gr., § 281, d). But it is doubtful whether רָמַם (assumed as the root from which comes רִמָּה “worm”) really means putrefy at all. Fürst defines it by “crawl.” Moreover, it would be inverting the natural order of things to say, that the manna became putrid with worms; the worms are the consequence, not the cause, of the putridness. Rosenmüller, Fürst, Arnheim and others render by “swarm,” “abound,” but probably as a free rendering for “rose up.” De Wette: da wuchsen Würmer. The A. V. rendering may stand as a substantially correct reproduction of the sense.—Tr.].
[Exo_17:16. We have given the most literal rendering of this difficult passage. But possibly כִּי, instead of meaning “for” (or “because”), may (as ὅτι often in Greek) be the mere mark of a quotation, to be omitted in the translation. The meaning of the expression itself is very doubtful. The A. V., following some ancient authorities, takes it as an oath; but for this there is little ground. Keil interprets: “The hand raised to the throne of Jehovah in heaven; Jehovah’s war against Amalek,” i.e. the hands of the Israelites, like those of Moses, must be raised heavenward towards Jehovah’s throne, while they wage war against Amalek. Others interpret: “Because a hand (viz. the hand of the Amalekites) is against the throne of Jah, therefore Jehovah will forever have war with Amalek.” This interpretation has the advantage over Keil’s of giving a more natural rendering to עַל, which indeed in a few cases does mean “up to,” but only when it is (as it is not here) connected with a verb which requires the preposition to be so rendered. Others (perhaps the majority of modern exegetes) would read נֵם (“banner”), instead of כֵּם (“throne”), and interpret: “The hand upon Jehovah’s banner; Jehovah has war,” etc. This conjecture is less objectionable than many attempted improvements of the text, inasmuch as the name of the altar, “Jehovah-nissi” (“Jehovah, my banner”), seems to require an explanation, and would receive it if the reading were נֵם, instead of כֵּם—Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
General Survey of the Section. Israel’s journey from the shore of the Red Sea to Mt. Sinai. The host enters the wilderness of Shur (the same as the wilderness of Etham), and its first camping-place is by the bitter waters of Marah. The second is Elim. Next comes the encampment on the Red Sea recorded in Numbers 33. Still later the entrance into the wilderness of Sin, and the encampment in it. With this is connected the sending of the manna and of the quails. Then follows the stay in Rephidim with three leading events: the water from the rock, the victory over Amalek, and Jethro’s advice concerning an orderly judicial system. According to Numbers 33 it must be assumed that the people encamped on the Red Sea just as they touched the wilderness of Sin; for it was not till after this that they entered the wilderness (Exo_16:11), as they also at the first entered the wilderderness of Shur, on the borders of which they found themselves at the very outset. Between the encampment on the Red Sea and that in Rephidim we find in the Book of Numbers Dophkah and Alush; and it is said that they journeyed from the wilderness of Sin to Dophkah. Knobel observes that these two stations, not mentioned in Exodus, are omitted because nothing of historical importance is connected with them. Also about this journey from Ayun Musa to Sinai there has been an immense deal of discussion, as well as about the journey from Raemses to the Red Sea. Vid. Robinson I., p. 90, Bräm, Israel’s Wanderung von Gosen bis zum Sinai (Elberfeld, 1859); Strauss, Sinai und Golgotha, p. 124; von Raumer, Palästina, p. 480; Tischendorf, Aus dem heiligen Lande, p. 23; Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant III., p. 15 sqq.; Bunsen V., 2, p. 155; and the commentaries.
There is general agreement as to the locality of the first stations. It is assumed that Israel, after the passage of the sea, encamped at Ayun Musa (the Wells of Moses), opposite the high mountain Atakah, on the other side of the Red Sea. The next camping-place, Marah (Bitterness), is found about sixteen and a half hours, or a three days’ journey beyond, by the well Howara or Hawara, of which Robinson says: “The basin is six or eight feet in diameter, and the water about two feet deep. Its taste is unpleasant, saltish, and somewhat bitter.… The Arabs … consider it as the worst water in all these regions” (Pal. II., p. 96). Cf. Seetzen III., p. 117, and Keil II., p. 58, who quotes divergent opinions of Ewald and Lepsius.—The next camping-place, Elim, is two and a half hours further south, in what is now the Wady Ghurundel, with a beautiful vegetation consisting in palms, tamarisks, acacias, and tall grass,—a prominent stopping-place on the way from Suez to Sinai. “The way from Howara to this place is short, but the camping-places of an army in march, like that of the Israelites, are always determined by the supply of water” (Keil). The fourth stopping-place, called in Num_33:10 the one on the Red Sea, is found at the mouth of Wady Taiyibeh (Robinson I., p. 105), eight hours beyond Wady Ghurundel. From this point the route becomes less easy to fix. In Num_33:11 we read: “They removed from the Red Sea, and encamped in the wilderness of Sin.”10 Here in Exodus it is said that the wilderness lies between Elim and Sinai. This addition seems designed not only to give the general direction (since that would be quite superfluous), but to designate the middle point between Elim and Sinai. The chief question here is, whether the wilderness of Sin as traversed by the Israelites, is to be located further south on a sea coast, where the plain is for the most part a good hour wide, as is assumed by many (not all, as Bräm says), or whether the high table land el Debbe, or Debbet en Nasb, with its red sand and sand-stones, is to be taken for the Wilderness of Sin (Knobel). Accordingly, there are two principal routes, of which the first again branches into two. By the coast route one can go along the coast as far as Tur (Ewald), and from that in a northeast direction come to Sinai; or more directly (i.e., at first in an inland direction from the fountain Murkha) enter through the wadies Shellal and Badireh (Butera) into the wadies Mukatteb and Feiran, and reach Mt. Horeb (de la Borde, von Raumer, and others).11 The other route, the mountain or highland route (Burckhardt and others) turns from Taiyibeh “southeast through Wady Shubeikah over a high table-land, with the mountain Sarbut el Jemel, then through Wady Humr upon the wide sandy plain el Debbe, or Debbet en Nasb” (Keil), and on through several wadies directly to Horeb. For and against each of these routes much may be said. Cf. Knobel, p. 162 sqq.; Keil II. p. 61. According to the latter view, advocated by Knobel and Keil, the camping-place in the wilderness of Sin is to be sought in Wady Nasb, where among date-palms a well of ample and excellent water is to be found. The second seacoast route was taken by Strauss and Krafft (Sinai und Golgotha, p. 127). Also the last time by Tischendorf (Aus dim heiligen Lande, p. 35). The same way is preferred by Bräm in his work “Israel’s Wanderung,” etc. Likewise Robinson regards this as the course taken by the Israelites, though he himself took the one on the table-land. To decide is not easy, and is of little importance for our purpose. But the following observations may serve as guides: (1) If, as is most probable, the names Sin and Sinai are connected etymologically, this is an argument for the table-land route, especially as it also seems to lie more nearly midway between Elim and Sinai; (2) the water seems here to be, though less abundant, yet better, than in most of the salty fountains on the seacoast, whose turbidness also is easily to be explained by its situation on the coast (vid. Robinson, p. 110); (3) on the table-land, in the depressions of which vegetation was everywhere found, there was certainly better provision for the cattle than on the seacoast, where they were often entirely separated from pasture land by mountain barriers; (4) if the encampment in the wilderness of Sin was also an encampment on the Red Sea, the preceding encampment could not, without causing confusion, be designated by the term “on the Red Sea.” So much for the mountain route. Ritter has argued against the view that the journey was made on the table-land through Wady Nasb, in the Evangelischer Kalender. Vid. Kurtz III., p. 61. For the rest, each way had its peculiar attractions as well as its peculiar difficulties. The mountain route allowed the host to spread itself, as there was much occasion for doing; it presented grand views, and prepared the people for a long time beforehand for its destination, Sinai. It is distinguished by “the singular and mysterious monuments of Surabit el-Khadim” (Robinson I., p. 113; Niebuhr, p. 235). By the way which runs half on the seacoast, half through the mountains, we pass through the remarkable valley of inscriptions, Mukatteb, and through the grand valley Feiran, rich in tamarisks, in whose vicinity lies the lofty Serbal, regarded by Lepsius as the mountain on which the law was given. On the inscriptions on the rocks and cliffs in the valley Mukatteb, see Tischendorf, “Aus dem h. Lande,” p. 39 sqq.; Kurtz III., p. 64. By these they are ascribed for the most part to Nabatæan emigrants and to pilgrims going to attend heathen festivals. On the “rock of inscriptions” see also Ritter’s reference to Wellsted and von Schubert, Vol. XIV., p 459. On the former city Faran in Feiran, see Tischendorf, p. 46. The camping-place in the wilderness of Sin is, as follows from the above, variously fixed; according to some it is the plain on the sea south of Taiyibeh, which, however, must then be called the wilderness of Sin up to the mountain range, if the camping-place is to be distinguished from the one on the Red Sea; according to Bunsen and others, the camping-place was in the place called el Munkhah. According to others, it is the large table-land el Debbe or Debbet en Nasb. The camping-places in the wilderness of Sin being indeterminate, so are also the two following ones at Dophkah and Alush (Num_33:12). Conjectures respecting the two stations beyond the wilderness of Sin are made by Knobel, p. 174, and Bunsen, p. 156. The last station before the host arrives at Sinai is Rephidim. This must have been at he foot of Horeb, for “Jehovah stood on the rock on Horeb, when He gave water to the people encamped in Rephidim (Exo_17:6), and at the same place Moses was visited by Jethro, who came to him at the mount of God” (Knobel). This is a very important point fixed, inasmuch as it seems to result from it, that Serbal is to be looked for north of, or behind, Rephidim and Horeb, but the Mt. Sinai of the Horeb range in the south.12 The great plain at the foot of Horeb, where the camp of the Israelites is sought, is called the plain er-Raha (Knobel derives רְפִידִים, “breadth,” “surface,” “plain,” from רָפַד, to be spread).13 For a refutation of Lepsius. who finds Rephidim in Wady Feiran, and Sinai in Serbal, see Knobel, p. 174. On Serbal itself (Palm grove of Baal) vid. Kurtz III., p. 67. Between Serbal and the Horeb group lies Wady es-Sheikh. From the mouth of this wady towards Horeb the plain of Rephidim is thought to begin. Other assumptions: The defile with Moses’ seat, Mokad Seidna Musa, or the plain of Suweiri. Perhaps not very different from the last mentioned (vid. Keil II., p. 79; Strauss, p. 131). The most improbable hypothesis identifies Rephidim with Wady Feiran (Lepsius).14
1. Marah. Exo_15:22-26
On the wilderness of Shur, vid. Keil II., p. 57. Particulars about Howara [Hawara (Robinson), Hawwara (Palmer)], Knobel, p. 160.—The bitter salt water at Marah.15 The miracle here consists in great part in the fact that Jehovah showed Moses a tree by which the water was made drinkable. That the tree itself was a natural tree is not denied by the strictest advocates of a literal interpretation. A part of the miracle is to be charged to the assurance of the prophetic act, and the trustful acceptance of it on the part of the people. Various explanations: The well was half emptied, so that pure water flowed in (Josephus); the berries of the ghurlud shrub were thrown in (Burckhardt). According to Robinson, the Beduins of the desert know no means of changing bitter salt water to sweet. “In Egypt,” as Josephus relates, “bad water was once purified by throwing in certain split sticks of wood” (Bräm). This leads to the question, how far the salt water might have been made more drinkable by Moses’ dipping into it a crisp, branchy shrub, as a sort of distilling agent. For this the numerous clumps of the ghurkud shrub which stand around the well, and whose berries Burckhardt wished to make use of, are very well suited. The distillation consists in the art of separating, in one way or another, salt, from water, especially by means of brushwood; generally, for the purpose of getting salt; but it might be done for the opposite purpose of getting water. In proportion as a bunch of brushwood should become incrusted with the salt, the water would become more free from the salt. For the rest, Robinson observes, concerning the water of the fountain Hawara, “Its taste is unpleasant, saltish, and somewhat bitter; but we could not perceive that it was very much worse than that of Ayun Musa.” It must further be considered that the Jews had the soft, agreeable Nile water in recollection. Kurtz has even found an antithesis in the fact that Moses made the undrinkable water at Marah drinkable, as he had made the sweet water of the Nile un-drinkable. We are here also to notice that the effect of Moses’ act was not permanent, but consisted only in the act itself, the same as is true of the saving effect of the sacraments in relation to faith. Here, too, is another proof that Moses had a quite peculiar sense for the life of nature, a sense which Jehovah made an organ of His Spirit. With the curing of the well Jehovah connected a fundamental law, stating on what condition He would be the Saviour of the people. Bräm (p. 114) points out, with reason, that the Israelites, in drinking salty water, which has a laxative effect, might well apprehend that the much-dreaded sicknesses of Egypt, the pestilence, the small-pox, the leprosy, and the inflammation of the eyes, caused by the heat and the fine dry sand, together with the intense reflection of light, might attack them here also in the wilderness, the atmosphere of which otherwise has a healing effect on many diseased constitutions. Therefore, in curing that well, Jehovah established the chief sanitary law for Israel. It is very definite, as if from the mouth of a very careful physician well acquainted with his case. General rule: perfect compliance with Jehovah’s direction! Explanation of it: if thou doest what is right in His eyes, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes (in reference to the means of spiritual recovery, dietetics), then I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am Jehovah, thy physician.—But how can it be added, “and there he proved them?” The whole history has been a test of the question, whether the people would obey the directions of Jehovah given through Moses, and particularly whether, after the singular means employed by Moses, they would drink in faith. Every test of faith is a temptation for sinful man, because in his habituation to the common order of things lies an incitement not to believe in any extraordinary remedy, such as seems to contradict nature. But out of the actual temptation which the people had now passed through, proceeded this theocratic sanitary law, as a temptation perpetually repeating itself. There is even still a temptation in the principle of the theocratic therapeutics, that absolute certainty of life lies in absolute obedience to God’s commands and directions. According to Keil, the statute here spoken of does not consist in the divine utterance recorded in Exo_15:26, but in an allegorical significance of the fact itself: the leading of the Israelites to bitter water which the natural man cannot and will not drink, together with the making of this water sweet and wholesome, is to be a הֹק, that is, a statute and a law, showing how God at all times will lead and govern His people, and a מִשְׁפָּט, that is, an ordinance, inasmuch as Israel may continually depend on the divine help, etc. If this is so, then the text must receive an allegorical interpretation not obviously required.
Furthermore, it is a question whether, after the tremendous excitements through which the people had passed, bitter and salty water like that at Marah, might not have been more beneficial than hurtful to them. Salt water restores the digestion when it has been disturbed by excitement. Notice, moreover, the stiff-neckedness or stubbornness peculiar to the disposition of slaves just made free, as it gradually makes its appearance and increases. It was in their distress at Pi-hahiroth that they first gave utterance to their moroseness; true, they cried to Jehovah, but quarrelled with Moses. They seemed to have forgotten the miracle of deliverance wrought in the night of Egypt’s terror. Here they even murmur over water that is somewhat poorer than usual. The passage through the Red Sea and the song of praise seem to be forgotten. In the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation murmurs against Moses and Aaron, i.e., their divinely appointed leaders, from fear of impending famine, probably because the supplies brought from Egypt were running low;—the ample refreshment enjoyed at Elim seems to be forgotten. In Rephidim they murmur on account of want of water;—the miraculous supply of manna and quails seems to be forgotten. On the other hand, however, the wise augmentation of severity in the divine discipline becomes prominent. At Marah nothing is said of any rebuke uttered by Jehovah, as is done later, Num_11:14; Num_11:20. Especially noticeable is the great difference between the altercation at Marah, in the wilderness of Sin, and the mutiny at Kadesh, Numbers 20. The altercation there is expressly called a striving with Jehovah, Exo_15:13.
2. Elim. Exo_15:27
A fine contrast with Marah is afforded here, both in nature, and in the guidance of the people of God, and in the history of the inner life. In Elim, Baumgarten and Kurtz find a place expressly prepared for Israel, inasmuch as by the number of its wells and palm trees it bears in itself the seal of this people: every tribe having a well for man and beast, and the tent of each one of the elders of the people (Exo_24:9) having the shade (according to Baumgarten, the dates) of a palm-tree. Even Keil finds this too supernaturalistic; at least, he observes that, while the number of the wells corresponds to the twelve tribes of Israel, yet the number of the palm trees does not correspond to that of the elders, which, according to Exo_24:9, was much (?) greater. On neither side is the possibility of a symbolical significance in the numbering thought of; without doubt, however, the emphasis given to the number seventy is as significant as that given to the number twelve. Keil’s allusion to the 23d Psalm is appropriate. See particulars about Elim in Knobel, p. 161; Tischendorf, p. 36.16
3. The Wilderness of Sin. Chap. Exo_16:1-36
Notice first the aggravated character of the murmuring. Now the whole congregation murmurs. And not against Moses alone, but against Moses and Aaron, so that the murmuring is more definitely directed against the divine commission of the two men, and so against the divine act of bringing them out of Egypt, that is, against Jehovah Himself. Moreover, the expression of a longing after Egypt becomes more passionate and sensual. At first they longed resignedly for the graves of Egypt, in view of the danger of death in the desert. The next time, too, they say nothing about their hankering after the Nile water in view of the bitter water of Marah. But now the flesh-pots of Egypt and the Egyptian bread become prominent in their imagination, because they conceive themselves to be threatened with famine. Corresponding to the aggravation of the murmuring are the beginnings of rebuke. Says Knobel, “What the congregation had brought with them from Egypt had been consumed in the thirty days which had elapsed since their exodus (Exo_16:1), although the cattle brought from Egypt (Exo_12:38) had not yet all been slaughtered or killed by thirst (?), since after their departure from the wilderness of Sin they still possessed cattle at Rephidim, which they wished to save from thirsting to death (Exo_17:3). For the herds had not been taken merely to be at once slaughtered; and meat could not take the place of bread. In their vexation the people wish that they had died in Egypt, while filling themselves from the flesh-pots, ‘by the hand of Jehovah,’ i.e., in the last plague inflicted by Jehovah upon Egypt, rather than gradually to starve to death here in the wilderness.” In the verb used (לוּן Niph.) is expressed a murmuring just passing over into contumacy. Yet here too Jehovah looks with compassion upon the hard situation of the people, and hence regards their weakness with indulgence.
The natural substratum of the double miracle of feeding, now announced and brought to pass, is found in the food furnished by the desert to nomadic emigrants. The manna is the miraculous representative of all vegetable food; the quails denote the choicest of animal prey furnished by the desert. The first element, in the miracle is here too the prophetic foresight and assurance of Moses. The second is the actual miraculous enhancement of natural phenomena; the third is here also the trustful acceptance of it: the miracle of faith and the religious manifestation answering to it. The ultra-supernaturalistic view, it is true, is not satisfied with this. It holds to a different manna from that provided by God in nature, and ought, in consistency, to distinguish the quails miraculously given from ordinary quails.
In this case, too, the trial of faith was to be a temptation (Exo_16:4), to determine whether the people would appropriate the miraculous blessing to themselves in accordance with the divine precept, and so recognize Jehovah as the giver, or whether they would go out without restraint I and on their own responsibility to seize it, as if in a wild chase. Here, therefore, comes in the establishment of the fundamental law concerning the healing of life; and this is done by the ordaining of the seventh day as a day of rest, the Sabbath. As man, when given over to a merely natural life, is inclined to seek health and recuperation without regarding the inner life and the commandments of God, so he is also inclined to yield himself passionately and without restraint to the indulgence of the natural appetite for food, and, in his collection of the means of nourishment, to lose self-collection, the self-possession of an interior life. As a token of this the Sabbath here comes in at the right point, and therefore points at once from the earthly manna to the heavenly manna, (vid.John 6).17
The announcement of the miracle. I will rain. The first fundamental condition of the feeding: recognition of the Giver, comp. Jam_1:17.—From heaven. Though this in general might also be said of bread “from the earth,” yet here a contrast is intended. From the sky above, i.e., as a direct gift.—The people shall go out and gather. A perpetual harvest, but limited by divine ordinance.—A daily portion every day. Reminding one of the petition, “Give us this day,” etc. An injunction of contentment.—On the sixth day. They will find, on making their preparation of the food, that the blessing of this day is sufficient also for the seventh.—At even. A gift of flesh was to precede the gift of manna. Thereby they are to understand that Jehovah has led them out of Egypt, that He has provided for them a substitute for the flesh-pots of Egypt. But on the next morning they shall see the glory of Jehovah, i.e., they shall recognize the glorious presence of Jehovah in the fact that He has heard their murmuring against Moses and Aaron, and has applied it to Himself, in that He presents them the manna—For what are we? Thus do the holy men retire and disappear behind Jehovah.—But the people also must come to this same conviction, must repent of their murmurings, and feel that they have murmured against Jehovah, not against His servants. Thus with perfect propriety is a sanction of the sacred office interwoven into the same history into which the history of the Sabbath is interwoven. Hence it follows also that the true sacred office must authenticate itself by miraculous blessings. Both are sealed by a specially mysterious revelation. It is significant that in this connection Aaron must be the speaker (Exo_16:9), that he must summon the people before Jehovah to humble themselves before His face on account of their murmuring. Equally significant is it, that the congregation, while Aaron speaks, sees the manifestation of Jehovah’s glory in the cloud. Especially significant, however, is it, that they see this glory rest over the wide wilderness, as they turn and look towards it. A most beautiful touch! With the wilderness itself the way through the wilderness is transfigured at this moment. If we assume (with Keil) that the summons to appear before Jehovah is equivalent to a summons to come out of the tents to the place where the cloud stood, then it must be further assumed, that the cloud suddenly changed its position, and removed to the wilderness, or else appeared in a double form. Neither thing can be admitted. Hereupon follows the last solemn announcement of the miraculous feeding, as the immediate announcement of Jehovah Himself.
The double miracle itself.—The quails came up.—This narrative has its counterpart in the narrative of the quails in Num_11:4 sqq., just as the chiding on account of want of water at Rephidim has its counterpart in the story of the water of strife (Meribah), distinctively so-called in Numbers 20. The relation of the narratives to one another is important. The murmuring of the people in the beginning of their journey through the wilderness is treated with the greatest mildness, almost as a child’s sickness; but their murmuring towards the end of the journey is regarded as a severe offence, and is severely punished; it is like the offence of a mature man, committed in view of many years’ experience of God’s miraculous help. At the water of strife even Moses himself is involved in the guilt, through his impatience; and the gift of quails in abundance is made a judgment on the people for their immoderate indulgence. Another difference corresponds to the natural features of the desert: the quails do not keep coming; but the people find themselves accompanied by the manna till they are tired of eating it.—Came up.—עָלָה. The coming on of a host of locusts or birds has the optical appearance of a coming up.—הַשְּׂלָו, “with the article of a word used collectively of a class” (Keil). LXX. ορτυγομήτρα, Vulg. coturnices. Large quails, whose name in Arabic comes from their fatness—שְׂלָו, fat. Says Knobel: “They become very fat, increase enormously, and in the spring migrate northward, in the autumn southward. Here we are to conceive of a spring migration. For the events described took place in the second month, i.e. about our May (Exo_16:1; Num_10:11), and the quails came to the Israelites from the south-east, from the Arabian Gulf (Psa_78:26 sq.; Num_11:31). In his journey from Sinai to Edomitis in March, Schubert (II., p. 360 sq.) saw whole clouds of migratory birds, of such extent and denseness as never before; they came from their southern winter-quarters, and were hastening toward the sea-coast (?). Probably they were quails, at least in part.” Further particulars on the abundance of quails in those regions, see in Knobel (p. 166) and Keil (II., p. 66). “They are sometimes so exhausted that they can be caught with the hand” (Keil). Some identify the fowl with the kata of the Arabs [a sort of partridge]. Of course it must be assumed that the Israelites in the wilderness were no more confined to the quails for meat than to the manna for bread.
The manna. Exo_16:13-14. A layer of dew. A deposit or fall of dew.—A dust, i.e. an abundance of small kernels. If the ἅπαξ λεγ. מְחֻםְפָם is explained simply according to the verb חָסַף, to peal off, scale off, we get the notion of scaly or leaf-shaped kernels, but not that of coagulated kernels. But perhaps the notion of shelled kernels of grain is transferred, in accordance with appearance, to these kernels. “According to Exo_16:31 and Num_11:7,” says Knobel, “the manna resembled in appearance the white coriander seeds (small, round kernels of dull white or yellowish green color) and the bdellium (resin).” Again he says: “According to the Old Testament, the dew comes from heaven (Deu_33:13; Deu_33:28; Pro_3:20; Zec_8:12; Hag_1:10); with it the manna descended (Num_11:9); this seems therefore like bread rained down from heaven, and is called ‘corn of heaven,’ ‘bread of heaven’ (Psa_78:24; Psa_105:40).” Further on Knobel relates that the ancients also supposed, that honey rained down from the air; hence he should more exactly distinguish between the notions of atmosphere and of heaven as the dwelling-place of God, comp. Joh_6:31-32.—Man hu.—The explanation that מָן is to be derived from מָנַן, to apportion, and that this expression therefore means: “a present is that” (Kimchi, Luther, Gesenius, Knobel. Kurtz), does not suit the context, which would make Moses repeat what the people had said before him, to say nothing of the fact that the derivation of the notion “present” from the verb is disputed. On the contrary, the interpretation of the LXX., Keil and others, τί ἐστι τοῦτο, perfectly accords with the connection. They said: “What is that?” because they did not know what it was. “מָן for מָה belongs to the popular language, and is preserved in Chaldee and Ethiopic, so that it is indisputably to be regarded as an old Shemitic form” (Keil).
The natural manna and the miraculous manna.—Comp. the articles in the Bible Dictionaries. Keil says: “This bread of heaven was given by Jehovah to His people for the first time at a season and in a place where natural manna is still found. The natural manna is now found in the peninsula of Sinai usually in June and July, often even as early as in May, most abundantly in the vicinity of Mt. Sinai, in Wady Feiran and Es-sheikh, but also in Wady Ghurundel and Tayibeh (Seetzen, Reisen, III., p. 76, 129), and some valleys south-east of Mt. Sinai (Ritter, XIV., p. 676), where it in warm weather oozes by night out of the branches of the tarfa-tree, a sort of tamarisk, and in the form of small globules falls down upon the dry leaves, branches, and thorns which lie under the trees, and is gathered before sunrise, but melts in the heat of the sun. In years when rain is abundant, it falls more plentifully for six weeks; in many years it is entirely wanting. It has the appearance of gum, and has a sweet, honey-like taste, and when copiously used, is said to be a gentle laxative (Burckhardt, Syria, p. 600; Wellsted in Ritter, p. 674). There are thus presented some striking points of resemblance between the manna of the Bible and the tamarisk manna. Not only is the place where the Israelites first received manna the same as that in which it is obtained now, but the time of the year is the same, inasmuch as the 15th day of the second month (Exo_16:1) falls in the middle of our May, or even still later. Also in color, form and appearance the resemblance is unmistakable, since the tamarisk manna, though of a dull yellow color, yet when it falls upon stones is described as white; the resemblance is likewise seen in the fact, that it falls in kernels upon the earth, is gathered in the morning, melts in the sun, and tastes like honey. While these points of agreement indubitably point to a connection between the natural and the Biblical manna, yet the differences which run parallel with all of the resemblances indicate no less clearly the miraculous character of the heavenly bread.” Thus Keil leaves the matter, without reconciling the two positions. The miraculous manna, he says, was enjoyed by the Israelites forty years long everywhere in the wilderness and at all seasons of the year in quantity equal to the wants of the very numerous people. Hengstenberg’s theory (Geschichle des Bileam, p. 280) that the natural manna which is formed on the leaves of the tarfa-bush by the sting of an insect (according to a discovery of Ehrenberg’s), is the natural substratum of the miraculous abundance of manna, is combated by Kurtz III., p. 34. Kurtz can conceive that the people lived at Kadesh thirty-seven years in apostasy, and that nevertheless during all this time they received regularly their portion of manna for every man. By this method of distinguishing the miraculous from the natural manna, we come to the hypothesis, that the people of Israel were fed with two kinds of manna; for it will certainly not be assumed that the natural fall of manna during all this time was supernaturally suspended, as in a similar manner Keil on Exo_16:10 makes out two pillars of cloud. Von Raumer and Kurtz, we may remark, go as much beyond Keil, as Keil does beyond Hengstenberg. Vid. Keil, p. 72, and the note on the same page. Between the baldly literal interpretation and the embellishments of wonder-loving legends the view above described recognizes nothing higher; it does not understand the symbolic language of the theocratic religion, nor see how an understanding of this lifts us as much above the mythical as the literal interpretation. The defect of the latter consists, as to substance, in the circumstance that it identifies the conception of nature with that of the common external world raised by a Providential government only a little above a material system; as to form, it is defective in that it identifies the word and the letter, and cannot understand and appreciate the specific difference between the heathen myth and the symbolical expression of the theocratic spirit as it blends together ideas and facts. Kurtz refers to the miracle in John 2, without clearly apprehending that this miracle would be the merest trifle, if his notion of the miracle of the manna is the correct one, to say nothing of the evident conflict of this with Joh_6:32. Knobel, whose learned disquisition on the manna (p. 171 sqq.) should be consulted, thus states the distinctive features of the miraculous manna, which he regards as a legendary thing: (a) The manna, according to the Biblical account, “comes with the mist and dew from heaven (Exo_16:14);”—so Kurtz III., p. 28. But since the mist does not come down from the throne of God, the meaning is simply that it comes from above, not from below. (b) “It falls in such immense abundance that every person of the very numerous people daily receives an omer (Exo_16:16; Exo_16:36).” The omer, however, is a very moderate hand measure, the tenth part of an ephah, originally hardly a definite quantity, vid. Keil II., p. 74. (c) Furthermore, “those who gather the manna collect always only just what they need, no more and no less.” This is clearly to be symbolically explained of contentedness and community. (d) “The manna falls only on the six working-days, not on the seventh day, it being the Sabbath (Exo_16:26 sq.).” On this is to be observed that this extraordinary fact was needed only once, in order to sanction the Sabbath; the fact may also be explained by the circumstance that on the day before an extraordinary, double fall of manna took place. (e) “The manna which is kept over from one working-day to another becomes wormy and offensive (Exo_16:20), whilst that preserved from the sixth day to the seventh keeps good (Exo_16:24), for which reason, except on the sixth day, the manna must always be eaten on the day when it is gathered.” This too is a singular, enigmatical fact; but it is cleared up by looking at it in its rich ideal light. The supply which heathen providence heaps up breeds worms, decays, and smells offensively: not so the supply required by the Sabbath rest, sacred festivities, and divine service. (f) “It is ground in the hand-mill, crushed in the mortar, and cooked by baking or boiling, made e.g. into cakes (Exo_16:23, Num_11:8). (g) It appears in general as a sort of bread, tasting like baked food (Exo_16:31, Num_11:8), and is always called לֶחֶם, even דָּגָן (vid. Exo_16:15), to say nothing of the miraculous doubling of the quantity (Exo_16:5; Exo_16:22).” This latter feature comes at once to nothing, if we assume that on the sixth day there was a double fall of manna.18 How far the manna, which contains no farinaceous elements, but only glucose, was mingled with farinaceous elements, in order to be used after the manner of farinaceous food, we need not inquire; at all events the Israelites could not afterwards have said, of a properly farinaceous substance, and that too of a superior kind, “Our soul loatheth this light food.” The splendor with which faith, wonder, and gratitude had invested the enjoyment of the miraculous food had vanished. According to Keil, the connection of the natural manna with the miraculous manna is not to be denied, but we are also not to conceive of a mere augmentation, but the omnipotence of God created from the natural substance a new one, “which in quality and quantity as far transcends the products of nature as the kingdom of grace and glory outshines the kingdoms of nature.” But Christ, in John 6, speaks of a manna in the kingdom of grace and glory, in contrast with the Mosaic manna.—According to Kurtz, who, especially in opposition to Karl Ritter, follows the opinion of Schubert, the manna was prepared by a miracle of omnipotence in the atmosphere; according to Schubert, that “tendency to the production of manna which at the right time permeated the vitalizing air, and with it all the vital forces of the land, has propagated itself still, at least in the living thickets of the manna-tamarisks.” The natural manna, then, is a descendant of the Biblical manna, but a degenerate sort, developed by the puncture made by the cochineal insect in the branches of the tarfa-shrub !
We are specially to consider further (1) the preservation of a pot, containing an omer of manna, in the sanctuary; (2) the specification of the time during which the use of manna by the Israelites lasted. As to the first point, the object was to preserve the manna as a religious memorial; hence the expression of the LLX., στάμνος χρυσοῦς, is exegetical. “The historian here evidently anticipates the later execution of the charge now given. Comp. Hengstenberg, Pentateuch II., p. 169 sqq.” (Kurtz). As to the second point, it is expressively said that Israel had no lack of the miraculous manna so long as they were going through the wilderness; but Kurtz infers from Jos_5:11-12, that the Jews did not cease to eat manna till after the passover in Gilgal, though they had other food besides. The correct view is presented in the Commentary on Joshua, Exo_5:12, where stress is laid on the contrast between Jehovah’s immediate preservation of the food of the wilderness, on the one hand, and the historical development that took the place of this, on the other hand, i.e., the natural order of things which belongs to civilized life; corresponding to the fact that the ark took the place of the pillar of cloud and fire, as leader of the people.
The question whether in this narrative the Sabbath is instituted for the first time (Hengstenberg), or again renewed (Liebetrut), is thus decided by Kurtz (III., p. 42): The observance of the Sabbath was instituted before the law, may even in Paradise, but “the law of the Sabbath first received a legal character through the revelation on Sinai, and lost it again through the love which is the fulfilling of the law, in the new covenant (Col_2:16-17).” In the fulfilment nothing indeed is lost, but every law becomes a liberating principle. It is noticeable how in the history of Moses, patriarchal customs, to which also probably the Sabbath belonged, are sanctioned by miraculous events and receive a legal character; as has already been seen in various instances (festivals, worship, sanitary laws, official rank, the Sabbath).
4. Rephidim
a. Rephidim and the place called Temptation and Strife.
Following the route of the mountain road the Israelites now came out of the region of the red sandstone into that of porphyry and granite (Knobel, p. 174). They came thither “according to their day’s journeys,” i.e., after several day’s journeys. In Num_33:12 the two stations Dophkah and Alush are mentioned. On the conjecture of Knobel (p. 174) concerning these places, vid. Keil II., p. 76.
According to Knobel (p. 176), “popular tradition transfers the occurrence here mentioned to Kadesh, therefore to a later time, (Num_20:8).” It is a universal characteristic of modern scientists that, not being free from the propensity to give predominant weight to sensible things, they are easily carried away with external resemblances, hence with allegories, and so may disregard the greatest internal differences of things. Thus as the external resemblance of man to the monkey is more impressive to the naturalist than the immense inward contrast, so Biblical criticism often becomes entangled in this modern allegorizing; even Hengstenberg pays tribute to it in identifying the Simon of Bethany with the Pharisee Simon on the Lake of Galilee, and so, the Mary of Bethany with the sinful woman who anointed Jesus.
As the sending of the quails in Num_11:5 sqq., forms a companion-piece to that in Exodus 16, so the water of strife in Num_20:2 sqq., to the water of strife in Rephidim. There is a resemblance even in the sounds of the names of the deserts Sin (סִין thorn?), and Zin (צִן low palm). So also the want of water and the murmurs of the people, and in consequence of this the seemingly identical designation of the place; also the giving of water out of the rock. Aside from the difference of time and place, the internal features of the two histories are also very different; even the difference in the designations is to be observed, the place Massah and Meribah (temptation and strife), and the water Meribah, over which the children of Israel strove with Jehovah, and He was sanctified (shown to be holy) among them. In the first account Jehovah is only tempted by the people; in the second, He is almost denied. In the one, Moses is said to smite the rock, away from the people, in the presence of the elders; in the other, he and Aaron are said to speak with the rock before all the people. Also the summary description of the journey in Deu_1:37, leaves no doubt that the second incident is entirely different from the first. Likewise in Deu_33:8, two different things are mentioned, and the temptation at Massah is distinguished from the strife at the water of strife, (comp. Psa_95:8). It lies in the nature of the case that the religious mind would celebrate in a comprehensive way its recollection of the most essential thing in the two events, viz., the miraculous help of Jehovah, Deu_8:15, Isa_48:21, Psa_78:15; Psa_78:20; Psa_105:41; Psa_114:8, Neh_9:15. Why chide ye with me?—The true significance of this chiding with him Moses at once characterizes: it is a tempting of Jehovah. This he could do after what he had affirmed in Exo_16:8-9. After the giving of the quails and the manna, designed to confirm the divine mission of Moses and Aaron, they had now to do with Jehovah, when they quarrelled with Moses. But how far did they tempt Jehovah? Not simply “by unbelieving doubt of the gracious presence of the Lord” (Keil). They sinfully tested the question whether Jehovah would again stand by Moses, or would this time forsake him. Hence their reproach against Moses reaches the point of complaining that he is to blame for their impending ruin—a complaint which might well have been followed by stoning. Jehovah’s command corresponds with this state of things. Moses is to go confidently away from the people to the still distant Horeb, but to take with him the elders of the people as witnesses, and there to smite the rock with his rod. But Jehovah is to stand there before him on the rock. Does this mean, as Keil represents, that God humbles Himself like a servant before his master? He rather appears as Moses’ visible representative, who rent the rock and produced the miraculous spring. The rock that followed them, says Paul, was Christ (1Co_10:4). Thence again is seen the divine human nature of the miracle, a mysterious synthesis of natural feeling and prophecy of grace. On Tacitus’ invidious narrative of Moses’ having discovered a spring of water by means of a drove of wild asses, see Kurtz III., p. 48.
b. Rephidim and Amalek. Hostile Heathendom.
As in the account of Amalek we see typically presented the relation of the people of God to the irreconcilably hostile heathendom; so in that of Jethro their relation to heathendom as manifesting a kindly disposition towards the theocracy.
Exhaustive treatises on the Amalekites may be found in the dictionaries and commentaries, especially also in Hengstenberg (Pentateuch II., p. 247 sqq., and Kurtz III., p. 48). In the way nations used to be formed, Amalek, a grandson of Esau, might quite well have become a nation by Moses’ time (vid. Genesis 36), Edomite leaders forming a nucleus around which a conglomerate multitude gathered. The Edomite tendency to barbarism was perpetuated in Amalek, and so in his descendants was developed a nation of Bedouin robbers, who might have spread from Idumea to Sinai, and perhaps in their capacity as waylayers had come to give name to a mountion of the Amalekites in the tribe of Ephraim (Jdg_12:15). Thus might a little people, which was kindred to Israel in the same way as Edom was, after Israel was regenerated to be the people of God, be the first to throw themselves hostilely in their way, and thus become the representative of all hostile heathendom, as opposed to the people and kingdom of God. In accordance with this was shaped the theocratic method of warfare against Amalek. and the typical law of war (see Keil II., p. 77). It is significant that the Midianites in the branch represented by Jethro should present heathendom on friendly terms with Israel, although the relationship was much less close. On the denial of the identity between the Amalekites and the above-mentioned descendants of Esau, see Kurtz III., p. 49. The descendant of Esau might, however, have received his name Amalek by transfer from the Bedouin horde which became subservient to him.
Then came Amalek. According to Deu_25:18, the attack of the Amalekites was a despicable surprise of the feeble stragglers of the Israelites. “We have to conceive the order of the events to be about as follows: The murmuring on account of want of water and the relief of that want took place immediately after the arrival at Rephidim of the main part of the host which had hurried forward, whilst the rear, whose arrival had been delayed by fatigue, was still on the way. These were attacked by the Amalekites” (Kurtz). The several features in the contest now beginning are these: Joshua with his chosen men; Moses on the mountain; the victory; the memorial of the fight; the altar Nissi and its typical significance—eternal war against Amalek!
Joshua. Jehovah is help, or salvation. Thus, according to Num_13:16, his former name, Hoshea (help, or salvation) was enriched; and perhaps the present war and victory occasioned the change.—Choose us out men. It was the first war which the people of God had to wage, and it was against a wild and insidious foe. Hence no troops of doubtful courage could be sent against the enemy, but a select company must fight the battle, with Joshua at the head, whose heroic spirit Moses had already discovered. Precipitancy also was avoided. They let the enemy remain secure until the following day. The host of warriors, however, had to be supported by the host of spirits in the congregation interceding and blessing, as represented by Moses in conjunction with Aaron and Hur. See my pamphlet “Vom Krieg und vom Sieg.”
The completed victory was to be immortalized by the military annals (“the book”) and by the living recollections of the host (“in the ears of Joshua”).—The altar Nissi (Jehovah my banner), however, was to serve the purpose of inaugurating the consecration of war by means of right military religious service. Accordingly, the two essential conditions of the war were, first, Jehovah’s summoning the people to the sacred work of defense, secondly, Jehovah’s own help. And also the war against Amalek is perpetuated until he is utterly destroyed only in the sense that Amalek typically represents malicious hostility to the people and kingdom of God.
“Hur comes repeatedly before us (Exo_24:14, Exo_31:2) as a man of high repute, and as an assistant of Moses. Josephus (Ant. III. 2, 4), following a Jewish tradition, of the correctness of which there is much probability, calls him the husband of Miriam, Moses’ sister” (Kurtz). According to Exo_31:2, he was the grandfather of Bezaleel, the architect of the tabernacle, of the tribe of Judah, and the son of Caleb (Chron. Exo_1:17.)
It is clear that the transaction with the rod of Moses was in this case too a symbolic and prophetic, a divine and human, assurance of victory. Therefore the rod must be held on high, and inasmuch as Moses’ hands cannot permanently hold it up, they must be supported by Aaron and Hur. In the holy war the priesthood and nobility must support the prophetical ruler. Thus is produced an immovable confidence in Jehovah Nissi, afterwards called Jehovah Sabaoth (of hosts). From His throne, through Moses’ hand, victorious power and confidence flow into the host of warriors. The book begun by Moses, in which the victory over Amalek is recorded, is important in reference to the question concerning the authority of the Bible. “When Jehovah further commands Moses to intrust to Joshua the future extirpation of Amalek, it becomes evident even now that he is destined to be Moses’ successor” (Kurtz). A conjecture about the hill where Moses stood may be found in Knobel, p. 177; Keil, II., p. 79. Subsequent wars waged against Amalek by Saul and David are narrated in 1 Samuel 15, 27, 30. Kurtz regards the elevated hand of Moses not as a symbol of prayer to Jehovah, but only of victorious confidence derived from Jehovah, III., p. 51. Keil rightly opposes the separation of the bestowment of victory from prayer, p. 79, but goes to the other extreme when he says, “The elevated rod was a sign not for the fighting Israelites, since it cannot even be made out that they, in the confusion of battle, could see it, but for Jehovah.” In all human acts of benediction prayer and the impartation of the blessing are united.
c. Jethro, and heathendom as friendly to the people of God.
Inasmuch as chap. 19 records the establishment of the theocracy, or of the typical kingdom of God, it is in the highest degree significant that the two preceding sections fix the relation and bearing of the people of God towards heathendom. Out of one principle are to flow two opposing ones, in accordance with the twofold bearing of heathendom. The heathen, represented by Amalek, who are persistently hostile, wage war against Jehovah Himself; on them destruction is eventually to be visited. The heathen, however, represented by Jethro, who are humane and cherish friendship towards the people of God, sustain towards Christianity, as it were, the relation of catechumens. The people of God enter into commercial and social intercourse with them under the impulse of religion and humanity; similarly James defines the relation of Christianity to Judaism. [There is nothing about this in his Epistle. Is the reference to Act_15:20-21?—Tr.]
(i.) The pious heathen as guest, relative, and protector of Moses’ family, and as guardian of the spiritual treasures of Israel. Exo_18:1-4.
It seems like too legal a conception, when Keil calls Jethro the “first-fruits among the heathen that seek the living God,” and incidentally adduces his descent from Abraham. Jethro did not become a Jew, but remained a priest in Midian, just as John the Baptist did not become, properly speaking, a Christian, but remained a Jew. It is more correct, when Keil says that Amalek and Jethro typify and represent the two-fold attitude of the heathen world towards the kingdom of God. In opposition to the special conjectures of Kurtz and Ranke, especially also the assumption that there was not time enough in Rephidim for this new incident, see Keil, II. p. 84.19
(ii.) The pious heathen as sympathetic friend of Moses and of the people of God in their victories. Exo_18:5-9.
Notice the delicate discretion which both men observe, with all their friendship towards each other. Jethro does not rush impetuously forward; he sends word of his approach. Moses receives him with appropriate reverence, but first leads him into his tent; for whether and how he may introduce him to his people, is yet to be determined.
(iii.) Religious song and thank-offering of the pious heathen. Exo_18:10-12.
The lyrical,20 festive recognition of the greatness of Jehovah in His mode of bringing the Egyptians to confusion through their very arrogance does not involve conversion to Judaism; neither does the burnt-offering and the thank-offering: but they do indicate ideal spiritual fellowship, aside from social intercourse.
(iv.) The religious and social fellowship of the people of God, even of Aaron the priest, and of the elders, with the pious heathen. Exo_18:12.
A proof that the religious spirit of the Israelites was as yet free from the fanaticism of the later Judaism is seen in the fact that Aaron and the elders could take part in a sacrificial feast with Jethro. Common participation in the Passover meal would have been conditioned on circumcision.
(v.) The political wisdom and organizing talent of the pious heathen thankfully recognized and humbly used by the great prophet himself. Exo_18:13-26.
Jethro’s advice given to Moses, like political institutions and political wisdom, is not a gift of immediate revelation, but a fruit of the sensus communis. But observe that Jethro acknowledges the prophetic vocation of Moses, and Jehovah’s revelation in regard to all great matters (questions of principle), just as Moses acknowledges the piety of his political wisdom. Moses and Jethro came nearer together than the mediæval church and ordinary liberalism. Exo_18:17-18 contain very important utterances concerning the consequences of such a hierarchy. On the distribution of the people according to the decimal system, see Keil, II., p. 87. The decimal numbers are supposed by him to designate approximately the natural ramifications of the people [ten being assumed to represent the average size of a family]. A further development of the institution (comp. Deu_1:9) took place later, according to Num_11:16.
(vi.) Distinct economies on a friendly footing with each other. Exo_18:27.
Analogous to this occurrence is the covenant of Abraham with Abimelech; the friendly relations maintained by David and Solomon with Hiram, king of Tyre, the queen of Sheba, etc.
Footnotes:
[7][Exo_16:15 מַן הוּא. Gesenius and Knobel derive מַן from מָנַן, to apportion; Fürst (Concordance) from the Sanscrit mani. But most scholars, following the evident implication of the narrative itself, regard מַן as the Aramaic equivalent of מַה. Even Fürst so renders it in his “Illustrirte Pracht-Bibel.” Comp. Michaelis, Supplementa ad Lexica Hebraica.—Tr.].
[8][Exo_16:20. “And it bred worms:” וַיָרֻם תּוֹלְעִים. The Heb. word seems to be the Fut. of רוּם defectively written, and therefore to mean: “rose up into (or with) worms.” Kalisch says, that the form וַיָרֻם is used instead of וַיָוָם to show that it comes from רָמָה (רָמַם?) in the sense of putrefy. So Maurer and Ewald (Gr., § 281, d). But it is doubtful whether רָמַם (assumed as the root from which comes רִמָּה “worm”) really means putrefy at all. Fürst defines it by “crawl.” Moreover, it would be inverting the natural order of things to say, that the manna became putrid with worms; the worms are the consequence, not the cause, of the putridness. Rosenmüller, Fürst, Arnheim and others render by “swarm,” “abound,” but probably as a free rendering for “rose up.” De Wette: da wuchsen Würmer. The A. V. rendering may stand as a substantially correct reproduction of the sense.—Tr.].
[9][Exo_17:16. We have given the most literal rendering of this difficult passage. But possibly כִּי, instead of meaning “for” (or “because”), may (as ὅτι often in Greek) be the mere mark of a quotation, to be omitted in the translation. The meaning of the expression itself is very doubtful. The A. V., following some ancient authorities, takes it as an oath; but for this there is little ground. Keil interprets: “The hand raised to the throne of Jehovah in heaven; Jehovah’s war against Amalek,” i.e. the hands of the Israelites, like those of Moses, must be raised heavenward towards Jehovah’s throne, while they wage war against Amalek. Others interpret: “Because a hand (viz. the hand of the Amalekites) is against the throne of Jah, therefore Jehovah will forever have war with Amalek.” This interpretation has the advantage over Keil’s of giving a more natural rendering to עַל, which indeed in a few cases does mean “up to,” but only when it is (as it is not here) connected with a verb which requires the preposition to be so rendered. Others (perhaps the majority of modern exegetes) would read נֵם (“banner”), instead of כֵּם (“throne”), and interpret: “The hand upon Jehovah’s banner; Jehovah has war,” etc. This conjecture is less objectionable than many attempted improvements of the text, inasmuch as the name of the altar, “Jehovah-nissi” (“Jehovah, my banner”), seems to require an explanation, and would receive it if the reading were נֵם, instead of כֵּם—Tr.].
[10]Inasmuch as Pelusium, as being a marshy city, is culled Sin, and Sinai, being a rocky mountain, is just the opposite, the question arises: What is the common feature of a marshy wilderness, and of a rocky mountain range? Possibly, the points and denticulations of the thorn-bush. An old interpretation calls Sinai itself a thorn-bush, from the thorn-bush (סְנֶה) in which Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses. The stony wilderness may have the thorn-bush in common with the marshy fens.
[11][Lange omits another way which might have been taken, viz., from el-Murkhah along the coast, and thence up Wady Feiran, instead of the more direct way through the wadies Shellal and Mukatteb into Wady Feiran. This is the course which the members of the Sinai Survey Expedition unanimously decided to be the most probable, inasmuch as the road over the pass of Nagb Buderah, between the wadies Shellal and Mukatteb, must have been constructed at a time posterior to the Exodus (E. H. Palmer: The Desert of the Exodus, p. 275). Robinson also mentions this route as at least equally probable with the other (I., p. 107). Palmer is quite decided that no other route afforded facilities for a large caravan such as that of the Israelites.—Tr.]
[12][This is not perspicuous. Inasmuch as Serbal is not mentioned in the Bible, no inference can be drawn from these circumstances respecting its location. Moreover, Serbal is not north of Sinai (Jebel Musa), but nearly east—a little north only. And why is “north” called “behind’? The “hinder” region, according to Hebrew conceptions, is in the west.—Tr.]
[13][The theory that Rephidim is to be sought in er-Raba (advocated by Knobel, Keil, Lange, and others), is certainly open to the objection that that plain is close by Mt. Sinai itself, and is in all probability the camping-place “before the mount,” mentioned in Exo_19:1-2. Palmer (p. 112) and Robinson (I., p. 155) are emphatic in the opinion that the plain of Sebaiveh, south-east of Jebel Musa, is quite insufficient to have accommodated the Israelitish camp. Rephidim, therefore, being (according to Exo_19:2) at least a day’s march from the place whence Moses went up to receive the law, cannot well have been er-Raha. Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, p. 40) and Palmer defend the old view that it is to be looked for at Feiran, near Mt. Serbal. Palmer argues that the distance, apparently much too great to have been traversed in a single day, is no insuperable objection, provided that by “the wilderness of Sinai” we understand the mouth of Nagb Hawa, which may have been reached in a single day by the direct route from Feiran.—Tr.]
[14][On this point see the last note. A good map of the whole peninsula is to be found in Smith and Grove’s Atlas of Ancient Geography.—Tr.]
[15]“The Arabs call the well exitium, interitus, probably in accordance with the notion that that which is bitter is deadly (2Ki_4:40).” Knobel. The Arabs may make humorous remarks about bad wells of water, like the Germans on bad wines, in hyperbolical expressions which are not to be taken literally.
[16][Wilson, (Lands of the Bible, Vol. I., p. 174), would identify with Elim, not Wady Ghurundel, but Wady Waseit (Useit), five or six miles south of Wady Ghurundel.—Tr.].
[17]Further on follows the fundamental law of warfare in self-defence against heathen enemies, as well as the fundamental law for the unhesitating appropriation of heathen wisdom.
[18][This reply, apparently not very clear, is the same as the one made above to specification (d) of Knobel. Lange distinguishes between a miraculous fall and an extraordinary fall, and supposes besides that the extraordinary (double) fall may have been limited to one occasion.—Tr.]
[19][Kurtz’s conjecture is that what led Jethro to visit Moses was the report of the victory of the Israelites over Amalek; to which the reply is that nothing is said of this, but, on the contrary, that it was the report of the deliverance from Egypt that occasioned the visit. Ranke’s conjecture is that Jethro’s visit took place after the giving of the law, on the ground that the stay at Rephidim was too short; to which it is replied that, if (as is assumed from Exo_16:1 and Exo_19:1) half a month intervened between the arrival at the wilderness of Sin and the arrival at the wilderness of Sinai, ample time is afforded for all that is recorded in Exodus 18.—Tr.]
[20][Lange regards Exo_18:10-11 as poetic in form.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 25 wilderness of Shur--comprehending all the western part of Arabia-Petræa.…
wilderness of Shur--comprehending all the western part of Arabia-Petræa. The desert of Etham was a part of it, extending round the northern portion of the Red Sea, and a considerable distance along its eastern shore; whereas the "wilderness of Shur" (now Sudhr) was the designation of all the desert region of Arabia-Petræa that lay next to Palestine.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Exo_15:22-27. — INTRODUCTORY.
Exo_15:22-27. — INTRODUCTORY.
DIVINE ADOPTION OF ISRAEL. — Exo_15:22 to Exo_40:38.
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1. PREPARATORY PERIOD.
March from the Red Sea to Sinai. First Contact with Friends and Foes in the Desert. Exo_15:22 to Exo_18:27.
The Wilderness of Shur. Shur signifies a wall, and is certainly perfectly applicable to the long, white, flat-topped limestone wall of the Jebel (Mountain) or Rahah, which now stretched along the left flank of the host of Israel as they faced towards Sinai. This mountain range ran southeast, far beyond the limit of their vision, thus giving name and character to the wilderness, which is here an undulating gravelly plain, twelve to fifteen miles wide between this white wall and the blue waters of the Gulf of Suez. It is also called “the wilderness of Etham,” in Num_33:8, from the station Etham, in the edge of the wilderness, near the head of the Gulf, where Israel encamped before the passage of the Sea. Exo_13:20.
Israel is now fairly in the “wilderness,” and we therefore give here a general idea of the country in which they spent the ensuing forty years, gathered from the observations of recent travellers, and the Report of the “Sinai Survey Expedition” of 1868-69.
The Mountain of the Law, or the Sinai of Exodus, is a peak of the great cluster of naked, steep, granite mountains in the southern part of the triangular peninsula of Sinai, which lies like a wedge between the Gulfs of Suez and Akabah. The apex of this triangle is at Ras (Cape) Mohammed, which stretches on the south into the Red Sea, and its base lying along the twenty-ninth parallel of north latitude; and it measures about one hundred and ninety miles along the Gulf of Suez, one hundred and thirty miles along the Gulf of Akabah, and one hundred and fifty miles from gulf to gulf. North of the Sinai peninsula is the desert of et Tih, an arid limestone table-land, with isolated mountain groups, which rise above plains of gravel, sand, and flint. This plateau is bounded generally by steep, flat-topped cliffs, and it projects wedge-wise into the Sinai desert on the south, and on the northeast joins the plateau of the Negeb, or “South Country” of Palestine. The Tih table-land is a fearful waste, almost wholly waterless; the valleys or wadies, along which the water runs in the wet season, marking the white or gray gravel with scanty lines of “sickly green.” The white range of cliffs which forms the western wall of this plateau of the Tih is called Jebel (Mount) Rahah on the north, and Jebel et Tih on the south; and it was along this wall, as seen above, that the Israelites commenced their desert march, the desert of Shur or Etham being the narrow strip between the mountains of Shur and the Gulf. Between the granitic cluster of Sinai and the southern limestone escarpment of the Tih is a broad belt of low sandstone hills, reaching nearly from shore to shore. These hills have flat tabular summits, and are often most fantastic in shape, and coloured gorgeously in various shades of yellow and red. Among these hills are broad, undulating plains, the chief of which is the Debbet er Ramleh, or Sandy Plain, which skirts the southern wall of et Tih. This sandstone formation contains many rich veins of iron, copper, and turquoise, which were worked by the ancient Egyptians on an extensive scale. At Maghareh and Surabit el Kadim, in this district, are found hieroglyphic tablets recording the names of the kings under whose auspices these mining operations were carried on. At the latter place are the ruins of two temples, one of hewn stone, the other excavated in the rock, and inscriptions which show, according to the translation of Lepsius, that these temples were constructed for the use of the miners and the troops stationed there for their protection. These inscriptions range in date from the third Memphitic dynasty, (about 2,500 B.C.,) to Rameses IV. of the twentieth dynasty, (about 1200 B.C.) Cheops, or Shufer, the builder of the Great Pyramid, has a tablet here. Here are also numerous evidences of immense smelting operations, piles of slag and remains of furnaces, which show that vast quantities of fuel must have been consumed here by the ancient Egyptians. Palmer and others hence infer that the country was once much more plentifully supplied with vegetation, and, therefore, had a more copious rainfall than now. (Desert of the Exodus, i, p. 235.)
The mountains of Sinai are a “rugged, tumbled chaos” of dark granite, variegated porphyries, and mica schist, with veins of green stone and variously shaded feldspar, often displaying a great variety of brilliant tints in the bright sun under the clear desert sky. There are three principal groups of these mountains: the central group of Jebel Musa, (Mount of Moses,) of which Mount St. Katharine is the highest peak, and the crown of the peninsula, standing seven thousand three hundred and sixty-three feet above the sea level; Serbal, whose smooth granite dome rises on the northwest; and Um Shomer, which lifts its jagged peaks in the southeast. There is a strip of broad gravelly plain called el Ga’ah, (or el Ka’a,) “the Plain,” which runs down along the Gulf of Suez between the mountains and the sea, and a narrower strip of a similar character along the Gulf of Akabah, which disappears here and there as the mountain spurs come down to the water. With the exception of the Debbet er Ramleh, or Sandy Plain, above mentioned, the plains and valleys are usually floored with gravel, dark in the granitic districts, and white and black in the limestone regions. The wadies, or dry rivers as they are sometimes called, are the water-courses of the desert, along which the torrents from the mountains find their way to the sea. These are the permanent natural roads through the mountains. Most of them are dry for the greater part of the year, and in the wet season destructive floods sweep through them, tearing out the scanty soil where it is not fastened down by large shrubs or trees, and often scattering boulders from the craggy walls along their course. These wadies must always have determined the lines of travel, for it is impossible to pass the mountains except in their beds; and in these only is there water and herbage for man and beast. It is this fact that makes it possible to determine with a high degree of certainty the route of the Israelites through these mountains; at least, we can be sure that we know all the alternatives that were before them in choosing their course.
On leaving the white glare of the desert plain, and rising through the mountain passes into the granite region, the traveller finds a cool, genial climate and refreshing breezes. A few perennial streams flow down from the mountains, along which are considerable tracts of vegetation. The trees are chiefly the acacia, or shittah, from which distils the gum arabic of commerce; the tamarisk, with its long feathery leaves and manna-dropping twigs; and the juniper, or broom, “with its high canopy and white blossoms;” while the palm is scattered along the more fertile wadies, and stands in fine groves at Tor and Feiran. The bright green caper plant often hangs along the face of the crags, and here and there are olive groves, or scattered olive trees, the relics of ancient monkish plantations. Game is occasionally found in the mountains — the ibex, or wild goat of Scripture, the gazelle, and the hare, while more rarely partridges and quails are seen. The productiveness of these fertile spots would be vastly increased by cultivation; then what are now bare rocks or gravelly torrent beds would be turned into gardens. It is well known that the amount of rain which falls upon a district depends to a high degree upon the evaporating surfaces furnished by the forests; and the forests of this region have for centuries been diminishing, having been destroyed, firstly, for fuel, as shown above, in the mining operations of successive centuries; and, secondly, for the manufacture of charcoal, which is the chief and almost sole export of the peninsula. These facts make it probable that this desert, at the time of the Exodus, was capable of sustaining quite a large population, and of furnishing water and pasturage to their cattle and flocks.
The desert of the Tih is much more barren. It is drained by the Wady el Arish, or “river of Egypt,” into the Mediterranean; but it is a white wilderness of chalk and limestone, yet sprinkled over with a brown, dry herbage, which bursts into a sudden and transitory green after the autumnal rains. Yet the Tih bears traces of ancient, perhaps pre-historic, inhabitants, in the stone cairns and fenced inclosures which were reared by some primeval pastoral people. In the “South Country” of the Pentateuch and Joshua, northeast of the Tih plateau, are found deep ancient wells, remains of ruined cities, gardens, and vineyards; and also abundant traces of roads, which were once the pathways of civilization. It was through the arid and dreary Tih that Jacob went down into Egypt; and through the same wilderness Joseph and Mary fled with the infant Jesus.
MARCH TO MARAH AND ELIM, Exo_15:22-27.
22. And they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water — The springs regulate the movements and fix the halting places of the caravans now as in the time of Moses, and it is probable that the first resting-place of Israel after the passage of the Red Sea was the oasis which the Arabs call Ayun Musa, the “Springs of Moses,” two miles from the shore, and about six hours’ travel from Suez. There Robinson found seven fountains, one of massive ancient masonry; yet previous travellers describe many more, some mentioning twenty. The water is dark coloured and brackish, depositing a hard, calcareous sediment as it rises, which forms mounds around the springs, over which the water flows into the sands and disappears. About twenty palm bushes now grow around the springs, and there is a small patch of grain and a vegetable garden cultivated by people from Suez. There are fragments of tiles and pottery, indicating that there were once habitations near these springs. It was probably from this spot that Israel started on the three days’ journey in the wilderness of Shur.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv22–25 22. led … onward] properly, made … to journey…
22. led … onward] properly, made … to journey (Exo_12:37); so Psa_78:52 a.
from the Red Sea] The Arabs regard ‘Ayûn (or ‘Oyûn) Mûsâ, the ‘springs of Moses,’ 9 miles below Suez, on the E. side of the gulf, and 1½ miles from the coast, as the station at which the Israelites first halted, after their passage of the Red Sea. ‘Ayûn Mûsâ is a small oasis, where Robinson (1:62), m 1838, counted 7 fountains, some evidently mere recent excavations in the sand, in which a little brackish water was standing, and saw about 20 stunted, untrimmed palm bushes, and a small patch of barley, irrigated from one or two of the fountains. More recently (cf. Ordnance Survey of Sinai, p. 73; Palmer, Desert of the Ex., 1871, p. 34 f.) the irrigation has been artificially improved: several acres of garden ground, containing fruit and vegetables, have been brought under cultivation, which supply the Suez market; and palms and tamarisk trees are more abundant. Whether however ‘Ayûn Mûsâ was really the Israelites’ halting-place, or was only assumed to be such on account of its convenient situation opposite the supposed crossing-place, must remain uncertain: if the passage was made either through, or N. of, the Bitter Lakes (p. 126), ‘Ayûn Mûsâ, being 35, or 50, miles distant, would be too far off for at least the first stopping-place.
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Shur] The name of the district on the E. frontier of Egypt (i.e. E. of line extending from Suez to what is now Port Said), mentioned also in Gen_16:7; Gen_20:1; Gen_25:18 (where ‘before,’ or ‘in front of,’ means East of), 1Sa_27:8. On theories of the origin of the name see Shur in DB. Shur in Heb. means a ‘wall’; and hence it has sometimes been supposed to denote the ‘wall’ built by the Egyptians, at least as early as Usertesen I, of the 12th dynasty, to protect their E. frontier against invaders from Asia. But it is uncertain whether the Egypt. word means a wall or only a line of military posts or fortresses: Shur also is the regular word for ‘wall’ only in Aramaic, in Heb. it occurs only twice, in poetry (Gen_49:22; Psa_18:29 = 2Sa_22:30): so it is very doubtful if this theory of the meaning of the name is correct (see further DB. s.v., with the references).
three days] a day’s journey, for a caravan travelling with tents, baggage, and cattle, would be hardly more than 15 miles.
the wilderness] In the itinerary of P in Num_33:8, ‘the wilderness of Etham’: i.e., if this interpretation is correct, the part of the wilderness of Shur that was near Etham (Exo_13:20).
22–27. The journey from the Red Sea to Elim.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 25 (22) So Moses brought Israel.—Rather, And Moses brought Israel.…
THE JOURNEY FROM THE RED SEA TO ELIM.
(22) So Moses brought Israel.—Rather, And Moses brought Israel. The regular narrative is here resumed from Exo_14:31, and the Israelites are brought two stages upon their journey towards Sinai (Exo_3:12)—first to Marah (Exo_15:23), and next to Elim (Exo_15:27). It is uncertain at what exact point of the coast they emerged from the sea-bed, but it can scarcely have been at any great distance from the modern Suez. The “springs of Moses,” Ayun Musa, which are about seven miles from Suez, may well have been the halting-place where the “Song” was composed and sung. At this spot there is considerable vegetation, and a number of wells, variously reckoned at seven, seventeen, and nineteen.
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The wilderness of Shur is the arid tract extending from Lake Serbônis on the north to Ain Howarah towards the south. It seems to have been called also “the wilderness of Etham” (Num_33:8). The Israelites traversed only the southern portion, which is an actual desert, treeless, waterless, and, except in the early spring, destitute of herbage.
They went three days.—From Ayun Musa to Ain Howarah is a distance of about thirty-six miles, so that, if Howarah is Marah, the average of a march can have been no more than twelve miles. This, however, is quite likely with so large a multitude, and when there was no reason for haste.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv22–25 Vers. 22-27. THE JOURNEY FROM THE RED SEA TO…
Vers. 22-27. THE JOURNEY FROM THE RED SEA TO ELIM. After a stay, which cannot be exactly measured, but which was probably one of some days, near the point of the Eastern coast of the Gulf of Suez, at which they had emerged from the sea-bed, the Israelites, under the guidance of the pillar of the cloud, resumed their journey, and were conducted southwards, or south-eastwards, through the arid tract, called indifferently "the wilderness of Shut" (verse 22), and "the wilderness of Etham", (Num_33:8) to a place called Marah. It is generally supposed that the first halt must have been at Ayun Musa, or "the springs of Moses." This is "the only green spot near the passage over the Red Sea" (Cook). It possesses at present seventeen wells, and is an oasis of grass and tamarisk in the midst of a sandy desert. When Wellsted visited it in 1836, there were abundant palm-trees. It does not lie on the shore, but at the distance of about a mile and a half from the beach, with which it was at one time connected by an aqueduct, built for the convenience of the ships, which here took in their water. The water is regarded as good and wholesome, though dark-coloured and somewhat brackish. From Ayun Musa the Israelites pursued their way in a direction a little east of south through a barren plain where sand-storms are frequent part of the wilderness of Shur for three days without finding water. Here their flocks and herds must have suffered greatly, and many of the animals probably died on the journey. On the last of the three days water was found at a spot called thenceforth "Marah," "bitterness," because the liquid was undrinkable. After the miracle related in ver. 25, and an encampment by the side of the sweetened spring, (Num_33:8) they proceeded onward without much change of direction to Elim, where was abundance of good water and a grove of seventy palm-trees. Here "they encamped by the waters," and were allowed a rest, which probably exceeded a fortnight. (See the comment on Exo_16:1)
So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea. There is no such connection between this verse and the preceding narrative as the word "so" expresses. Translate "And Moses brought." The wilderness of Shur, called also that of Etham (Num_33:8) appears to have extended from Lake Serbonis on the north, across the isthmus, to the Red Sea, and along its eastern shores as far as the Wady Ghurundel. It is almost wholly waterless; and towards the south, such wells as exist yield a water that is bitter in the extreme. Three days. The distance from Ayun Musa to Ain Howarah, the supposed representative of Marah, is not more than about 36 miles; but the day"s march of so large a multitude through the desert may not have averaged more than twelve miles. And found no water. No doubt the Israelites carried with them upon the backs of their asses water in skins, sufficient for their earn wants during such an interval; but they can scarcely have carried enough for their cattle. These must have suffered greatly.
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HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 22-27. Marah and Ellim.
Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, anti they went out into the wilderness of Shur," etc. The main topics here are
I THE SWEET FOLLOWED BY THE BITTER. Singing these songs of triumph, and praising God with timbrel and dance, on the further shores of the Red Sea, the Israelites may have felt as if nothing remained to them but to sing and dance the rest of their way to Canaan. They would regard their trials as practically at an end. It would be with regret that they broke up their pleasant encampment at the Red Sea at all. Their thought would be, "It is good for us to be here, let us make here tabernacles". (cf. Mat_17:4) But this was not to be permitted. The old call comes to the children of Israel that they go forward", (Exo_14:15) and the halcyon days of their first great exuberant joy are over. Their celebration of triumph is soon to be followed by sharp experience of privation.
1. The Israelites were conducted by the wilderness of Shur. There they went three days without water. God might, as afterwards at Rephidim, (Exo_17:6) have given them water; but it was his will that they should taste the painfulness of the way. This is not an uncommon experience. Every life has its arid, waterless stretches, which may be compared to this "wilderness of Shur" "There are moments when the poet, the orator, the thinker, possessed, inspired with lofty and burning thoughts, needs nothing added to the riches of his existence; finds life glorious and sublime. But these are but moments, even in the life of genius; and after them, and around them, stretches the weary waste of uninspired, inglorious, untimeful days and years" (Dr. J. Service). It is the same in the life of religion. Seasons of spiritual enjoyment are frequently followed by sharp experience of trial. We are led by the wilderness of Shur. Spiritual comforts fail us, and our soul, like Israel"s at a later period, is "much discouraged because of the way". (Num_21:4) We are brought into "a dry and thirsty land, where no water is". (Psa_63:1) A certain sovereignty is to be recognised in the dispensation of Divine comforts. God leaves us to taste the sharpness of privation, that we may be led to cry after. (Psa_119:81, Psa_119:82)
2. They came to Marah, where the waters were bitter. This was a keen and poignant disappointment to them upon sorrow." As usual, it drove the people to murmuring, and Moses to prayer. Bear gently with their infirmity. Do them the justice of remembering that there is no record of their murmuring during the three past days of their great privation in the wilderness. It was this disappointment at the well of Marah which fairly broke them down. Would many of us have borne the trial better? It is easy to sing when the heart is full of a great fresh joy. But let trial succeed trial, and disappointment follow on disappointment, and how soon do the accents of praise die away, to be replaced by moaning and complaint! The "Song of Moses," which was so natural on the banks of the Red Sea, would have had a strange sound coming from these dust-parched throats, and fainting, discouraged hearts. The note of triumph is not easily sustained when the body is sinking with fatigue, and when the wells to which we had looked for refreshment are discovered to be bitter. Take Marah as an emblem
(1) of life"s disappointments. Our life-journey is studded with disappointments. Hard to bear in any case, these are doubly bitter to us, when they come on the back of other trials, and cheat us of an expected solace. When friends, e.g. , turn their backs on us in time of need, or come with cold comfort when we expected ready help, or give chiding instead of sympathy; when trusted projects fail, or fond anticipations are not realised; most of all, when God himself seems to desert us, and grants no answer to our prayers; the waters given us to drink are bitter indeed.
(2) Of life"s bitter experiences generally. "Call me not Naomi," said the mother-in-law of Ruth, "call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me". (Rth_1:20) The only wells that never become bitter are the "wells of salvation" (Isa_12:3) the waters of Divineconsolations. (cf. Joh_4:14) The waters of our creature-comforts admit of being very easily embittered. Relationships, friendships, possessions, business, social position sweet to-day, any or all of these may be made bitter to us to-morrow. The life of Israel was made "bitter" by bondage. (Exo_1:14) God dealt "bitterly" with Naomi in taking husband and sons from her, and reducing her to poverty. (Rth_1:21) Hannah was "in bitterness of soul" because she had no child, and "her adversary provoked her sore, for to make her fret". (1Sa_1:6-10) Job was embittered by his afflictions. (Job_7:11 Job_9:18 Job_10:1) The tears of the Psalmist were his meat day and night, while they continually said unto him, where is thy God? (Psa_42:3) Mordecai cried, when the decree went forth against his nation, "with a loud and bitter cry". (Est_4:1) Bitter waters there are, too, in our own hearts, and in society, engendered by sin by the presence of envy, jealousy, strife, hatred, malignity, and revengefulness. No scarcity, then, of Marah experiences, no want of wells that stand in need of the healing tree being cast in to sweeten them.
3. God"s ends in permitting Israel to suffer these severe privations. We do not ask why God led the Israelites by this particular way, since probably there was no other way open by which they could have been led. But we may very well ask why, leading them by this way, God, who had it in his power to supply their wants, permitted them to suffer these extreme hardships?
(1) We may glean one hint in reply from Paul"s experience in 2Co 12., "Lest," he says, "I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" (ver. 7).
(2) A second hint is to be drawn from ver. 25 he proved them" Deu_8:2 humble thee, and prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no." We do not know what unbelief, what rebellion, what impatience there is in our hearts, till trial comes to draw it out.
II THE BITTER CHANGED INTO THE SWEET. Moses, we read, "cried unto the Lord, and he showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet" (ver. 25). Observe,
1. The agency employed. The tree had probably some peculiar propertieswhich tended in the direction of the result which was produced, though, of itself, it was incompetent to produce it. The supernatural does not, as a rule, contravene the natural, but works along the existing lines, utilising the natural so far as it goes.
2. The spiritual meaning. That God intended the healing of these bitterwaters to be a "sign" to Israel a proof of his ability and willingness to heal them of all their natural and spiritual diseases, is abundantly plain from vers. 25, 26. The lesson God would have them learn from the incident was am Jehovah that healeth thee." His Jehovah character guaranteed thatwhat he had shown himself to be in this one instance, he would be always, viz., a Healer. As Jehovah, God is the Being of exhaustless resource. As Jehovah, he is the Being eternally identical with himself self-consistent in all his ways of acting; so that from any one of his actions, if the principle of it can but be clearly apprehended, we are safe in inferring what he always will do. God sweetens, or heals, the bitter waters of life
(1) By altering the outward conditionse.g. , by removing sickness, sending aid in poverty, taking away the cause of bitterness, whatever that may be. He healed Naomi"s bitterness by the happy marriage of Ruth; (Rth_4:14, Rth_4:15) Hannah"s by giving her a son; (1Sa_1:20) Job"s by restoring his health and prosperity, etc. The tree here is whatever agency God employs to accomplish his purpose.
(2) And this is the diviner art, by infusing sweetness into the trial itself. He makes that which is bitter sweet to us, by adding himself to it. This Divine change in our experiences is accomplished by means of a very simple but potent secret as simple as the casting of the tree into the waters, as potent in its efficacy. Would we know it? It is simply this denying our own natural will, and taking God"s instead. "Not my will but thine be. (Luk_22:42) This it is which will make even the bitterest of trials sweet. Call it, if you will, the taking up of the cross; it is, at all events, the spirit of the cross which is the sweetening, heavenly element in all affliction the tree that heals. It is invaluable to bear this in mind, that be our trial, our grief, what it may, half its pain has departed the moment we can bring ourselves to embrace God"s will in it. Heavenly consolations will sweeten what remains. Mediaeval mystics, like Tauler, dwelt much on this thought, and it is the true and all-important element in their teaching. With God at hand to bless, "Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;" or as another "sweet singer" expresses it
Just to let thy rather do What he will. Just to know that he is true, And be still.
Just to let him take the care, Sorely pressing, Finding all we let him bear Changed to blessing.
This is all! and yet the way, Marked by him who loves thee best! Secret of a happy day, Secret of his promised rest. FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.
(3) By removing the cause of all evil and bitterness sin itself. It is as the God of Redemption that Jehovah reveals himself pre-eminently as the Healer. His Gospel goes to the root of the matter, and strikes at the malum originale of the bitterness in us, and around us. From this point of view, it is not fanciful to trace an analogy we need not allege a direct typical relation between this tree cast in to sweeten the bitter waters, and the Cross of the Redeemer. God through Christ; Christ through what he has accomplished by this Cross; the Cross, by being made the object of faith, and again, by being set up in men"s hearts, effects this sweetening of the waters. We have but to compare ancient with modern civilization, to see how much the Cross of Christ, cast into the bitter waters of society, has already done to sweeten them. Trusted in for salvation, it renews the heart in its inmost springs, and so heals the bitter waters there; while, as the power of God unto salvation, it will ultimately heal the world of all its woes, abolishing even death, from which already it extracts the sting and bitterness.
III THE RIGHT IMPROVEMENT OF MARAH EXPERIENCES (ver. 26). We should accept them,
1. As a motive to obedience. If God has healed us that is a new reason for loving, trusting, and obeying him. (Ps 116) Accordingly, consequent on this healing of the bitter waters, God made "a statute and an ordinance" for Israel, taking them bound to serve him, and promising them new blessings, if they should prove obedient, This "statute and ordinance" is the comprehensive germ of the subsequent covenant. (Exo_24:3-9)
2. As a pledge. The sweetening of the waters, as already seen, was a revelation of Jehovah in his character as Healer. It pledged to Israel that he would, if only they obeyed his statutes, exempt them from such plagues as he had brought upon the Egyptians, and, by implication, that he would heal them of whatever diseases were already upon them. He would be a God of health to them. The healthy condition of body is one which not only throws off existing disease, but which fortifies the body against attacks of disease from without. Natural healing, as we see in the New Testament, and especially in the miracles of Christ, is a symbol of spiritual healing, and also a pledge of it. In the gospels, "to be saved," and "to be made whole," are represented by the same Greek word. We may state the relation thus:
(1) Natural healing is the symbol of spiritual healing.
(2) Spiritual healing, in turn, is a pledge of the ultimate removal of all natural evils. (Rev_21:4)
(3) Each separate experience of healing is a pledge of the whole. It is a fresh testimony to the truth that God is a healer (cf. Psa_103:1-4) Every recovery from sickness is thus, in a way, the preaching of a gospel. It pledges a complete and perfect healing entire deliverance from natural and spiritual evils if only we will believe, obey, and use God"s method.
IV ELIM (ver. 27).
1. An illustration of the chequered experiences of life. The alternation of gladness and sorrow; of smiles and tears; followed again by new comforts and seasons of joy.
2. There are Elim spots places of cool shade, of abundant waters, of rest and refreshment provided for us all along our way through life. In the times of hottest persecution, there were intervals of respite. The Covenanters used to speak of these as "the blinks.
3. These Elim-spots should not lead us to forget that we are still in the wilderness. The prevailing aspect of life, especially to one in earnest, is figured by the wilderness, rather than by Elim. Our state here is one of trial, of discipline, of probation no passing snatches of enjoyment should cause us to forget this. J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 22-27. The want of water and the want of faith Marah and Elim. It will be noticed at once how the interest of this passage is gatheredround that great natural necessity, water. It is a necessity to man in so many ways. He needs it for drinking, for cleansing, for cooking, and for helping to renew the face of the earth. We may note also that Israel was soon to discover the necessity of water in ceremonial duties. A great deal of water had to be used in the tabernacle service. (Exo_29:4 Exo_30:18; Lev_6:27, Lev_6:28; chaps, 13-17.) Hence it is no wonder that the very first thing Jehovah does after delivering the Israelites finally from Pharaoh, is to bring them face to face with this great want of water. We see them passing in a short time through a great variety of experiences with regard to it. First, they go three days in the wilderness and find no water; next they come to the waters of Marah and find them undrinkable; then these waters are suddenly made sweet; and lastly, they journey on to the abundant supplies, and therefore inviting neighbourhood of Elim.
I THE ISRAELITES EXPERIENCE THE WANT OF WATER, There is here a curious contrast between the fate of the Egyptians and the want of the Israelites. Water proved the ruin of Pharaoh and his host, while the want of water led Israel rapidly into murmuring and unbelief. Thus we have another illustration of how temporal things even the very necessities of life from a natural point of view are only blessings as God makes them so. He can turn them very rapidly and easily into curses. We call to mind the grotesque words of Laertes over his drowned sister: much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia." So the Egyptians had too much of water, and the Israelites could not get any at all. God was immediately beginning to teach and test his own people according to the explanation of Moses in vers. 25, 26. They were to learn faith in Jehovah for support as well as deliverance; and the first lesson was to be taught by a three days" deprivation of water. If they had had the believing spirit in them this was an opportunity to say, "Assuredly such an awful deliverance has not been wrought that we may straightway perish of thirst." Notice also how the reality of the wilderness life is at once brought before us by these three days of waterless wandering. So short a time had they been out of Egypt, and so little distance had they got away; and yet they are as it were in the very worst of wilderness experiences. Thus even the moment they became effectually clear of the external bondage of Egypt, the truth was impressed upon them that they were without a home. There was no swift exchange from one storehouse of temporal comforts to another. For remember, Egypt with all its misery was a sort of home; there the Israelites had been born and trained; there they had got into a bondage of habits and traditions which was not to he removed in a day. And 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 Egypt. 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.
II WHEN THE ISRAELITES FIND WATER IT IS BITTER. Imagine, when they see the water after three days privation, how they run to it. But taste does not confirm sight. The water is not drinkable. Possibly this was a just complaint; although it may rather be suspected that the water, even if bitter, was not so 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 flowing from God get mixed on the way with human and embittering elements, and these elements are so strong and disturbing that we utterly forget the sweet Divine part because of the discomforts of the bitter human one. We are ready to cast all away as if the nauseous could not be expelled. When Jesus told his disciples certain things which required a changed mind, and the creation 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 religion there is sure to be something of the bitter. The exhortation, "Taste and see that the Lord is good," is a serious and experimental one, yet many 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. (Exo_32:19; Num_11:10-15 Num_12:1 Num_14:5 Num_16:3) David also had his Marah. (Psa_42:3 Psa_80:5 Psa_102:9) One can see a good deal of Marah even in the letters of the Christian Paul to his brethren in Corinth and Galatia. He had expected great things from the gifts of the Spirit, and correspondingly bitter would be his disappointment. 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 GOD QUICKLY MAKES THE WATER PALATABLE. Note the request of the people. They 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 Marah," they would have counted him a mocker; yet his reply would have been correct. In the very things from which we turn as obviously useless, we may be destined to find an ample and satisfying supply. Moses himself knew not at the moment 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 unbelief of the people. With regard to the casting in of the tree, it may have been that the tree had in itself some salutary effect; but the probability rather is that Moses was asked for another pure act of faith. This is more in harmony with the miraculous progression observed hitherto. When we remember the multitude that had to be supplied from these waters, there is something ludicrously inadequate in the supposition that the branches gathered to themselves the saline incrustations. The casting in of the tree was rather a symbolic channel for the sweetening than the actual cause of it.
IV GOD SEIZES THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW ISRAEL WHEREIN THEIR SAFETY LIES. "He proved them" (ver. 25). He points out, as it were, that they have been subjected to a test and have failed. At Marah they are shown forth as inattentive to past experiences, forgetful as to how God had remembered them and delivered them. Being now free from the bondage of Egypt, they must no longer blame outward constraints, but look earnestly on inward defects, for these are about to prove their greatest hindrance and danger. Yet this was not a time to speak sternly, even though unbelief had put forth its baleful front; they were but at the beginning of the journey, and gentle admonition was more proper than stern reproach. Therefore he counsels them
1. To listen steadily to his voice;
2. To make his will, as expressing most clearly that which is right, the ruleof their conduct;
3. To carry out all his commandments and statutes, some of the mostimportant of which had already been laid before them in connection with their departure from Egypt. Let them attend to all this, and they will be free from Egypt"s calamities. Notice the negative aspect of this promise. God promises exemption from suffering rather than attainment of good. It was well thus to make Israel give a backward look, not only towards the Red Sea, but across it, and into Egypt, where so many troubles had come on their recent oppressors. It would almost seem as if already the hearts of many were filling with the expectation of carnal comforts. They were thinking, eagerly and greedily, of what they were to get. But God speaks out very plainly. He demands obedience; and the most he has to say is that if obedience is given, there will be exemption from suffering. The positive element is left out, and doubtless there is wisdom in the omission. That element will come in due time. Yet of course it is there even now, for the devout and discerning, who can penetrate below the surface. The keeping of Jehovah"s commandments is, infallibly, the attaining of the highest and purest blessedness.
V AFTER MARAH HAS DONE ITS WORK, THE ISRAELITES COME TO ELIM. The pillar of cloud doubtless led them to Marah purposely before Elim, and to Elim purposely after Marah. Thus the people got a rest before coming to another trial of their faith and submissiveness; God did not take them straight from the difficulty with regard to the water to the next difficulty with regard to the bread. It is easy to understand that there were many attractions at Elim which would make them wish to linger there; but at Elim they could not stay. It had water in abundance; but water, great blessing as it is, is not enough. Pleasant it was to rest for awhile at these wells and seventy palm-trees; but before them lay a still better land where they would have, not only brooks of water and fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, but also wheat and barley and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; and all the rest of the good things mentioned in Deu_8:7-9. The great lesson of Elim is that we must not make a resting-place, however attractive, into a home. Y.
HOMILIES BY G. A. GOODHART
Vers. 22-27. I will hear what God, the Lord, will say.
There is no reason why a powerful sermon should not be preached from a seemingly strange text. All depends on how the text is treated. God himself is the greatest of all preachers. See what sort of a sermon he preached from a text which most would have thought unpromising.
I THE TEXT (ver. 22-25).
1. What it was. Israel three days without water; at length "a large mound, a whitish petrifaction," from which flowed a fountain. Eagerness followed by disgust. The water bitter, loathsome, undrinkable. "Marah." The people murmured against their leader. A bitter fountain and an embittered murmuring people. Such the text.
2. How treated. The text was improved by applying to it the context. Many other texts might be best improved in like manner. "The Lord showed him a tree," etc. (ver. 25). Clearly somewhere close at hand. The bitter waters made sweet. Discontent changed to satisfaction.
II THE SERMON (vers. 25, 26). Israelites too much like the bitter water. When God looked to refresh himself by their confidence and gratitude, he was met by murmuring and distrust. They, too, must learn not to fix attention wholly on disagreeables, hut to take the bitter out of them by considering the never-absent context. God himself is the context to every incident which could befall them, but they must apply his help by obedience and simple trust. Obey him and no bitter, in the heart or out of it, but his presence would sweeten. "I am the Lord that healeth thee," even as I have healed the waters. Notice:
1. The sermon does not dwell upon the text, though it springs out of itquite naturally. Exceedingly plain and simple, so that a child can understand it.
2. The text (the ordinance) illustrates the sermon (the statute). Yet the illustration is not forced; not even strongly emphasized; just allowed to speak for itself. Some preachers make so much of an illustration, that that which it illustrates is forgotten. You may drive a brass-headed nail so "home," that while it is fixed nothing will hang upon it.
III A RETREAT FOR MEDITATION AFTERWARDS (ver. 27). Some excellent sermons are forgotten directly in the hurry and bustle that succeeds them. To gain by sermons we must recollect them; and to recollect them we must have time and place for recollectedness. This God gave to the Israelites at Elim; yet, even so, they failed to profit by it. Had they used their time for meditation better, much after trouble, caused by forgetfulness, would have been saved.
Application. "A sermon for preachers!" Yes, but a sermon for people also. If God"s sermons can be so soon forgotten, even when he gives time for pondering them, how much sooner those we preach! Everything does not rest with the preacher. If the people will not take pains to remember to ponder, meditate, inwardly digest the best of preachers, even God himself, may preach home to them, and the result be nil. G.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART Vers. 22-27. Trial and Blessing.
I THE CLOUD AND SUNSHINE OF THE PILGRIM LIFE. The weariness of the wilderness journey, the disappointment of Marah, and the comforts of Elim, all lie along the appointed way.
II A HEAVY TRIAL BADLY BORNE. The wilderness thirst had been endured without a murmur; but when in addition they were mocked by the bitter springs of Marah their spirit broke.
1. The end of a prayerless faith is soon reached. If we have not learned to cast burdens upon God and to wait upon him, but expect him to fill our life with ease and pleasure, we shall soon be offended.
2. A spirit with such a faith speedily turns away from God and breaks intocomplaint against man.
III FAITH"S TRIUMPH IN DIFFICULTY (25).
1. Moses "cried unto the Lord." The need of the time was rightly read. Itwas a call to prayer. In times of difficulty and reproach our first recourse should be to God.
2. In answer to believing prayer the bitter waters are sweetened, and thesoul finds God in the gift as without the previous disappointment he could not be manifested.
IV GOD"S COVENANT TIME.
1. In the full experience of his mercy. We must know God"s love in Christbefore his covenant of service and blessing can be made with us.
2. In the midst of self-knowledge and repentance. At the sweetened watersthe faithless ones knew themselves and were ashamed.
3. The nature of the covenant. If they cleave to and serve him, there maybe affliction, but there shall be no judgment.
4. How God will be known in Israel. "I am the Lord that healeth thee."Note: When God"s goodness has rebuked our unbelief, he means us to listen to the assurance of his love and to renew our vows. U.
HOMILIES BY H. T. ROBJOHNS Vers. 22-26. The well of bitterness.
I am Jehovah that healeth thee". (Exo_15:26) A new chapter of history now opens, that of the wandering; it comprises the following passages.
1. Two months to Sinai.
2. Eleven months at Sinai.
3. Thirty-eight years of virtual settling down in the wilderness ofParan.
4. March upon Canaan in the last year.
Introductory to this sermon give description of the journey from the sea to Marah, keeping prominent these points, the first camp probably at "The Wells of Moses," the road thence varying from ten to twenty miles wide, the sea on the right, the wall-looking line of mountain on the left for nearly all the way this the wilderness of "Shur," i.e. , of "the wall." There may indeed have been a city called "Shur," but the wall of mountain may have given name both to city and desert. (On the line of the Roman wall in Northumberland is a village "Wall.") The route here quite unmistakable. More than forty miles. No water. The modern caravan road marked by bleached camel bones. Num_33:8, gives the impression of a forced march. At length Marah, to-day a solitary spring of bitter water with stunted palm-tree beside it. Here too is the place to point out, that Israel"s wanderings are not so much allegorical, but tautegorical. The phenomena of spiritual life and those of Israel"s desert history are net so much two sets of things one pictorial the other real, but one and the same. This truth lies at the base of all successful practical homiletic treatment.
I MAN MAY NOT LIVE IN THE PAST. "And Moses brought forced away Israel from the Red Sea." Note:
1. Henceforth Moses is supreme leader. Aaron and Miriam sink to subordinate places. Besides these, the entourage of Moses consists of Hut, Miriam"s husband; Jethro for guide; and Joshua, a sort of body servant. All over the desert are names witnessing to this hour to the sole supremacy of Moses.
2. Divine Guidance did not impair his individuality. Inspiration and the "Cloud and Fire" did not so lead as to leave no room for the exercise of judgment or the spontaneity of consecrated genius. Lesson: God does not crush individuality, but develops it into fulness and power.
3. Moses brought Israel quickly from proximity to Egypt, and even from the scene of victory. See Hebrews verb, to cause the camp to remove. The last cadences of the song, the last sound of dancing had hardly died away; Miriam"s timbrel was scarcely out of her hand, before "Forward!" Out of this, two lessons. Leave behind:
1. The memory of Egypt; of old sins, of old sorrows.
2. The memory of victory. As in common life, so in spiritual, e.g. , the schoolboy. (John Singleton Copley, a painter"s son, had for motto "Ultra pergere," and became Lord Lyndhurst.) Graduate at University. Young tradesman. So with things spiritual, each victory the point of a new departure, even with the aged. "Christian progress by oblivion of the past." Php_3:13, 14.
II FIRST STAGES IN NEW CHAPTERS OF LIFE"S HISTORY ARE TEDIOUS. Look here at:
1. The experience of Israel. They had left behind many sights, they, even though slaves, would greatly miss; the Nile and its green line of fertility; cities in all their splendour; life in all its rich variety. Now, the hardship and silence of the desert, only trumpet-broken at morn and eve. And this first stage was terrible. (For accurate idea of this road, see "Forty days in the desert," pp. 30, 31.) Nothing so bad as this further on further on oases, wells, filmy streams, tamarisk, palm, mountain shadows, and even cultivated regions. Excitement perhaps of the first day, the experience novel, the sea in view; but on the second and third, plodding, fainting, and disgust.
2. The present reality. So is it with all new chapters in life; the first steps are tedious, e.g. , child going to school; boy to college; first steps in business; so with every serious break-up and change in life"s pilgrimage. The first steps are arduous. And so too is spiritual life to break with sin, to stand ridicule, to keep advancing in spite of comparative ignorance, etc.
3. The temptation. Many fail to stand it. Young men yield and go back to the fleshpots of Egypt loneliness with duty and God does not suit them. If we can march from the sea to Marah, all may be well.
4. The encouragement. To say nothing of truths like these, that the way was right, the guidance sufficient, the land of Promise was before them; there was a nearer benediction. "The far horizon in front was bounded, not by a line of level sand, but by sharp mountain summits, tossing their peaks into the sky in wild disorder, and suggesting irresistibly the thought of torrents and glens, the shadow of great rocks, and groves of palms." The view was of the range of Sinai, and there Israel was to have nearly a year of high communion with God.
III DISAPPOINTMENT WAITS US ON OUR WAY. The high-wrought expectation of the people: and lo! the spring is bitter. So with life. So much is this the case, that men of genius have described life as one long illusion. Things are never what they seemed. Neither school nor college, courtship nor marriage, home nor church, business nor pleasure. So much the worse for those who have ideality large.
IV INTO DISAPPOINTMENT COMES HEALING. All through nature, it is probable, that every poison has its antidote, every evil its corrective, every disappointment its compensation. "Dr. Johnston, in his "Chemistry of Common Things," explains at length how the bark of a certain tree has power to precipitate the mineral particles, which embitter the waters, and to make them sweet and clear." Did God "show" this secret thing to Moses? Let every man examine his own life, and he will find by the side of every disappointment a compensating mercy; and more, that out of every such has come a lesson to sweeten life. It is as when (to take the most striking illustration of all) the Saviour came down into human nature, turned to bitterness by sin, and made the bitter sweet.
V LIFE IS ONE LONG PROBATION. This is a truth illustrated by the journey to, and by the incidents at Marah. There God laid down a Fixed Principle qjo, and one that was absolutely Righteous. fpvmi.
1. Israel was to hear (i.e. believe) and do.
2. And then Jehovah would be to Israel, what the "wood" had been to thewater, their Healer. R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v22 They came to Marah.
Exo_15:22-27
They came to Marah.
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Marah
I. The water was deleterious, not distasteful only. Had the people drunk it, it would have wrought disease; but it was healed by the obedience of Moses to Gods directions. So if we are attentive and obedient to His voice He will find us remedies from all things that might hurt us.
II. It was not possible, perhaps, that the children of Israel should, by persevering in the unwholesome draught which is there typical of sin, have vitiated their taste till they delighted in it. But it is too possible in the antitype.
III. Though we axe compelled by Gods providence to pass through difficulty and temptation, we are not doomed to dwell there. If we are faithful, it is but in passing that we shall be endangered. If we use the remedy of obedience to Gods Word to-day, to-morrow we shall be beside the twelve ever-springing fountains, and under the shade of the palm-trees of Elfin. (Archbishop Benson.)
The waters of Marah
We have here a parable of the deep things of Christ.
I. Israel was in those days fresh from the glorious deliverance out of Egypt; they had sung their first national song of victory; they had breathed the air of liberty. This was their first disappointment, and it was a very sharp one; from the height of exultation they fell almost at once to the depths of despair. Such disappointments we have all experienced, especially in the outset of our actual march, after the first conscious sense of spiritual triumph and freedom.
II. Of us also it is true that God hath showed us a certain tree, and that tree is the once accursed tree on which Christ died. This is the tree of life to us, though of death to Him.
III. It was God who showed this tree unto Moses. And it was God who showed it to us in the gospel. Applied by our faith to the bitter waters of disappointment and distress, it will surely heal them and make them sweet. Two things there are about the tree of scorn which will never lose their healing power--the lesson of the Cross and the consolation of the Cross; the example and the companionship of Christ crucified.
IV. The life which found its fitting close upon the cross was not a life of suffering only, but emphatically a life of disappointment. Here there is comfort for us. Our dying Lord must certainly have reflected that He, the Son of God, was leaving the world rather worse than He found it in all human appearance.
V. Whatever our trials and disappointments, let us use this remedy; it will not fail us even at the worst. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)
Bitter-sweet
I. That great joy is often closely followed by a great trial. Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong is the grateful word of many a rejoicing Christian; and lo! suddenly touched by the finger of Providence, it reels and rocks as though heaved by an earthquake, and falls into the depths of the sea. In the day of prosperity be wise! Rejoice with trembling! Do not presume on the possession of present good. In the hour of peace forget not the preparation for a possible storm. Trust in God with a firm hand, both in sunshine and in shade.
II. Here is a great trial transformed into a great blessing. The bitter was not removed, but converted into sweet. So God can make the grief a grace anti change the burden into a blessing. The rod itself shall bud and blossom and bring forth almonds, so that the very thing that chastens the trustful soul shall present beauty to the eye and fruit to the taste. It was a Divine work. The Israelites, even with Moses at their head, had no skill to meet the given necessities of the hour. The Lord showed them a tree, and so miraculously healed the forbidding spring. Brothers! human wisdom, earths philosophies, the worlds limited resources are all useless in the midst of our desperate needs.
III. Here is a great trial, so transformed, preparing for and leading to a still greater blessing. (see Exo_15:27). Christian, be of good courage. Egypts chains were heavy; but the Red Sea victory made thee glad. Marahs waters were bitter; but the Lord distilled sweet streams therefrom to strengthen and refresh thy soul. Then He led thee to beautiful Elfin, with its springs and palm-trees, and its grateful rest, and in all and through all thou art nearer Canaan than when first thou didst believe. Amid all thine alternations of joy and sorrow there shall be, if thou art faithful to thy God, a clear current, progressive gain, and it shall still be better further on.
IV. This gracious alternation and abundant deliverance was all experienced on the line of march. Let the Christian never forget that these are the conditions necessary to secure his gracious progression of conquest, transformation, and exceeding joy. (J. J. Wray.)
The sweetening tree in lifes bitter streams
Heaven has prepared a sweetening tree for the bitter waters.
I. Of our secular life. Wrecked plans, blasted hopes, etc. The tree to sweeten this is Christs doctrine of a Fatherly providence.
II. Of our moral life. The bitter waters of an accusing conscience. Whom God hath set forth, etc.
III. Of an intellectual life. Gods revealed character in Christ--all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful.
IV. Of our social life. I am the Resurrection, etc. Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.
V. Of our dying life. (Homilist.)
The mysterious tree
I. That prayer will meet every painful crisis in human experience.
II. That all men, everywhere, are athirst.
III. That every man will at length come to his well; but the water thereof will be bitter to his taste. Sensual indulgence. Fashionable amusement; inebriety; riches; worldly renown; infidelity. All mere earthly pools are acrid and unsatisfying.
IV. That there is a tree which can sweeten all earths waters. The tree of life--the Cross of Christ. He, every one that thirsteth, come. (S. D. Burchard, D. D.)
Lifes bitterness
The wilderness brings out what is within. It also discovers Gods goodness and our unworthiness.
I. Earths rottenness.
1. We must expect bitter pools in a bitter world.
2. Many of us make our own Marahs.
II. Heavens remedy.
1. To the praying man the Lord reveals the remedy.
2. God uses instramentality.
3. God does not always take away the Marah, but drops an ingredient into it to sweeten its bitterness. (Homilist.)
The waters of Marah
Had they been allowed to select their path, they would have taken the short cut by the seaboard to their own promised land. But the cloud steered their pathway through difficulty and into difficulty. Behind them was the blood of the lamb. They were ransomed. Behind them the wonders of Egypt wrought on their behalf. Behind them the passage of the Red Sea. And they might have expected that, the moment they had left their foes behind, they had left all trouble and sorrow too. But instead of that, their redemption from Egypt was their redemption from comparatively easy circumstances into arduous and difficult straits. God led His redeemed in the very heart and teeth of difficulty. I am often met by men who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, who are truly His servants, behind whom there lies a wondrous story of deliverance, and they have come to me with complaints, and they have said, I thought when I had given up my old sins that my life would be calm and placid, and that difficulty would be at an end; but instead, I never did in all my life go through such a sea of difficulty as I have known since I became a Christian. Friend, that is always Gods way with His redeemed ones. You must not think that difficulty is a proof that you are wrong. Difficulty is most likely aa evidence that you are right. Never be daunted by it. Why? Those verses we read from Deuteronomy answer the question. It is in order to humble us, to prove us, and to knew what is in our heart. Difficulty is sent to humble you. If I offer my hand to a little maiden on a cold and frosty day, and she thinks she can keep her feet by herself, she is net likely to take my strong hand until she has been humbled by a tumble or two. God has been compelled to break down your self-confidence. When you started the Christian life you thought your arm was so strong it could beat down every barrier, or that you were so elastic that you could leap over any wall, or that your brain was so keen that you could see through any difficulty. God began by little difficulties, and you leapt over them; and then He put greater ones, and you successfully overcame them; and God has been compelled to pile difficulty upon difficulty until you are now face to face with a very desert on the one hand, and an Alpine range upon the other; and now broken, cowed, defeated, you are just at the very position in which to learn to appreciate, and to appropriate, the infinite resources of God. And there is another thing that difficulty does for a man. It proves him. He made a statute and an ordinance, and proved them. There are so many counterfeits, you do not know that you have got the real thing till you have tested it. You do not know the stability of a house till it has been tested by the storm. And it is only when difficulty comes that we really know what we are. You say that you have faith. How do you know? All your life has been sunny. Wait till God hides Himself in a pavilion of cloud. You think that you obey God, but up till now the path that God has led you hath been such an easy path, through a meadow where the flowers have been bestrewn. You do not know how much you will obey until you are proved. You say you have got patience; and there is nothing sweeter than patience--the patience and gentleness of Christ. Yet you wait until you are put into the midst of trying and difficult circumstances, and then you may talk about possessing patience. And then, once more, God not only humbles and proves us, but He tries what is in our hearts; not that He needs to know, but that He may give us the opportunity of equipping ourselves for larger work. For God thus deals with us: He puts us into difficulty and watches us lovingly to see how we act, for every day He stands before His judgment bar, and every hour is the crisis of our life. If we stand the test, He says, Come up higher, and we step up to the wider platform and plateau of usefulness. But if, on the other hand, we cannot stand the test, we step down. Will you take heart from this? Will you mind the difficulties? Oh, meet difficulty in God, and see if it be not a training-ground for great and noble work in the hereafter. But there is disappointment too. It was hard enough to have difficulty, but it was harder to be tantalized. They marched on three days; they exhausted the water they had brought, or what was left was stinking, and they could not drink it. Ah, how weary they were! Ah, you men and women, so disappointment comes to all of us. The youth has disappointments. The lad at school thinks that he is a slave, that the drudgery of Egypt was nothing compared to this. How he longs for the time when he will be his own master! And off he starts. He buries his school books, and goes forth into the world. Alas, poor lad! he finds there is no way to Canaan except by the hard plodding sultry desert march. So it is with age--mature life! mean. So it is with the young convert. They think Christian living is a great holiday, a march-past with banners and bands. But they soon find that there is a stern warfare. They are disappointed in the Church they join, they find all Christian people do not act as they thought; they are disappointed because they do not at once find sin die within them, or the devil yield, or Christianity become what they hoped, just wandering through a pleasant garden plucking flowers. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Moses at Marah
I. They could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter--so the greatest triumphs of life may be succeeded by the most vexatious inconveniences. You may be right, even when the heaviest trial is oppressing you. You may be losing your property, your health may be sinking, your prospects may be clouded, and your friends may be leaving you one by one, yet in the midst of such disasters your heart may be stedfast in faithfulness to God.
II. The people murmured against Moses--so the greatest services of life are soon forgotten.
III. And Moses cried unto the Lord!--So magnanimous prayer is better than official resignation. All great leaderships should be intensely religious, or they will assuredly fail in the patience without which no strength can be complete. Parents, instead of resigning the oversight of your children, pray for them! Pastors, instead of resigning your official positions, pray for those who despitefully use you! All who in anywise seek to defend the weak, or lead the blind or teach the ignorant, instead of being driven off by every unreasonable murmuring, renew your patience by waiting upon God!
IV. And the Lord showed him a tree--so where there is a bane in life there is always an antidote. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The waters of Marah
I. A grievous need. Do we not see in mankind a weary marching host of pilgrims, looking eagerly for the next well, and hoping there to find satisfaction? It is trite but true of the greater part of them, Man never is; but always to be blest. There are deep yearnings after unattained good; a burning desire for rest. Moreover, even to them who have found the living waters there may be many a weary march.
II. A sore disappointment. Intense as are human desires for final good, they are doomed, so long as fixed upon created objects, to perpetual and agonizing disappointment. The apples that seemed ripe for the gathering and fit for baskets of silver are found to contain only rottenness and dust. It is wisely ordered that no creature should give satisfaction to the heart. Even those who have chosen the Lord as their portion need to be perpetually quickened, lest they should cleave to the dust.
III. A rebellious and unreasonable treatment of afflictions. The people murmured against Moses. So men complain still. They charge God foolishly; and governmental measures, blights, panics, failure of success, etc., are suffered to engender their thoughts and hard speeches.
IV. The true and sure refuge in time of affliction. There is no might of influence like that which is wielded by those who are hid in the pavilion of the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
V. The Divine sovereignty. When men are willing to see what God shows, how quickly is the bitterness of life changed into peace and joy through believing Looking away unto Jesus, they hear Him saying, I am the Lord that healeth thee! The mystic tree is set forth before the eye of faith, and its goodly boughs bend to the touch even of the chief of sinners.
VI. Another and most significant passage occurs in connection with Israels sojourn by the bitter well, and which shows the continual obligation of Divine ordinances even in great exigencies. There He made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them. They were now tested as to their disposition to obey alike the stated and occasional commandments of God; and it is possible that some further instructions were conveyed on Divine authority. But the statute and ordinance plainly refer to the solemn assembly which was now to be observed.
VII. Once again, we learn beside the waters of Marah the compensatory law of Divine proceedings. We are pilgrims as all our fathers were, and often reach a bitter well in our march through the wilderness; but beside each there is a tree whose virtue makes the nauseous waters sweeter than all the streams of Goshen. (J. D. Brocklehurst, D. D.)
Bitter things made sweet
But we have here also the means of sweetening all bitterness. The bitterness of repentance is sweetened by this consideration, that, being a godly sorrow, it worketh a repentance unto life, which no one repenteth of. The bitterness of denying the world and self is sweetened by this, that he who renounces everything for His sake receives it again a hundredfold. The bitterness of the spiritual combat is alleviated by this, that it is the good fight of faith to which the victory and the crown of glory is held out. The bitterness of the various sufferings we have to endure is sweetened by the consideration that they are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed; and also of the various temptations by which we are assailed, of which it is said, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for after he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which God has promised to them that love Him. In short, this wondrous tree can sweeten all the suffering that would be otherwise intolerable. But still it is necessary that the remedy be shown and pointed out to us by the Holy Spirit. (G. D. Krummacher.)
Marah; or, the bitter waters sweetened
I. The evils of the wilderness.
1. The perils and trials of the wilderness occur very early in the pilgrim life.
2. These evils assume varied shapes.
3. They touch very vital matters. God may touch you in the most beloved object of your heart.
4. There is a reason why the earthly mercies which supply our necessities must be more or less bitter. What can you hope for in a wilderness but productions congruous to it? Canaan! Who looks for bitterness there?
II. The tendency of human nature.
1. They murmured, complained, found fault. A very easy thing. No sense in it, no wit in it, no thought in it: it is the cry rather of a brute than of a man--murmur--just a double groan. Easy is it for us to kick against the dispensations of God, to give utterance to our griefs, and what is worse, to the inference we drew from them that God has forgotten to be gracious. To murmur is our tendency; but do we mean to let the tendencies of the old nature rule us?
2. Observe that the murmuring was not ostensibly against God. They murmured against Moses. And have you ever noticed how the most of us, when we are in a murmuring vein, are not honest enough to murmur distinctly against God. No; the child is dead, and we form a conjecture that there was some wrong treatment on the part of nurse, or surgeon, or ourselves. Or we have lost money, and have been brought down from opulence to almost poverty; then some one person was dishonest, a certain party betrayed us in a transaction by failing to fulfil his part; all the murmuring is heaped on that person. We deny, perhaps indignantly, that we murmur against God; and to prove it we double the zeal with which we murmur against Moses. To complain of the second cause is about as sensible as the conduct of the dog, which bites the sticks with which it is beaten.
3. Once more, while we speak of this tendency in human nature, I want you to observe how they betrayed an utter unbelief in God. They said unto Moses, What; shall we drink? They meant by it, By what means can God supply our want of water? They were at the Red Sea, and God cleft the intervening gulf in twain, through the depths thereof they marched dryshod; there is Marahs water--shall it be more difficult for God to purify than to divide? To sweeten a fountain--is that more difficult than to cleanse a sea? Is anything too hard for the Lord?
III. The remedy of grace.
1. Take the case of prayer to God.
2. As soon as we have a prayer, God has a remedy. The Lord showed him a tree. I am persuaded that for every lock in Doubting Castle there is a key, but the promises are often in great confusion to our minds, so that we are perplexed. If a blacksmith should bring you his great bundle of picklocks, you would have to turn them over, and over, and over; and try half of them, perhaps two-thirds, before you would find the right one; ay, and perhaps the right one would be left to the last. It is always a blessing to remember that for every affliction there is a promise in the Word of God; a promise which meets the case, and was made on purpose for it. But you may not be always able to find it--no, you may go fumbling over the Scriptures long before you get the true word; but when the Lord shows it to you, when it comes with power to the soul, oh, what a bliss it is!
3. Now that remedy for the healing of Marahs water was a very strange one. Why should a tree sweeten the waters? This was no doubt a miraculous incident, and it was also meant to teach us something. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was eaten by our first parents and embittered all; there is a tree of life, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations.
4. That remedy was most effective. When they cut down the tree, and put it into the water, it turned the water sweet--they could drink of it; and let me assure you, that in the case of our trouble, the Cross is a most effective sweetener.
5. It is transcendent. The water was bitter, but it became absolutely sweet. The same water that was bitter became sweet, and the grace of God, by leading us into contemplations that spring out of the Cross of Christ, can make our trials themselves to become pleasant to us. It is a triumph of grace in the heart when we not only acquiesce in trouble, but even rejoice in it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The well of bitterness
I. That the first days journey, in spite of the splendid scenery of the coasts of the gulf, is probably the most wearisome and monotonous of the whole way. Sand-storms, white limestone plains, the dust caked into a hard surface intensely hot and dazzling, no water, no trees--it is as if the desert put on its dreariest dress to greet its pilgrims, and gave to them at once a full taste of the foils and wants which they must endure in traversing its wastes. And is it otherwise in life? Is not the same character impressed for us on earth and life, when we enter on its sterner era, when we leave the home of our childhood, the Egypt of our careless, half-developed youth, and go out into the wilderness, to wander freely there under the law of duty, and before the face of God. Does it not seem to all of us strange and dreary? Who ever found the first aspects of duty pleasant? Is it holiday pastime, the first grappling with the realities of life? Who has not been choked and parched by the hot dust of the great desert! though it be full of looms, and mill-wheels, and manifold activity, it is a desert at first to us before we get accustomed to its atmosphere and at home in its life. Well does the schoolboy know it, as he plods into the wilderness of study, and faints under the first experience of its dryness and dust. Let him but hold on awhile, and lie will find springs and palm-trees, where he may rest and play; but it wants large faith and a goad of sharp necessity to get him through the weariness of those first days. God does not conceal from any one of us the stern conditions of our discipline.
II. It is a trite saying, that disappointment is the hardest of all things to bear. Hardest, because it finds the soul unbraced to meet it--relaxed, at ease, and tuned to indulgence and joy. Who has not muttered Marah over some well in the desert, which he strained himself to reach and found to be bitterness? It strikes me that we have, in this miracle, most important suggestions as to the philosophy of all miracles. I believe that the object of all miracles is to maintain, and not to violate--to reveal, and not to confound--the order of Gods world. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Marah and Elim
I. The thoughts suggested by the changes here described.
1. That the life of a God-led man is full of changes in outward circumstances.
2. That these changes are divinely ordained.
3. That each change brings its own temptations.
4. That these varied changes are intended to develop all our graces.
II. Thoughts suggested by the halting-places here mentioned.
1. Marah was a place of temptation.
2. Marah was a place of disappointment.
3. Marah was a place of trustfulness and prayer.
4. Elim has its suggestiveness. Gods bountiful goodness. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
The moral lessons of Marah
I. We have an expressive type of human trial in the bitterness of the waters.
1. The bitterness of the waters disappointed their most eager expectations.
2. The bitterness of the waters left them apparently without a grand necessity of life.
3. The bitterness of the waters immediately succeeded a remarkable deliverance.
II. We have unreasoning mistrust of the Divine providence the murmuring of the people.
1. Their mistrust was unreasoning, considering the person against whom they murmured. Not Moses, but God, was their Guide, as they well knew.
2. Their mistrust was unreasoning, considering the Divine promises they had received.
3. Their mistrust was unreasoning, considering the displays of Divine power which they had witnessed.
III. We have an instructive appeal for Divine help in the prayer of Moses.
1. It indicates the importance of earnest supplication to God in all our trials.
2. It suggests the importance of a submissive spirit in supplicating deliverance from our trials.
IV. We have a gracious display of Divine power in the sweetening of the waters. God answers prayer in the hour of trouble.
1. By influencing the mind in the direction whence relief may be obtained.
2. By transmuting the temporal affliction into a rich spiritual blessing.
V. We have an intimation of the design of all affliction in the declared purpose of this particular trial. There He proved them--tested their faith and obedience. Afflictions prove us.
1. By discovering to us the unsatisfying nature of earthly things.
2. By disclosing the true measure of our piety. (W. Kirkman.)
Poisoned waters
What is all this, but a striking picture of human life, and of that which the grace of God can and does effect? All the waters of human life have been poisoned by sin. There is not one drop that has been left quite pure,--all has been made bitter. Much there is still which at a distance looks beautiful and refreshing; and those who walk by sense and not by faith, are often, may, always, deceived by appearances just as Israel was. It is not until they taste for themselves that they find out the truth of Solomons words, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Look at the attractions of the world, which cause so many souls to wander. What are they all but a vain show, which can intoxicate or lull the soul for a time, but which leave it, oh, how weary and restless afterwards! The waters of the world are truly bitter waters. Or, look at the occupations of life. To some energetic spirits the very difficulty and toil of labour are attractive; but, after a while, will not the question thrust itself upon the busy mind--oh, what is the profit? what the end of all this? Suppose that everything prospers. Suppose that I have enough to satisfy every earthly want, to secure me every gratification, to encompass myself and children with every luxury. What then? There is a voice, a penetrating voice, that says, Prepare to meet thy God! that proclaims, It is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judgment. And then, what will become of me? Or, look again at the relationships of life. Instituted though they are by God, yet sin has embittered them also. Whence is it, that some of the deepest and most certain trials of life come to us? It is through our relationships and our friendships. Deep affection, sacred as it is, has always many anxieties associated with it. How many a mothers heart is gradually worn out by cares about her children! How many a father, when surveying the disturbances of his family, is impelled to adopt the words of the aged Jacob, All these things are against me! And then, how many a heart is left widowed even early in life, with a void which nothing earthly can ever fill! Is it too much to say that this world, viewed as it is in itself, is Marah? Its waters are bitter. Have not numbers who have embraced it as their all, gone down to the grave, restless, discontented and murmuring? It may seem to some as if we had invested the world with its pleasures, its occupations, and its relationships, in too thick a gloom. If so, we would remind you that we have been speaking of the world, as such, as it is in itself--of pleasures which are far from God--of business and occupation from which God is excluded--and of relationships which are put in the place of God. (G. Wagner.)
Bitter waters
Such are often the consolations of this world. We ardently long for them, and when we obtain them they are bitter. The things we have most wished for become new sorrows. And this is to teach us to seek our true joys in God alone, to make the wilderness of this world distasteful to us, and to cause us to long for eternal life. Suppose a man to be so poor as to earn his bread with difficulty; he can scarcely provide for his family. Ah! he may perhaps say to himself, if I were only like so many people around me, who are not obliged to work, and are so happy in this world! Suppose this man to become rich; but still a prey to care, surrounded by enemies, and unhappy in his children. How many bitter sorrows are still his lot: he was once in the desert of Shur, now he is at the waters of Marah! A woman finds herself solitary and lonely; she wishes for a friend and protector; she marries. But she finds out too late that her husband is a man of bad character or of bad habits. She was in the desert, she is now at Marah. (Professor Gaussen.)
Sweetening the waters
I. Marahs of disappointment.
I. The young convert imagines that when he has got to the Cross he has got, so to speak, next door to heaven; he imagines that, once he has got pardon, he will never have another sigh; but oh! it is only a three days march from the City of Destruction to the Slough of Despond, only a little way out to the darkness and the trouble; and then, when it comes, the young convert is sometimes tempted to look back to the delights of the old days, when he had not any fear of God before his eyes; for he has thus to learn in bitterness and disappointment that it is through much tribulation he is to be perfected for the kingdom.
2. So, too, with the mature believer; life is full of disappointments. It takes very little to turn the waters of our best comforts into bitterness; and disappointment in any case is hard to bear; but sometimes it is doubly hard when it comes upon the back of other trials.
II. Marahs of mercy.
1. God sends no needless trims. He does not afflict for His own pleasure, but for our good.
2. For every need God has provided the supply, for every bane the antidote. But you will not discover it yourself. He must point it out.
3. Notice the method of the Divine mercy. God does not take away the burden; He will give you more strength; and then you will have the strength, even after the burden is removed. You will be permanently the better for it. (G. Davidson, B. Sc.)
The tree of healing
Gods plans of mercy to mankind are remedial. He allows sin and suffering to exist, but He provides means for the cure of these evils. The religion of Jesus Christ is the great healing and curative influence in the world.
1. Take, for example, the bitterness of temptation. A man has made noble resolutions, formed high plans of life, and lo, he finds, to his utter mortification, that his sinful nature still yields to any blast of temptation. He is like one who has built a noble palace and finds that some foul infection renders it hateful. Before the solemn aspect of the Crucified, the powers of evil lose their fascinating glow.
2. And then there is the bitterness of remorse, the sting of remembered guilt. A German writer describes a youth who returned, after a long absence, to his home. All welcomed him with joy. Everything was done to make him happy; but he still was oppressed with a silent gloom. Some friend urged him to say what ailed him and kept him so depressed amidst their happiness, and at length, with a groan, he explained, A sin lies heavy on my soul. But the Cross of Christ removes this bitter sorrow, for He who is our peace has nailed the writing which was against us to His Cross.
3. What shall we say about the bitter cup of suffering which God, in His inscrutable dealings, places in the hands of so many to drink? Yet the sufferer finds succour in remembering that his Saviour has also suffered, and for his salvation. A poor woman in a ward of one of the great London hospitals had to undergo a fearful operation, and, as a special favour, besought that it might be performed on Good Friday, which was close at hand, that the reflection on her Redeemers agony might the better enable her to endure her own sufferings. Is the bitterness of poverty, or of contempt, our lot? So was it that of Jesus, our Lord; and turning to Him, with all confidence we appeal to His sympathy. Are we called on to feel the terrible bitterness of bereavement, to gaze on the empty cradle, or the unoccupied chair? Then think how the Cross points upward! (W. Hardman, LL. D.)
Anticipated pleasure alloyed
We look with great expectancy for the arrival of some pleasure which we imagine will afford us the most complete satisfaction, and no sooner does it arrive than we find in its train a whole host of petty annoyances and unwelcome accompaniments. It is not only so in social life, but also in the material world. Mr. Matthew Lewis, M.P., in his interesting Journal of a residence among the negroes in the West Indies, relates how eagerly in Jamaica, after three months of drought, the inhabitants long for rain; and when the blessing at last descends, it is accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, and has the effect of bringing out all sorts of insects and reptiles in crowds, the ground being covered with lizards, the air filled with mosquitoes, the rooms of the houses with centipedes and legions of mosquitoes. And it will, on inquiry, be found that the enjoyment of nearly every anticipated pleasure is in like manner more or less alloyed by reason of the unpleasant things which seem inevitably to attend it. (Scientific Illustrations.)
We have not done with hardship when we have left Egypt
This may be regarded as a universal law so long as we are in the present life, and may be illustrated as really in common and secular matters as in spiritual things. The schoolboy is apt to imagine that he is a slave. He is under tutors and governors; and as he grinds away at his studies, not seeing any relation between them and what he is to do in the future, he is tempted to think that the drudgery of the Hebrews in the brickyard was nothing to that which he has to undergo, and he longs for the day when he shall be a free man and enter upon the active duties of life. His emancipation from the dry and uninteresting labours at which he has so long been held marks an epoch in his history, and he sings over it a song as sincere, if not as exalted, as that of Moses at the sea. The burial of the books by our graduating classes may be in the main a foolish freak; but yet it is the expression, in its own way, of relief from that which has hitherto been felt to be a restraint, and each of those who take part in it is intensely jubilant. But after he has entered on the active duties of the work to which he devotes himself, the youth has not gone far before he comes to Marah, and his first experience is one of disappointment. Ah! well for him then if he cries to God, and finds the healing tree which alone can sweeten its waters of bitterness! So it is, also, with every new enterprise in which a man engages. After his first victory comes something which empties it of half its glory. Pure and unmingled success is unknown in the world, and would be, let me add, a great calamity if it were to be enjoyed; for then the man would become proud and forget God, and lose all remembrance of that precious influence by which the disappointments in our experience are transmuted into means of grace. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
A valuable tree
The eucalyptus tree is efficacious in preventing malaria. The cause is supposed to be that its thirsty roots drain the soil for many yards around, and that its large leaves exhale an aromatic oil and intercept the malarious germs. An incident shows its efficacy: An officer in India whose troops were often attacked by sickness removed their huts to a place where several large trees grew between them and the swamp, and from that time until the trees were cut down the troops enjoyed excellent health; afterwards sickness reappeared. It appears to be only in the case of zymotic diseases that the trees operate as a preventative, but that is of no slight value in many districts. (Youths Companion.)
A heaven-sent plant
It is impossible for us to win any victory over this terrible evil in our own strength. Even heathen teachers acknowledge this. Many of you will remember the classic fable when Ulysses was on his way from the ship to deliver from Circe those companions of his who had been changed into swine by the power of the enchantress of sensuality, he was met by the legendary god Mercury, who told him that he would never be able to overcome the enchantress by his own sword. Mercury gave him a plant, the root of which was black and the flower of which was white, and it was by the power of this plant that he was to win his victory over the enchantress. There is a deep moral truth in that myth of the old Greek poet. We have an enchantress to contend against; we have to contend against a mighty power that is changing our fellow-men into swine every day, and we cannot attain the victory over that power except by means of a heaven-sent plant, the Tree of Life, the blessed Cross of Christ. (Dean Edwards.)
Difficulties of leaders through opposition among followers
What a hard place was this of Moses here! Every great reformer has had to go through a wilderness to the promised land of his success; and always some of those who left Egypt with him have turned against him before he had gone far. I think of the almost mutiny of his men against Columbus, as, day after day, he steered westward and saw no land; I think of the trouble which Luther and Calvin had so often with their own followers, and of the banishment at one time of the latter from that Geneva, which, even to this day, is the creation of his greatness; I think of the curs that yelped at the heels of the Father of his country, when he was following that course which now the universal voice of posterity has applauded; I think of the difficulties which have embarrassed many meaner men in lower works of reformation, which have at length benefited and blessed the world; and I blush for the selfishness of those who prefer their own interest to the welfare of the community, while, at the same time, I honour the conscientious courage which determines to go on, in spite of opposition in the front and dissatisfaction in the rear. Oh! ye who are bravely battling for the right, the pure, the benevolent, whether it be in the sweeping out of corruption from political offices, or in the closing of these pestilential houses which are feeding the intemperance of our streets, or in the maintenance in the churches of the faith once delivered to the saints--take heart of grace from Moses here. Go with your causes to the Lord, and be sure that they who are on His side are always in the end victorious. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The sin of murmuring
Consider that murmuring is a mercy-embittering sin, a mercy-souring sin. As the sweetest things put into a sour vessel are soured, or put into a bitter vessel are embittered; so murmuring puts gall and wormwood into every cup of mercy that God gives into our hands. The murmurer writes Marah, that is, bitterness, upon all his mercies, and he reads and tastes bitterness in them all. As to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet, so to the murmuring soul every sweet thing is bitter. (T. Brooks.)
The evil of murmuring
I have read of Caesar, that, having prepared a great feast for his nobles and friends, it so fell out that the day appointed was so extremely foul, that nothing could be done to the honour of the meeting; whereupon he was so displeased and enraged that he commanded all them that had bows to shoot up their arrows at Jupiter, their chief god, as in defiance of him for that rainy weather; which, when they did, their arrows fell short of heaven and fell upon their own heads, so that many of them were very sorely wounded. So all our murmurings, which are as so many arrows shot at God Himself, they will return upon our own pates hearts; they reach not Him, but they will hit us; they hurt not Him, but they will wound us; therefore it is better to be mute than to murmur; it is dangerous to provoke a consuming fire (Heb_12:1-29.). (T. Brooks.)
Murmuring, the mother sin, to be fought against
As the king of Syria said to his captains, Fight neither with small nor great, but with the king of Israel, so say I, Fight not so much against this sin or that, but fight against your murmuring, which is a mother-sin; make use of all your Christian armour, make use of all the ammunition of heaven, to destroy the mother, and in destroying of her, you will destroy the daughters. When Goliath was slain, the Philistines fled; when a general in an army is cut off, the common soldiers are easily and quickly routed and destroyed: so destroy but murmuring, and you will quickly destroy disobedience, ingratitude, impatience, distrust, etc. (T. Brooks.)
Misery of murmurers
Every murmurer is his own tormentor; murmuring is a fire within that will burn up all; it is an earthquake within that will overturn all; it is a disease within that will infect all; it is poison within that will prey upon all. (T. Brooks.)
Murmuring, the parent of other sins
As the river Nile bringeth forth many crocodiles, and the scorpion many serpents at one birth, so murmuring is a sin that breeds and brings forth many sins at once. It is like the monster Hydra--cut off one head, and many will rise up in its room. It is the mother of harlots--the mother of all abominations--a sin that breeds many other sins (Num_16:41; Num_17:10); viz., disobedience, contempt, ingratitude, impatience, distrust, rebellion, cursing, carnality; yea, it charges God with folly, yea, with blasphemy. The language of a murmuring soul is this: Surely God might have done this sooner, and that wiser, and the other thing better. (T. Brooks.)
Murmuring, a time-destroying sin
The murmurer spends much precious time in musing--in musing how to get out of such a trouble, how to get off such a yoke, how to be rid of such a burden, how to revenge himself for such a wrong; how to supplant such a person, how to reproach those that are above him, and how to affront those that are below him; and a thousand other ways murmurers have to expend that precious time that some would redeem with a world. Caesar, observing some ladies at Rome to spend much of their time in making much of little dogs and monkeys, asked them whether the women in that country had no children to make much of. Ah, murmurers, murmurers! you who by your murmuring trifle away so many golden hours and seasons of mercy, have you no God to honour? Have you no Christ to believe in? Have you no hearts to change, no sin to be pardoned, no souls to save, no hell to escape, no heaven to seek after? Oh! if you have, why do you spend so much of your precious time in murmuring against God, against men, against this or that thing?, (T. Brooks.)
Murmuring at joys
I was tired of washing dishes; I was tired of drudgery. It had always been so, and I was dissatisfied. I never sat down a moment to read that Jamie didnt want a cake, or a piece of paper to scribble on, or a bit of soap to make bubbles. Id rather be in prison, I said one day, than to have my life teased out, as Jamie knocked my elbow, when I was writing to a friend. But a morning came when I had one plate less to wash, one chair less to set away by the wall in the dining-room; when Jamies little crib was put away in the garret, and it has never come down since. I had been unusually fretful and discontented with him that damp May morning that he took the croup. Gloomy weather gave me the headache, and I had less patience than at any other time. By and by he was singing in another room, I want to be an angel, and presently rang out that metallic cough. I never hear that hymn since that it dont cut me to the heart; for the croup-cough rings out with it. He grew worse towards night, and when my husband came home he went for the doctor. At first he seemed to help him, but it merged into inflammatory croup, and all was soon over. I ought to have been called in sooner, said the doctor. I have a servant to wash the dishes now; and when a visitor comes, I can sit down and entertain her without having to work all the time. There is no little boy worrying me to open his jack-knife, and there are no shavings over the floor. The magazines are not soiled at looking over the pictures, but stand prim and neat on the reading-table just as I leave them. Your carpet never looks dirty, said a weary-worn mother to me. Oh! no, I mutter to myself, there are no little boots to dirty it now. But my fate is as weary as theirs--weary with sitting in my lonesome parlour at twilight, weary with watching for the arms that used to twine around my neck, for the curls that brushed against my cheek, for the young laugh that rang out with mine, as we watched the blazing fire, or made rabbits with the shadow on the wall, waiting merrily together for papa coming home. I have the wealth and ease I longed for, but at what a price! And when I see other mothers with grown-up sons, driving to town or church, and my hair silvered over with grey, I wish I had murmured less.
Murmuring foolish
Seneca hath his similitude to set out the great evil of murmuring under small afflictions. Suppose, saith he, a man to have a very fair house to dwell in, with very fair orchards and gardens, set about with brave tall trees for ornament; what a most unreasonable thing were it in this man to murmur because the wind blows a few leaves off the trees, though they hang full of fruit. If God take a little and give us much, shall we be discontent? If He take our son and give us His own; if He cause the trees to bring forth the fruit, shall we be angry if the wind blow away the leaves? (J. Venning.)
Murmuring injurious
It is not wise to fret under our trials: the high.mettled horse that is restive in the yoke only galls his shoulder--the poor bird that dashes itself against the bars of the cage only ruffles her feathers and aggravates the sufferings of captivity.
The Lord that healeth thee.--
Jehovah-Ropheka
No human experience is uniformly joyful or sorrowful. A great triumph is succeeded by a great obstacle and sometimes by a great defeat. But there is another equally constant fact to offset this. As we look at this alternation of Elims and Marahs in our life, and recognize it as a law of our human experience, we find it supplemented by something else which is equally a law; and that is the economy of God by which this alternation is happily adjusted. In other words, I mean this: that if it is a law of our life that joy and sorrow succeed each other, it is equally a law of our life that God interposes and keeps the joy from corrupting and the sorrow from crushing us. If sorrow is a part of Gods economy, healing is equally a part. You hear abundance of popular proverbs to the effect that clouds have often silver linings; that calamity usually stops short of the very worst; that time dulls grief; that nature reacts from its depression, and much more of the same sort, all which may be more or less true, but which do not cover the same ground as this blessed name, Jehovah that healeth thee: which throw man for his compensation for sorrow merely upon nature and circumstances. Both are-lawless and accidental, the alleviations no less than the sorrow itself. But there is a radical difference between a grief which is accidental, and a grief which falls in with happier things into an order arranged to make the man purer and more blessed. There is a radical difference between accidental mitigations, and the firm, wise, tender touch of an omnipotent Healer upon a sorrow: and there is a radical difference between that conception of sorrow which makes it an intrusion and an interruption, and a conception which sees both sorrow and healing as parts of one Divine plan, adjusted by that same Divine hand all along the line of mans life. With the alleviations of sorrow which come in what we call the natural order of things, I have therefore nothing to do here. That nature has certain recuperative powers is a familiar fact: that God often uses these or other natural means in His own processes of healing, as a physician uses for medicine the herbs and flowers which he gathers by the roadside, is an equally familiar fact. But we are not concerned with the question of means. Our text leads us back of the means. That to which alone sorrow can grapple securely is not means but God. God, on this occasion, though He uses a branch to sweeten the water, also uses it to direct the attention of the people to Himself. When He gives Himself a name by which they are to know and remember Him all through this desert journey, it is not, the God of the branch, nor the God of the rod, nor the God of the strong east wind, but simply, I am Jehovah that healeth thee. No matter what means I use. If He had called Himself the God of the rod, the people would have despaired of healing in any case where there was not a branch or a rod present. He would have them know that healing was in Him, by any means or by no means as He might choose. And thus it is well for us to bring every bitter experience of life at once to God--directly. The fountain of healing is there, and there is no need of our taking the smallest trouble in seeking any lower source of comfort. God is not like certain great medical authorities who leave all minor maladies to subordinates and hold themselves in reserve merely for consultation on cases of life and death. He wrought the great miracle at Marah, not only to relieve the peoples thirst on that occasion, but to encourage them to seek His help in smaller matters. God sometimes reduces a man to terrible straits so that he may learn that lesson. The branch which he throws in is this: Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. When one is in such confusion and bewilderment, a great deal of the distress is thrown off in the throwing off of all responsibility for the way out. Many years ago, while in Rome, I went down into the Catacombs. I had not gone five feet from the entrance when I saw that if I should try to find my way back, I should be hopelessly lost. Passages opened out on every side, and crossed and interlaced, and my life was literally in the hands of the cowled monk who led the way with his lighted taper. But that was a relief. Having no responsibility for finding the way, and having faith in my guide, I could give myself up to the impression of the place. There is a beautiful passage in the one hundred and forty-second Psalm which brings out this truth. The Psalm is ascribed to David when he was fleeing from Sauls persecution and wandering in a labyrinth of caves and secret paths. When my spirit is overwhelmed within me, Thou knowest my path. Few things are more painful or humiliating than the sense of having lost the way. The sweetening branch then is just this blessed consciousness that Divine omniscience knows the path; that the knowledge is with one who knows just how to use it, who knows the path through, the path out, knows what the trend of the trouble is and what its meaning is. But let us not forget the other great truth of this story, a truth quite as important as the first, and perhaps quite as hard to learn; and that is, that Gods healing is a lesson no less than a comfort. The aim of a physicians treatment is not merely to relieve his patient from pain. It is, further, to get him on his feet for active duty. God did not sweeten the waters of Marah in order that the people might stay there. Marah was only a stage on the way to Canaan; and the draught at the sweetened spring was but to give strength for a long march. And God never heals His people simply to make them easy. If He takes off a load it is that they may walk the better in the way of His commandments. Whatever God may say to us by sickness, when He comes to us as the Lord of healing He says, I will raise thee up that thou mayst do that which is right in My sight; that thou mayst give ear to My commandments and keep My statutes. Healing means more toil and more burdens and more conflict, and these will continue to the end. But let us remember that God never forgets to give rest along the road, and refreshment at the right places to His faithful ones. Even on earth there will be intervals of sweet rest, though the desert lie on beyond. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)
The Lord that healeth
It is with healing power in the lowest form of its development, viz., the supplying of bodily wants--the healing of physical diseases--that this precious name is first brought to our notice. And even this is a blessing not to be lightly esteemed. But, if our powers of perception were so adjusted that we could estimate spiritual diseases, as God estimates them; then, we should see, in the walks of daily life, even in the case of those who are said to possess sound minds in sound bodies, sights sadder far than any to be met with in our hospitals and asylums for physical and mental diseases. And the power to heal which the Lord claims when He is pleased to reveal Himself as Jehovah-Ropheka, is this power in its higher form--the power to heal the diseases of the soul.
I. He is an efficient healer. He puts His own Omnipotence into the grace by which He heals; and what can resist that grace? He has fathomed the lowest depths of human depravity, and the chain of His grace has reached even unto that.
II. He is a practical healer. It sometimes happens with earthly physicians that the medicine is mingled with our daily food, and that the food itself of which the patient partakes is made the means of healing. But this is what our heavenly Healer does continually. He connects the process of His healing with the food on which the souls of His people live, and the daily experience of life through which they are passing.
III. He is a universal healer. In many of our hospitals there is a ward for incurables. There are cases which every physician will decline to undertake because he knows that nothing can be done with them. But Jehovah-Ropheka knows no such cases. In the hospital of His grace there is no ward for incurables. There are no limits to the range and operation of His wisdom and power. He has not made a specialty of any particular case. There is no form of spiritual disease that can be incurable to Him.
IV. He is a permanent healer. No earthly physician will undertake both to restore his patient to health, and at the same time to give him the assurance that the disease from which he has suffered shall never return to him. This is a matter quite beyond the reach of ordinary medical ability. But it is not so with our heavenly Healer. He undertakes to make His healing work not only perfect but permanent. Two things show us this.
1. One of these is the state into which Christ introduces the saved soul after death. It is a state in which there will be no sickness, sorrow, or sin. And what that state is, as the healed soul enters into it, it will be for ever. It is a continuing city.
2. And then the state of the soul as it enters that blessed abode will show the same thing. Presented perfect in Christ Jesus (Col_1:28).
V. He is a glorious healer. Most physicians are satisfied if they can restore their patients to the condition in which they were before the disease seized upon them. If they can heal a mans wounds they are satisfied. They will not pledge that in securing this result there shall be no disfiguring scars remaining. But it is different with our heavenly Healer. He restores the sin-sick soul, not to its original state, but to one infinitely better than that. The creation state of the soul was pronounced good, the redeemed state of the soul is declared to be perfect. (R. Newton, D. D.)
The Lord that healeth
Many a time have I been brought very low, and received the sentence of death in myself, when my poor, honest, praying neighbours have met, and, upon their fasting and earnest prayers, I have recovered. Once, when I had continued weak three weeks, and was unable to go abroad, the very day that they prayed for me, being Good Friday, I recovered, and was able to preach and administer the sacrament the next Lords day; and was better after it, it being the first time that ever I administered it. And ever after that, whatever weakness was upon me, when I had, after preaching, administered that sacrament to many hundred people, I was much revived and eased of my infirmities. Oh how often, he writes in his Dying Thoughts, have I cried to Him when men and means were nothing, and when no help in second causes did appear, and how often, and suddenly, and mercifully hath He delivered me! What sudden ease, what removal of long affliction have I had! Such extraordinary changes, and beyond my own and others expectations, when many plain-hearted, upright Christians have, by fasting and prayer, sought God on my behalf, as have over and over convinced me of special providence and that God is indeed a hearer of prayers. And wonders have I seen done for others also, upon such prayer, more than for myself; yea, and wonders for the Church, and for public societies. Shall I therefore forget how often He hath heard prayers for me, and how wonderfully He often hath helped both me and others? My faith hath been helped by such experiences, and shall I forget them, or question them without cause at last? (Richard Baxter.)
Elim.--
The pilgrims pathway
I. That, in lifes pilgrimage, God crowns His people with constant blessings and diversified tokens of His goodness. These blessings, as here implied, are of great practical utility; they are--
1. Essential--Water.
2. Refreshing--Palm-trees.
3. Diversified--Wells and palm-trees.
4. Proportionate,--Twelve wells and threescore and ten palm-trees.
II. That, in lifes pilgrimage, Gods blessings should be appropriated and enjoyed. They encamped there.
III. That, in lifes pilgrimage, Elim, with its refreshing shade, is frequently not far from Marah, with its bitter waters. Therefore, as pilgrims, we should not be too much elated or depressed with our camping-places. In the history of the Zion-bound traveller, it should not be forgotten, that it is always better further on.
IV. That, in lifes pilgrimage, we should remember that we are not yet home, only pilgrims on the way. Our immortality would starve to death on the richest oasis this desert world could give us, if we should attempt to make it our abiding home. So, they did not buy the land, or build a city, they only encamped there. (T. Kelly.)
Marah and Elim
I. The varied experience of human life.
1. There are the sorrowful scenes of life. You know well the sources from whence these sorrows arise. There is the sorrow that comes to us from our disappointments. We are constantly deceived and disappointed, partly because we indulge in unreasonable expectations, and partly because things differ so much in their reality from what they are in their outward appearance. Then there is the sorrow that proceeds from physical suffering. Another source of sorrow is our bereavements. A whole generation fell in the wilderness, and as the Israelites travelled onward, they had again and again to pause in their journey and bury their dead. Another source of sorrow is sin. This indeed is the great source of all sorrow, the fountain from whence these bitter waters flow.
2. There are the joys of life. Another days march, and the scene was changed; verdure refreshed the eye, there was Tater in abundance to quench the thirst, and the weary pilgrim could repose under the palm-trees welcome shade. True type again of human life--Weeping endures for a night, joy cometh in the morning. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. The most weary pilgrimage has its quiet resting places, and the saddest heart is not without its joys. God is kind even to the unthankful, for on them He bestows His providential bounties, but the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. He gives to them a peace which passeth understanding, a hope which maketh not ashamed, and a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. Life, then, has a varied experience.
II. But what are the reasons for it? There can be little doubt that if it were left to our choice, we should choose a less chequered course--we should avoid the bitter waters of Marah, and seek the palm-trees of Elim. Why is it that joy and sorrow, hope and fear, health and sickness, blessings bestowed and blessing removed, follow each other in such rapid succession.
1. It is to correct our self-will. Many whose hearts were stubborn enough when they began life, have found life so different to what they expected, that they have at length confessed--It is vain to fight against God; henceforth I place myself under His government--His will, not mine, be done.
2. To develop our character. If the events of life were exclusively sorrowful, then the test of our character would be but partial; so would it be if these events were exclusively joyful; and therefore it is sorrow to-day and joy to-morrow. Thus our whole character is developed.
3. To open our hearts to those sacred influences which soften and purify them. (H. J. Gamble.)
Elim: the springs and the palms
I. Elim rises before us as the representative of the green oases, the spots of sunny verdure, the scenes of heavenly beauty, wherewith God hath enriched, though sparingly, our wilderness world. This world is not all bad; its marches are not all bare. Cursed is the ground for thy sake--and because for thy sake, it is not cursed utterly. It is not all black, bare, lifeless, as the crust of a cold lava flood; a prison-house for reprobates, instead of a training school for sons.
II. The nearness of Elim to Marah opens up to us a deep truth in the spiritual history of man.
1. Had they pushed on instead of murmuring at Marah, they would have found all they sought, and more than they hoped for, at Elim. Ah! the time we waste in repining and rebelling--scheming to mend Gods counsels! How many Elims would it find for us, if employed in courage and faith!
2. How near is the sweetness to the bitterness in every trial! it is but a short step to Elim, where we may encamp and rest. The brightest spots of earth are amidst its most savage wildernesses, and the richest joys of the Christian spring ever out of his sharpest pains. The humbling pains of disappointment tune the soul for the joys which the next station of the journey affords. It is when we have learnt the lessons of the wilderness, and are resolved to press on, cost what it may, in our heavenly path, that springs of unexpected sweetness gush up at our very feet, and we find shade and rest, which give foretaste of heaven.
III. Let us endeavour to discern the principle of this alternate sweetness and bitterness of life. These lights and shadows of nature, this glow and gloom, are caught from a higher sphere. Nature is but the reverse of the medal whose obverse is man. The ultimate reason of the bitterness of Marah is the sin in the heart of Israel and all pilgrims; the ultimate reason of the sweetness and freshness of Elim is the mercy that is in the heart of God. There is a fearful power in the human spirit to make Gods brightest blessings bitter curses. Who was it who wanted to die, because God had found a deliverance for a great city in which were half a million of doomed men? At the door of your own spirit lie all the pangs and wretchedness you have known. You have cursed fate and fortune, and protested that you were the most wronged and persecuted of men. But the mischief lies not in Gods constitution of the world, nor in His government of it, but in your hearts. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Sweetness not far from bitterness
Sorrow is not all a wilderness, even to the most sorrowful. Amid all its bleakness and desolation it has oases of beauty and fertility. It has Elims as well as Marahs, and frequently these Elims are very near the Marahs--if we only knew it. But six short miles separated the twelve wells of water and the threescore and ten palm.trees from the bitter, nauseous well that filled the hearts of the thirsting multitudes with disappointment. And so near in human life is the sweetness to the bitterness in every trial. A few steps will take us through the valley of the shadow of death out into the green pastures and beside the still waters upon which it opens. Had the Israelites of old, instead of murmuring at Marah, pushed on a little further, they would, in two short hours, have found at Elim all they sought and more than they expected. And so the time we waste in repining and rebelling would be better employed in living faith and active duty, for thus would consolation be found. Instead of sitting down to murmur at Marah, let us march in faith under the guidance of our tender Shepherd, who will bring us to the next station, where we may lie down in green pastures and beside still waters. (Christian Age.)
The comparative duration of sorrow and joy
Is there ever a Marah without an Elim near it, if only we follow on in the way the Lord marks out for us through the wilderness? The notice of Elim occupies less than four lines, while there are as many verses in the record of Marah, and a whole chapter following about the wilderness of sin; and we are apt to draw the hasty inference that the bitter experiences were the rule, and the delightful ones the exception. And so it often seems in the checkered life of the tried disciple of the Lord. But look again. The bitter time at Marah was quite short, though it occupies a great deal of space in the history. These four verses tell the story probably of as many hours or less. But the four lines about Elim are the story of three weeks, during which they encamped there by the waters. When troubles come, the time seems long; when troubles have gone, the time seems short; and so many are apt to think that they are hardly dealt with, whereas if they would look more carefully into the Lords dealings with them, they might find that they have far more to be thankful for than to grieve over. Hours at Marah are followed by weeks at Elim. (J. M. Gibson, D. D.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v23 Exo_15:27. Elim.]—Probably = “palms,” Ges. Fü. Dav. By many…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exo_15:27. Elim.]—Probably = “palms,” Ges. Fü. Dav. By many identified with Wadi Gharendel, “situated 2½ miles S. of Howarah, and 2 miles N. of Tor, in a very beautiful valley of almost one English mile in length, and abounding in good water. Even according to the most recent travellers, excellent fountains, and a great number of trees, especially tamerisks and palm-trees, are still found in that valley, so that it is generally chosen as one of chief stations on the journey to Sinai.”—Kalisch.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_15:23-26
THE DISAPPOINTMENTS OF HUMAN LIFE
The children of Israel are now in joyful mood. God has won for them a great, and, as it would appear, a final victory over their inveterate enemy. They appreciate the deliverance, and have celebrated it in song. The last notes of the hymn have died away. The Israelites are now travelling onwards. But new needs arise. They require water to quench their thirst. Life is not a long-continued song of triumph, it soon turns to want again. The experiences of life are varied and changeful, and soon pass from joy to sorrow.
I. That the disappointments which men experience frequently occur in connection with the apparently trivial things of life. “They could not drink of the waters of Marah.” The Israelites had passed three days in the wilderness without finding water. The march long. The climate hot. The fatigue great. And so men have frequently to pursue life for a time in the absence of needful things. This shows them their dependence upon God. If man never lacked any good thing, he would imagine that life was self-supporting, and that he could do without the aid of heaven. The absence of needful good teaches men to value its return. In this country we have plenty of water, it comes to us through unnumbered channels. If we were called to journey without it we should prize it more. The common gifts of God are beyond price. Israel, no doubt, watched eagerly for water. Men soon become anxious when the temporal supplies of life fail. Now it is found. What joy in the camp, as the news is conveyed from one rank to another. But the water is bitter! We cannot judge of earthly things according to their appearance. The water looked all right. It tasted bitter. Many things in the world look well, but experience proves them bitter to the taste. The world itself appears as though it would quench the moral thirst of man, he welcomes it with song, but soon finds it bitter to his soul. It is well that some things are bitter, or men would take them in poisonous draughts. All the waters of life are embittered by sin. They look well, but are vanity and vexation of spirit. Thus we see that men are disappointed in reference to the ordinary things of daily life. We are not often disappointed in great things. Life has not many great occasions in it. Little things fret and perplex us. We are disappointed by the appearance of things; the business, the friendship, and the pleasure looked well, but taste badly. Sin looks well; but tastes bitter. Men are deceived in the commonest things of life. Israel did not expect trial, they had only just finished singing their hymn of praise. Disappointment comes soon upon joy. It is the way of God thus to exercise the faith and patience of His people. At Marah the cloud was before Israel. God is with the good in their sorrows.
II. That the disappointments of life seem far more frequently to lead men to murmuring than to prayer. “And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?” Thus the Israelites gave way to murmuring; only one man amongst them prayed. And in the disappointments of life only one man in a crowd will seek communion with Heaven. Grumbling is more natural than prayer. The former is folly. The latter is healing. Man likes to have all his own way. He ought to submit to the will of God. The best servants of God are complained against. The healing ministries of life are revealed to the praying spirit. When men murmur they are deaf to the voice of God; they are blind to the remedy He would disclose to them. Prayer will sweeten bitter waters more quickly than aught else. Men murmur at the disappointments of life, recall not the desponding memories of past help. Men soon murmur when they are displeased. Would it not have been wiser if these Israelites had called to mind the deliverance which God had wrought out for them in the past? Had He not brought them out of Egypt, and through the waters of the Red Sea as on dry land, and saved them from life-long enemies? Had He done this that He might destroy them with thirst a few days afterwards? Certainly not. But unbelief views things on the dark side. It only looks at the bitter waters it cannot sweeten. And shall we murmur at the disappointments of life, when we remember the Divine mercies of the past? Men often murmur about the disappointments of life to those who are the least to blame for them, and who perhaps are likewise suffering from them. The Israelites murmured at Moses. He was a good man. He was their best friend. He had not made the waters bitter. He was as thirsty as any of them. How cowardly. How cruel. How discouraging. But Moses was a true man, and found his refuge in prayer. Ministers should imitate his example. Crowds are fickle in their moods.
III. That the disappointments of life are often removed and made a blessing to them by the kindly aid of Heaven. “And the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into “the waters, the waters were made sweet.” Moses prayed when the people murmured. He did not hold an altercation with them. In answer to prayer the remedy was revealed, and the waters became all the sweeter for having been bitter. The tree had no healing virtue in it. It was the means used by God, and shows His rule over all the things of His universe. We must not abuse a single tree in God’s universe, it contains sacred possibilities. Men must employ secondary causes to heal their disappointments. Prayer shows where they are to be found. God can make a way out of the greatest trial. We must do as Heaven tells us in the hour of grief, for if we refuse to cast the tree into the bitter waters they will not be sweetened.
IV. That when the disappointments of life are removed, then God admonishes men in reference to their future conduct. “And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in His sight, and will give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.”
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_15:23-24. After worship done in memory of mercies, the Church must go on its pilgrimage.
Monuments of trial God sometimes sets up in the names of places for posterity.
Carnal Israelites soon exchange worship for discontent.
Foolish unbelieving creatures are running to creatures for drink rather than to God.
Exo_15:25-27. When unbelievers are murmuring under trial, God’s servants are praying.
God’s faithful ones shall never seek His face in vain.
God will show His servants how to turn bitter into sweet, when they truly seek Him.
Obedience must use the appointed means to receive the desired issue.
Where God gives mercies to His people, He also gives laws and judgments.
Marah and Elim. The alternating experiences of human life.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Marah-waters! Exo_15:23. Captain Palmer says that for three days’ journey southward along the coast, the desert plain is, practically speaking, waterless, there being only a few wretched brackish springs, about one in every hundred square miles, of which the water is unfit for use. It was after three days that the minstrels became murmurers for water. The sensation which we call thirst is no more like the mad and raging fever-thirst of the desert, than our cool and verdant plains are like the baked and blistering rocks of that burning wilderness. So that Israel might well be bitter in their spirit when they came upon a bitter spring. There is still a salt and bitter fountain here. The “Speaker’s Commentary” says that Wellstead tasted the waters and muttered the word “Marah!” whereon his Bedawin guide exclaimed, “You speak the word of truth; they are indeed marah.” The early Christian Church met with their marah as they first entered on the pilgrim-way. That marah is still in the wilderness-life of the Church, so that her successive members taste and cry, “Marah!” But there is a tree whose leaves drop sweetness, and whose taste is balm. Bedawin had no tree to cast into Wellstead’s marah, but the Christian has. Jesus, the Tree of Life, extends His bending branches to the anxious touch, making each stagnant marsh a rivulet of health, turning the bitterest brook into a fountain of living waters—
“The Cross on which the Saviour died
And conquer’d for His saints,
This is the tree, by faith applied,
Which sweetens all complaints.”
Marah-bitterness! Exo_15:25. Pure, cool, and pellucid Water is the gift of God. As it comes from heaven, it is always clear and uncontaminated. It is only in earth’s reservoirs that it sometimes gets muddied. There are salts of copper in the soil through which the current percolates—the smoke and soot of city-life defile its excellence—the manchineel sheds its deadly fruits into the fountain. Adam’s life was a pure gift from God; but he defiled it. Man sullies the purity of God’s blessing—turns them into Marah-bitterness. The blessing was good enough till once it came to man; but the bitter soil made the fountain bitter. If the cup which catches the morning shower was clear as crystal, and if the atmosphere were not already contaminated by the smoke and soot of human desires, the blessings would remain pure. But man makes them marah.
“Yet there’s a wonder-working wood,
I’ve heard believers say,
Can make those bitter waters good,
And take the curse away.”
Elim—Symbolism! Exo_15:27. This is now called “Gharandel.” It is still a pleasant place, having water in abundance, grass, and palm-trees. Kalisch beautifully applies Elim to the Lord’s-day. The traveller, on a rough and dusty road, when from time to time he finds by the wayside a quiet green resting-place, from which he may look back on the way he has come, and also forward to the end of his journey, will surely stop at it for a little with thankfulness. And what are Thy Sabbaths, O Lord, with their sweet services and their solemn hours, but fresh and peaceful oases such as these, inviting me to put away for a moment the troubles and the fatigues of the highway of life, that I may breathe awhile and gather new strength for my journey. Ye giddy crowd, who run and run on, without looking round, until ye slide into the grave, Oh! look at these oases provided for you by God, who pities you more than you do yourselves: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning!” says the Psalmist. And “let my right hand forget its cunning, and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,” if I ever forget you, ye solemn, holy hours prepared for me by God in the place where His glory dwells, and where He invites me to enjoy His own rest!
“Elim I sweet foretaste of rest and of blessing,
Soon must be left for the lengthening way;
But it is well that Thy pilgrims should gather
Courage and strength for the wearisome day.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v22 Subdivision 4. (Exo 15:22-27; Exo 16:1-36; Exo 17:1-16; Exo…
Subdivision 4. (Exo 15:22-27; Exo 16:1-36; Exo 17:1-16; Exo 18:1-27.)
Wilderness-grace.
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Israel is, however, as yet but brought into the wilderness. We have now, therefore, -not the proper history of the wilderness (that we find in Numbers), but -the grace which meets the need of the wilderness, -how their bread is given them and their water is made sure. The meaning of their being brought here is evidently to wean them from all other dependencies, and to cast them upon God; to manifest His truth and trustworthiness in all the minutiae of daily care. His was the responsibility of bringing this multitude through to the land He had promised them, and He charges Himself with it, that we, no less than they, may learn to find Him in the smallest details, and most familiar and homely matters of common life. In the deliverance from Egypt He had shown Himself for them on a great occasion; and there are many who seem only to look for His interference upon great occasions. But our life is not made up of such, and from how much of it must He be banished if we are only to find Him there! Thank God, it is not so: He is about our path and about our bed, serving us ever in the perpetual need we have of Him.
But again, as types, what happened to them reveals to us deeper than physical needs, and a much more marvelous provision. As types, they must have anti-types greater than themselves; and with these, therefore, must be our main occupation, as continually through these books.
1. To be in the wilderness is not failure, but the consequence of redemption. The world is not for sense a wilderness: it is Egypt, -fruitful and fair enough, though storms may sweep through it. But for faith, yearning after the inheritance beyond, all is changed. He who learns to glory in the cross of Christ has to say, "By which the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world." The place of Christ’s cross can be but barren ground -a wilderness.
But this truth of the wilderness is not in itself a pleasant, but a bitter, thing. The good of it is in the necessity which brings God in. A place of the most wonderful display of divine power and love, it is the necessity of the people which occasions this display. Had the desert brought forth bread for them, there would have been no bread from heaven. Had it produced water, there would have been no need for the water from the rock. God’s supplies are, we must not say, proportioned to the necessity (they are over-abundant), but they are occasioned by it.
Marah, as the introduction to the desert, is just the symbol of what the desert is. It was its proximity to the sea that made the waters bitter. Lying low by the shore, the saltness of the sea made (and still makes) the waters brackish. If the sea speak of death, then Marah shows the wilderness as the place of death, where not merely is nothing given for our thirst, but what is there is the very provocative of thirst.
Naturally, we shrink from this. Marah, in itself, is never pleasant. The Christian spirit with regard to all the sorrow and sin that are in the world is never apathy, -never indifference. It is as redeemed we come to Marah; redemption places in the very position in which to feel the bitterness of the world. Brought dry-shod through the sea, we are then made to drink of it.
But if the flesh shrinks from Marah, God has a remedy, and though we do not know the tree which God showed Moses, we know its antitype. It is the cross of Christ, -the fellowship of His sufferings, and the knowledge of its being that, what suffering can it not sweeten? We are sharing His experiences who gives us therein to realize the wonderful place which He has taken for us, -the path in which divine love led Him for our sakes. We have communion with Himself in such a way as we could not else enjoy; and nothing brings hearts together like sharing a common lot of toil and sorrow.
Atonement was Christ’s work alone: here none could be with Him. But in other aspects even of the cross itself we may find that which, linking itself with the glory at the end, characterizes our path. We follow a rejected Master, and are made partakers of His sufferings. This bitterness of death in the wilderness is not the experience which falls to the common lot of men. It is not simply, as in the body, enduring the ills which they say flesh is heir to. It is what results from being linked with Christ in His path of suffering, and in spirit with Him to whom the spirit of the world was only that. "If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him." But if with Him we suffer, Marah is no longer Marah; "the valley of Baca (of tears) becomes a well;" the tree is in the waters.
And here is God’s standing ordinance for us, and by which He proves us. God. is our Healer; He maketh whole and from the diseases of Egypt He will exempt us, if only we endure the test. If we will accept of the path of sorrow and trial which the Lord gives us here, we shall escape the afflictions which are His judgments on the world, and which come on those also who take their place with the world. Those who do not suffer for Christ, or with Christ, do not by their unfaithfulness escape suffering. They only suffer with the Egyptians.
This is what divine love -what He who has redeemed us to Himself says to us as His redeemed. Love itself cannot give us escape from the necessity of conforming to these conditions. It would not be love to do so. We shall find at last how in fact we have entered in this way, -as only by it we could enter, -into some of the deepest secrets of the heart of God. It is here in this scene of sin and sorrow that we are learning Christ -the Christ we are to enjoy forever. Even in the glory we could not learn what we learn here on earth. But to learn the Man of Sorrows, we must learn sorrow which yet is lost in the infinite joy of being made like Him, and linked with Him, and in Him learning that which is to be our possession forever.
From Marah now, too, we reach Elim, and here is divine and abundant refreshment for a thirsty people. When we are conformed to God’s conditions we find that the water is not always and merely water that must be sweetened for us. There is water which is in itself sweet, -pure, unalloyed satisfaction and joy, which has no sorrow in it.
The twelve springs answering to the twelve tribes, seem to point to a provision for those under the manifest government of God -an obedient people. We must have been at Marah to find Elim. The sweet water must be tasted after the bitter. When we have stooped to drink the bitter water we shall have the sweet.
Elim means "trees," implying strong trees, clearly referring to the growth nourished by its flowing springs. The living water of the Spirit nourishes the "trees of the Lord," which "are full of sap" and the palm-tree is the figure of the righteous, -upright, and every way profitable, -bringing forth fruit still in old age (Psa 92:12; Psa 92:14) perennial as the streams that nourish them.
2. And now we come to the manna, -the bread with which God sustains His people in the wilderness. Here we cannot be at a loss for the interpretation. Christ is the true bread from heaven, given of the Father, the food of His people, -the meat which, though we find it in the wilderness of this world, nevertheless endures unto eternal life. It is Christ in His humiliation "coming down from heaven," but which will be the sustenance of the soul in heaven itself. The story is told in eight subsections, which carry us on, therefore, to the land of promise.
(1) It is in the wilderness of Sin where the manna falls for the first time, and the numerical stamp seems to emphasize its meaning. "Sin" is connected with seneh, a "thorn-bush," the word used for that in which God revealed Himself to Moses. We are familiar already with the thorn as the sign of the ground cursed for man’s sake, and we must not surely forget it here. Yet here both the numerical place and the lesson of the whole chapter seem to insist upon another character of a "wilderness of thorn." Of Palestine in its present state Tristram says, "The combined heat and dryness of the climate seem to develop a tendency to form thorns, even in groups like the astragalus, where we should least expect them. All plants become more spiny in rocky and parched situations, the expansive effort which under moister conditions would develop a bough with leaf or blossom being arrested, and forming merely a barren thorn or spine. "No picture could be more striking than this: the sun smiting, the genial heavenly influence become a scorching heat, water -the type of the Spirit -withheld, the barren soil with its vegetation running into weapons of offense: such is the world as the place of need into which the Son of God came as Son of man.
(2) The people again break out into murmuring: an unhumbled spirit can take God’s grace as a thing of course, but resents whatever reminds it that God is not its debtor. How beautiful the grace that can meet this return for so mighty a deliverance with the assurance of new and continual mercy! Heaven will bestow what no labor of their own can get; giving, indeed, in such a way ("the day’s portion in its day") that dependence shall be maintained; for thus the blessing is more than doubled; and providing also that human activity shall be required in its place, for what is given them they must gather. On the sixth day the amount is twice as much as usual; for the sixth day is the day of discipline which is also the day of spiritual harvest.
(3) In the manna, Jehovah manifests Himself afresh as the Deliverer out of Egypt, and His glory appears in the cloud as they look toward the wilderness. There is little need to interpret this: it is by Christ we believe in God (1Pe 1:21); and it would be loss indeed to stop short of this. "I and my Father are one" leads into the innermost sanctuary of wonder and worship. There is no hidden God any more, save as in the light, -not darkness, -in which He dwells, there are, indeed, inaccessible depths of glory (1Ti 6:16). This is only to say that the God who is perfectly revealed is of course God.
(4) Now we are made to see what the manna is like. A flight of quails precedes it in the evening, which furnish the people with the flesh that had been promised them. And as we know abundantly what this death as the food of life means, we can have no difficulty as to it here. The Lord Himself, in His sermon on this text of manna (Joh 6:1-71), assures us that we must not only eat His flesh, but drink His blood, or we have no life in us. His person and His work are both necessary to us; and in fact His sacrifice must precede, as in the blood-sprinkled house alone they could feed on the lamb. So the quails come first, and in the evening. In the morning, the dew exhales and leaves the manna, as the Spirit of God ministers Christ.
It is upon the ground, so that they must stoop to gather it, -on the face of the wilderness, -something fine, as if pounded to pieces, -fine as the hoar-frost on the ground. This is as the people see it, who have not yet tasted it, and know not what it is. It evidently does not look much, -has upon it marks as if of rough usage; it reminds us of the prophet’s words, "No beauty in Him that we should desire Him." "What is it?" they say; for they wist not what it was. "The world knew Him not."
There is a natural manna which on account of its likeness to this has been used to discredit the miracle. But it is not properly a food, but a drug, -an exudation from a tree that an insect has pierced, wholly impossible to confound, one would say, with the divine gift: yet men do often confound it. And there are multitudes who confound Christ with common men: but who else could say and prove it, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me"?
(5) As to the gathering of the manna, we have a striking and solemn thing. Every man, it was found, gathered according to his eating. There was no lack for any: each got what he wanted, and not more than he wanted. Does not Christ meet the need we really have of Him? He does: but how much, then, is that need with each of us?
(6) The manna was not to be hoarded, but gathered (with one exception) morning by morning, and eaten on the day it fell. Hoarded, it bred worms, and stank. So must a living faith draw continually for continual need. We cannot live to-day upon yesterday’s enjoyment! Our past experiences will in this case only turn into corruption: they will feed pride; they will be knowledge that puffs up.
(7) And now, along with the manna, the Sabbath appears. In the double measure of the sixth day, it is provided for before it is enjoined: they rest not as mere duty, but as privilege; and in the gospels we find this rest connected in the most striking way with the reception of the Lord Himself. He is Lord of the Sabbath. They could not reject Him and have a Sabbath. With Christ known and fed upon, rest follows necessarily; found as we realize a love which has stooped so low as to give us the joy of companionship with Himself, and to bring us near, in Himself, to God. Away from God, Cainlike, we are but fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth. Nor can circumstances make peace for us; nay, while He says, "In the world ye shall have tribulation," He adds directly, "but in Me ye shall have peace."
In connection with this, we find for the first time what the manna is really like, for those who had tasted it. "It was like coriander-seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafer-cakes with honey." It was white -absolute purity, and more: of the color which speaks of the reflection of the full ray of light, and God is light. Its taste was like honey. Honey is the type of natural sweetness, able to yield refreshment if tasted by the way, as with Jonathan in the wood, but needing the wise man’s caution in its use (Pro 25:16), and unfit for the fire which tries the offering of the Lord. But the manna only resembles honey in its sweetness: it can abide the fire; and the fire prepares it for the people’s food. In Christ is all the sweetness of human affection, -of a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother; but a nature pure, unfallen, incorruptible: the reality of manhood which invites us to intimacy, yet upon which God can put the seal of His Spirit in perfect approbation of it all.
(7) Thus of necessity this food "endureth to eternal life," as Christ Himself has told us. The enjoyment of it is not for the present only. And so the manna, though it could not be kept for one day’s need in the wilderness, could be kept for the land. The golden pot speaks of how God is glorified in what is here made ours, and perhaps of that glorified One Himself who retains forever the memory of the past, and the gracious heart of the Son of Man also. And we shall not only "see," as Israel might, but "eat" of the "hidden manna" (Rev 2:17), in the heavenly land to which He is bringing us. It is then in fact, when we come to be there, that we shall have the full enjoyment, -knowing as we are known, -of all the experiences which though they be of the wilderness, yet wait for the land to which we are hastening to find their full interpretation and blessing. The meat endures to everlasting life. We are now enjoying that which we shall enjoy for eternity. We feed on that which shall he eternally our food.
3. We have now a familiar type of the Spirit -the living water from the smitten rock; and, as an appendix to it, a necessary one, but still only that, in Amalek, the picture of the fleshly lusts which, in opposition to the Spirit, war against the soul. The numerical structure is here peculiarly significant: for the number of the section, while it is plainly that of the Spirit, says nothing of the strife that follows; nor could it come in very well as a fourth section, which the first part of the eighteenth chapter, moreover, plainly is. On the other hand, the number characterizes it exactly, if coming in as an appendix merely to the third section, unnoticed in the designation of the section itself, and yet finding its prepared place in connection with it. How clearly the spiritual meaning reigns in all this! and how it is brought out by the very arrangement! What connection has the conflict with Amalek with the water from the rock, other than a spiritual one? It comes in the historical order, no doubt. Yes, because "all these things happened unto them for types." The connection is spiritual, it is grounded on this, that if we have the Spirit, "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit." And yet this is but incidental, not to be put upon a level with the glorious reality of the gift of the Holy Ghost itself, which is permanent and eternal blessing. Moreover, as the meaning of all this subdivision is to show the divine furnishing in grace for the wilderness, the struggle with Amalek necessarily could only have a subordinate place.
(1) "Bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure," says the prophet of salvation. We have seen how the first part of this was fulfilled to delivered Israel; we are now to see the fulfillment of the rest. Again, as sent in answer to the murmuring of the people, the stamp of divine grace is upon the gift. Grace is a mightier triumph over sin than judgment. If the sixth chapter of John’s gospel interprets the manna for us, the seventh chapter interprets here. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, ’If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
Thus, if the manna shows forth the Lord upon earth in humiliation and rejection, the living water as a gift depends upon His exaltation and glory. If men are to be the recipients of the Holy Ghost, the work must be accomplished for them which alone can enable them to receive or God to give this unspeakable gift. In view of this, the scene in Exodus becomes easy enough to interpret. Horeb is "the dry place," but it now yields water. Against nature, "contrary to nature," is the Lord’s working; and the Lord -it is specially noted -is Himself there. He stands upon the rock which is to display at once His power and His grace. The rod which had smitten the river smites it, -the rod of power in behalf of the people; and the streams gush out, an abundant supply for all the thirsty multitude. The smiting of the Rock for us has created a spring of refreshment and satisfaction as inexhaustible as the eternal source from which it comes; and its source is in God Himself -in the love of Him whose name is Love.
The type of water is pregnant with instruction, as it is that which supplies one of man’s deepest cravings and strongest necessities. Thirst unsatisfied kills sooner far than hunger, nor can hunger itself be really satisfied where thirst is not, at least in measure, really met. A glance at the need to which water ministers will enable us to understand this.
The soil otherwise most fruitful, without water, is unable to yield nourishment to the rootlets of the plant, which will die of drought in the midst of abundance. Water alone dissolves the nutriment, and supplies it in a shape suited to be taken up and assimilated into sap and juice. In the plant, and in the animal body, every constituent part is saturated with water, which alone enables it to fulfill its function and take its place in living relation to the whole. How perfect and beautiful an expression of that constant ministry of the Spirit with which for due and healthy life we must be "filled," and by which alone we are enabled to absorb and digest all spiritual food!
Every one who has preceded us upon the path of faith has been sustained of the Spirit, as born of the Spirit at first. This is not, of course, peculiar to Christian times. But the streams from the smitten Rock have in them that which is peculiar. All streams carry with them the witness of the soil through which they flow, -of the fountain-head in which they originate. The Spirit of God, come down to us as the fruit of accomplished redemption and of Christ’s accepted work, is to our hearts the witness of our acceptance and the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father. A new and settled relationship to God, in and through His Beloved, such as before could not have been known or dreamt of is now made consciously our own.
At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." Thus the Spirit ministers Christ, and with Him the knowledge of the Father; communion with the Father and the Son becomes our portion, and herein fullness of joy.
(2) The appendix to this has how different a tale to tell! Amalek is the grandson of profane Esau, whose name Edom, earned by his actions, is almost identical with Adam. Amalek’s own name has no determined significance. It has been thought to be composed of am and laq, and thus to mean "a people that licks up," or "exhausts." This would be appropriate enough, but Scripture points rather to a derivation from Amal and laq, which would give us the thought of "labor that exhausts." The first of these words is found in Balaam’s blessing of the people the second time, as Amalek appears in the third and fourth. "He hath not seen
perverseness in Israel is literally, "He hath not seen amal," -the wearisome labor which one’s own will involves; that "labor" from which the Lord calls men off to the "rest" of His easy yoke. Amal is thus connected with the will or lust of the flesh, and Amalek may well be the offspring of the old man, Edom. Amalek appears plainly in the third blessing: "His king shall be higher than Agag" -king of the Amalekites. And in the fourth, where the star rises out of Jacob -where Christ’s coming is seen, -then it is that Amalek perishes forever.
Put these together, and they read consistently enough as typical of the old nature and its fruits. The first thing for blessing is, "God hath not seen it"-it is not imputed. Next, Christ, Israel’s king, is strong above Agag: we are delivered from its actual supremacy. Thirdly, when Christ comes, Amalek perishes forever.
Again, if we compare the present chapter with the twentieth of Numbers, we shall find a strikingly similar scene in the first part of each: -the murmuring of the people in their thirst, the name "Meribah" given in each case to the place, the water brought from the rock to supply their thirst; and while here the conflict with Amalek follows, in Numbers follows correspondingly a scene with Edom.
Amalek thus seems to represent the flesh’s will or lust, and the apostle Peter may well refer to this very place when he speaks of "fleshly lusts, which war against the soul."
"The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye should not do the things that ye would." (Gal 5:17.) It is not "cannot" do, as in the common version: the tendency of the constant opposition between "flesh" and "Spirit," essential in their very natures, is, to hinder the man who has the Spirit from doing what he would. If it said "cannot," this would deny the power of the Spirit to control the flesh. On the contrary, the apostle says, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." But the flesh is there as this implies, and ready ever to assert itself. How solemn to find, in this way, after the water from the rock, the conflict with Amalek!
Yet though it is all right, and needful to assert in this connection, we must mark just how Scripture connects this attack of the foe. "He called the name of the place ’Massah’ and ’Meribah, ’ on account of the striving of the children of Israel, and on account of their tempting Jehovah, saying, ’Is Jehovah in the midst of us, or not?’ Then came Amalek." That is, the moral link, as given thus, seems to be, not between the gift of the water and Amalek’s onset, but between the unbelief of the people and this attack.
Another thing which is very evident, let us at the same time particularly note: that Amalek assaults Israel, not Israel Amalek. God did not call to this conflict. He did not say, Seek out and destroy Amalek; it is Amalek seeks out Israel; and Israel’s unbelief exposes them to the attack.
And so the apostle: he does not say, "Fight against fleshly lusts," but "abstain," "hold off from," them, -which if it were done, no war were possible. This sort of conflict is not a necessity of God’s imposing, but the result of faith not having been in due exercise. Did we "hold off from" the lusts of the flesh by the whole length of being dead with Christ to sin, -were we always reckoning ourselves dead, as we are entitled and bound to do, conflict of this kind would be impossible: dead men no more fight than they are allured. And this is no undue insisting upon the Scripture term; for the apostle similarly presses the force of it, where he urges "for he that is dead is freed (or rather, justified) from sin." (Rom 6:7.) That is, you cannot charge lusts, for instance, on a dead man: he has none. This, of course, is only faith’s reckoning; but it is true, or it could not be faith’s, and just as simple for the argument here as in the very similar one that the apostle urges. He who, because Christ died to sin for him once, reckons himself dead, cannot be seduced, nor even fight with seduction. But are we always practically in the faith of this? Would that we were! But when we are not, we are shorn Samsons, most accessible, and without strength.
Conflict of this kind, then, comes from faith’s failure; and when entangled -if our eyes have been upon the world, and have affected our hearts, then we must indeed fight in order to be free.
Note, then, that in the field Joshua is the leader. Joshua is Jesus: the names are the same, and Christ acting by the Spirit is distinctly what he represents to us, -the Captain of our salvation, who leads us into practical apprehension of the heavenly places into which He is gone. We want, as this means, the positive enjoyment of what is ours in the heavenlies, in order to be free from entanglement, and really pilgrims and strangers on the earth.
But even Joshua’s success is dependent, as we see directly, upon Moses being on the hill-top before God, and the holding up of the rod of power before Him. If Moses’ hands are up, Israel prevails; but if Moses’ hands are down, Amalek prevails. Moses is here another type of Christ, but as gone in to God, presenting before Him the value of that work in which, on the part of His people, divine power has acted. And the supporters of Moses’ hands figure, surely, that in Him (not, of course, external to Him,) which keeps Him, so to speak, in the place He has taken for us. On the one hand, Aaron seems to represent His priestly character, as touched with the feeling of our infirmities, gracious and compassionate; on the other, Hur, "white," speaks as the manna did, of One who fully reflects the light which God is. Here, then, is mercy toward man, righteousness toward God, -an "Advocate with the Father;" and also "Jesus Christ the righteous."
Real dependence on the one hand, thorough subjection to the word of God on the other -for it is by the edge of the sword that Joshua discomfits their enemies, -these things, with one who knows redemption and acceptance in the Beloved, are what will carry him safe and victorious through all opposition and hindrances. But though Amalek is beaten off, Amalek is not destroyed. Israel has gained nothing by the conflict; and by the victory, only a free and unobstructed road. The battle with Amalek was but an episode in their history, not, as so many find the inward struggle, a daily experience. In the epistle to the Philippians, -the rehearsal of Christian experience, -the flesh is only mentioned to say we have no confidence in it: and these are "the true circumcision, who worship God in the spirit, and boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." May we be more fully such!
4. The deliverance is complete: the grace which begins perfects the work. Nothing more is needed as to this. But the effect of the work is yet to be seen, for God’s way is ever to make the blessing of one the means of blessing to others also. Thus it will be when the final salvation of Israel is accomplished, it will be to the world, says the apostle, "as life from the dead." (Rom 11:15.)
In the present time, God is making the recipients of His salvation a testimony by which He works on others, -a thing that needs no insisting on, and which we find illustrated in the case of Jethro in a way so clear that it may be left to speak for itself.
5. The fifth and last section has more difficulty, and yet there need not be much doubt as to the general meaning. According to the number we have before us, as it would seem, those governmental ways of God, by which the "way" leads to the "end," an end which is its righteous (while it may be gracious) recompense. In the history, we find Moses acting under the counsel of his father-in-law, sharing with chosen men of ability in Israel the service of rule over the people. It can scarcely fail to connect itself in our thoughts with that of which it may well be typical, -the day on which Christ (of whom all through Moses speaks to us) shall give according to the will of His Father (Mat 20:23) His people to share His throne as Son of Man (Rev 3:21). This is surely a fitting and beautiful close of this series of types, which has given us thus in wonderful completeness and reality the history of redemption. Grace ends not with us till the reward of grace is given, and it shines at last in glory. Beyond this these types could not go, and a new series must begin with that which follows.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v23 Exo 15:23 - - Exo 15:25.
Exodus
MARAH
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Exo 15:23 - - Exo 15:25.
I. The time of reaching Marah-just after the Red Sea. The Israelites were encamped for a few days on the shore to shake themselves together, and then at this, their very first station, they began to experience the privations which were to be their lot for forty years. Their course was like that of a ship that is in the stormy Channel as soon as it leaves the shelter of the pier at Dover, not like that of one that glides down the Thames for miles.
After great moments and high triumphs in life comes Marah.
Marah was just before Elim-the alternation, how blessed! The shade of palms and cool water of the wells, one for each tribe and one for each ‘elder.’ So we have alternations in life and experience.
II. The wrong and the right ways of taking the bitter experience. The people grumbled: Moses cried to the Lord. The quick forgetfulness of deliverances. The true use of speech is not complaint, but prayer.
III. The power that changes bitter to sweet. The manner of the miracle is singular. God hides Himself behind Moses, and His miraculous power behind the material agent. Perhaps the manner of the miracle was intended to suggest a parallel with the first plague. There the rod made the Nile water undrinkable. There is a characteristic economy in the miraculous, and outward things are used, as Christ used the pool and the saliva and the touch, to help the weak faith of the deaf and dumb man.
What changes bitter to sweet for us?-the Cross, the remembrance of Christ’s death. ‘Consider Him that endured.’ The Cross is the true tree which, when ‘cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.’
Recognition of and yielding to God’s will: that is the one thing which for us changes all. The one secret of peace and of getting sweetness out of bitterness is loving acceptance of the will of God.
Discernment of purpose in God’s ‘bitter’ dealings-’for our profit.’ The dry rod ‘budded.’ The Prophet’s roll was first bitter, then sweet. Affliction ‘afterwards yieldeth the peaceable fruit.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v25 when he had cast into the waters
when he had cast into the waters
These bitter waters were in the very path of the Lord’s leading, and stand for the trials of God’s people, which are educatory and not punitive. The "tree" is the cross Gal 3:13 which became sweet to Christ as the expression of the Father’s will Joh 18:11. When our Marahs are so taken we cast the "tree" into the waters. Rom 5:3; Rom 5:4.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v22 1. The Experiences in the Wilderness
II. THE JOURNEY TOWARDS THE PROMISED LAND AND ISRAEL AT SINAI
1. The Experiences in the Wilderness
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CHAPTER 15:22-27 In the Wilderness of Shur
1. Marah (Exo 15:22-26)
2. Elim (Exo 15:27)
They went out into the wilderness of Shur. Shur was a great wall of protection which Egypt had erected. The surrounding country was called by that name. The trials of the wilderness journey at once begin; typical of our passage as redeemed ones through this world. Redemption has for a consequence the wilderness. We are in Christ crucified unto the world and the world unto us. The bitter waters are the first wilderness experience of the nation. It is a hint of what their subsequent history would be. Naomi in the book of Ruth called herself “Mara.” “Marah,” the bitterness, is the perfect picture of the world under sin and death. Then came the first wilderness murmuring. Six more are reported in Exodus and Numbers: Exo 16:2; Exo 17:2-3; Num 11:33-34; Num 14:2; Num 16:41; Num 21:5. God had a remedy. The tree is typical of the cross. The tree was not discovered by Moses, but by Jehovah. Christ went into the deep, dark waters of death; by Him the waters were made sweet for those who believe on Him. Now the bitterness of death is passed, and if we find the bitterness in the world through which we pass as pilgrims and strangers and we follow the path which He went while in the world, then murmuring will be forever excluded if the heart sees Christ and following in His steps, looks upon every bitter experience as the fellowship of His sufferings. Compare the tree for healing with Rev 22:2.
In Exo 15:26 Jehovah speaks of Himself as “Jehovah Ropheka,” the Lord thy Healer. The bitter waters showed them that they needed Jehovah in the wilderness as much as they needed Him in their deliverance from Egypt and Pharaoh’s power. And now He offers Himself as their healer. He takes gracious care of His people while they follow Him in the path of obedience. Some have pressed this promise to such an extent that they say sickness in a Christian is the result of direct disobedience; a Christian has no need of being sick, etc. This is wrong, and has led into theories which are far from sane and scriptural.
Marah is followed by Elim with its twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees. A beautiful oasis in the desert, giving them a foretaste of Canaan . What a place of refreshing and peace it must have been. So in our experience many a Marah is followed by an Elim, as the cross is followed by the crown. Elim means “trees,” and they must have been of luxuriant growth, planted by the wells of waters. So Israel after their Marah experience, when Jehovah has forgiven their sins and healed all their diseases, in the day of their future blessing and glory, will be like trees planted at the water brooks and will draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa 12:3).
Exo 16:1-36
CHAPTER 16 In the Wilderness of Sin
1. The renewed murmuring (Exo 16:1-3)
2. The bread from heaven promised (Exo 16:4-10)
3. The promise fulfilled and the quails and bread given (Exo 16:11-14)
4. Instructions concerning the gathering (Exo 16:16-18)
5. The manna corrupted (Exo 16:19-21)
6. The manna and the Sabbath (Exo 16:22-31)
7. The manna kept for a memorial (Exo 16:32-36)
After they removed from Elim, they encamped by the Red Sea (Num 33:10). They came into the wilderness of sin. The Hebrew word means “thorn,” the bush in which Jehovah had appeared to Moses in the Hebrew is “Sineh,” a thornbush. The second murmuring takes place. This gives a deep glimpse into the desperately wicked condition of the human heart. God had brought them out of the house of bondage; they wished themselves back. God had sheltered them beneath the blood; they wished the judgment might have carried them away. They were ready to leave the ground of redemption, guided by Jehovah, and turn back to Pharaoh to become slaves once more. What infinite patience and grace the Lord manifested toward them. All this is repeated in the lives of many believers. It need not to be so and it will not, if Christ and the redemption we have in Him as well as our glorious inheritance which is before us, is a reality in our lives.
Heaven offers now to minister to the daily need of such a people. The glory of the Lord was seen again out of the cloud (Exo 16:7; Exo 16:10). The bread from Heaven was given. It is described as small in size, round, white like coriander seed, like wafers made with honey and hard. Rationalists have tried to explain the giving of this bread in a natural way. In a certain part of the desert is found a tree from which exudes at certain times an eatable gum and falls to the ground in the form of small cakes; this, it is claimed, explains the manna. But they do not explain how it is that the Israelites received the manna in every part of the desert, that they received it in such immense quantities that the hundred thousands were fed by it and it lasted for forty years. It ceased as miraculously as it was given (Jos 5:12). The word “manna” is from the Hebrew “Man-hu,” the question, “What is that?” It is designated as the bread from heaven (Psa 78:24; Psa 105:40). Our Lord speaks of it as the bread from heaven in John 6, a chapter which is of importance in connection with the typical meaning of the manna. But quails were given first and in the morning dew, and after it arose, the manna. The quails and the manna are both the types of Christ, the food for God’s people. The dew after which the manna is seen, speaks of the Holy Spirit, who ministers Christ. Each gathered the bread which had come down according to his eating. Each got what he wanted, and not more. So Christ meets the need we have of Him if only our need of Him were greater and felt more.
It could not be hoarded up, but had to be gathered every morning. We must feed on Christ daily in living faith. Yesterday’s experience and enjoyment cannot feed us today. We must gather afresh, and let the dew, the Holy Spirit, minister to our hearts. Many live on past experiences, and become puffed up. Stagnation and corruption follow. The Sabbath is mentioned in connection with the manna and it is the first time that the Sabbath for Israel as a nation is spoken of. To feed on Christ, the bread from heaven, means rest for the soul. The keeping of the manna in the golden pot (Heb 9:4) tells us of what our Lord said concerning the bread from heaven, “He that eateth of this bread shall live forever.” The true manna endureth to eternal life and we shall eat in His own presence in glory “the hidden manna” (Rev 2:17).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v22 In the Wilderness of Shur
In the Wilderness of Shur
v. 22. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; they left the last fountain of fresh water behind them and marched out into the desert which extends along the eastern shore of the Gulf of Suez, the western arm of the Red Sea; and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
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v. 23. And when they came to Marah, probably the modern Hawara, thirty-three miles from the place where they had crossed the sea, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter, not merely saltish, but disagreeably repugnant; therefore the name of it was called Marah (bitterness).
v. 24. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? So quickly did the children of Israel forget the many evidences of God’s mercy in Egypt and the miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea.
v. 25. And he cried unto the Lord, for counsel and assistance; and the Lord showed him a tree, indicated some wood to him, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet, as palatable and wholesome as the best drinking-water. In this way the Lord overlooked the weakness of His children and helped them out. There He (God) made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them,
v. 26. and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord, thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee. That was the test which the Lord proposed, namely, that the children of Israel should keep His commandments, laws, and ordinances. In that event He would prove Himself their true Physician in keeping from them the plagues which struck the Egyptians, and they could depend upon this promise as upon a definite ordinance.
v. 27. And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters. In this beautiful oasis the people had an opportunity to refresh themselves from the fatigue of the journey and to prepare for the continuation of the journey. Days of joy and comfort follow after periods of suffering and trial.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22, 24 Moses led Israel
Moses led Israel
The word "Israel" represents the people of Israel. AT: "Moses led the Israelite people" (See: Metonymy)
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wilderness of Shur ... Marah
We do not know the exact locations of these places. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
Sea of Reeds
desert
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22–25 15:22–18:27 On the journey from the sea to Sinai,…
15:22–18:27 On the journey from the sea to Sinai, God continued his providential care for the people’s needs. In the events of rescue, he primarily revealed his power. Here he revealed that he cares about his people’s basic needs.
15:22-27 First at Marah and then at Elim, God provided water for the people. • The precise location of the desert of Shur (15:22) is unknown.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.