Commentary on Exodus 17:1-7

Water is life. This Lakota truth disseminated during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests starting in 2016 highlights that all life depends on clean water. The 2014 water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and more recent water rationing in 2026 due to drought in Puerto Rico, California, and other global hotspots illustrate this same point. With climate change, fresh water continues to diminish worldwide. Water used by fracking and AI data centers compounds the crisis. Scarcity threatens serious health problems, regional conflicts, and even death through dehydration in dire situations. 

Freed from Egyptian enslavement, the Israelites in Exodus 17:1–7 find themselves in such a dire situation. As migrating refugees, they have passed on dry land through the sea and are traveling toward Mount Sinai, where God is carrying them on eagles’ wings to make a covenant with them (Exodus 19:4). They have already dealt with a three-day dry stretch and encountered undrinkable water at Marah, a name referring to the “bitter” water that Moses sweetened and made potable following God’s instructions (Exodus 15:22–23). God has answered the people’s urgent need for food by providing life-sustaining manna, through which they see the glory of the Lord’s presence among them each morning (Exodus 16:7). This bounty in an inhospitable land lets the Israelites know that the Lord is their God (Exodus 16:12).

The Israelites have traveled from the wilderness of Sin—a place name, not to be confused with the English word “sin”—to Rephidim, reaching Horeb (Exodus 17:6). Known as “the mountain of God,” Horeb is the place where God was first revealed to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1), and it is often used as a synonym for Sinai. The literal meaning of Horeb, “dry place,” reflects the waterless landscape and signals a threat to life. When God earlier put the Israelites to a test, instructing them to do what is right and keep the commandments (Exodus 15:25), they came to a place of abundant water and learned that God is a healer (Exodus 15:25–27). Now in a wasteland, it is the people who put God to the test. They approach Moses with the demand, “Give us water to drink!” (Exodus 17:2).

The narrator prefaces this petition by noting that the people “quarreled” with Moses. The word translated as “quarreled,” underlying the place name “Meribah” (meaning “quarrel,” Exodus 17:7), denotes charging someone for wrongdoing. The issues of responsibility and accountability lie at the heart of this quarrel. The Israelites blame Moses and expect him to resolve the crisis. Moses turns their focus to God and asks why they are “testing” the Lord, corresponding to the place name “Massah” (meaning “test,” Exodus 17:2). 

The people’s complaint then takes the form of a bitter question to Moses in which they weigh their new freedom at the cost of their lives: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3). In Hebrew, the Israelites speak as an anguished individual, literally, “Why did you bring us up … to kill me and my children and my livestock …?” Extreme thirst (Exodus 17:3) has escalated the situation so that blame and the scramble to hold someone accountable are foremost.

In response to this accusation, Moses cries out to God in fear of a stoning at the hands of “this people” (Exodus 17:4), who have become estranged and turned against him. The honesty and sharpness of the accusations brought by the people and Moses resemble the laments in the book of Psalms, which openly express grief, pain, and betrayal.

God responds to the quarrel with grace and generosity; this is indeed a God who heals and provides. Moses and the people have their connection restored through a collaborative rescue mission involving the elders (Exodus 17:5). Moses’s agency on behalf of God is embodied and reaffirmed in the staff he earlier had used in the signs and wonders before Pharaoh, including the plague of turning the water of the Nile into blood (Exodus 17:5; Exodus 7:17–20). At the climax, God promises to stand personally upon the rock where water will flow for the people to drink (Exodus 17:6). God’s presence at the source of the waters answers the Israelites’ real question, stated at the end of this narrative: “Was the LORD in our midst or not?” (Exodus 17:7). 

The LORD’s presence among the Israelites is revealed through the provision of life-saving water out of the most unlikely source—a barren rock in the parched desert. Centuries later in a different context, the apostle Paul identified God’s saving presence among the people as Christ, “the spiritual rock that followed them” (1 Corinthians 10:4). 

This narrative and others portraying God’s provision of basic necessities in the wilderness—including water (Exodus 15:22-26; Numbers 20:1–13), food (Exodus 16; Numbers 11:4–9), and protection from enemies (Exodus 17:8–16)—are sometimes called “grumbling” stories, blaming the Israelites for their lack of trust. Perhaps if as Christians we would acknowledge doubt as an important aspect of faith, we might be able to identify more fully with the Israelites in their questioning, lamenting, self-advocacy, and discernment. (See for example Matthew 14:22–23, where Peter tests Jesus’s identity as he walks on the sea, only to have his own faith tested.) 

Might the Israelites’ honesty and directness in testing whether or not God is present in moments of need inspire our own discernment about matters critical for human life today? Can an honest expression of the desperation of our circumstances and of our fear lead us to a deeper faith in God’s gracious presence?

Decisions about the preservation and allocation of water resources are a matter of life and death requiring our keenest collective discernment. The surprising narrative in Exodus 17:1–7 alerts us to watch for God, who stood at the source of waters from a rock and who still stands today in the cleansing waters of our baptism and in the precious and vulnerable sources of water that sustain life on our planet.