Commentary on Exodus 17:1-7

The signature events in the book of Exodus are exodus and Sinai, respectively: crossing the sea, and covenanting with God at the mountain. Between these, literarily, lies the wilderness. The stories that Israel tells about this desolate, in-between place center on complaint. Three wilderness stories follow one another in quick succession, and the same Hebrew word begins them each: lîn, meaning to complain or grumble (Exodus 15:24; 16:2, 7; 17:3). The Israelites experience thirst in the first story, hunger in the second, and thirst again in the third. In all cases, they raise their voice against Moses, and he relays the heartache to the Lord. Across all three stories, the Lord then provides: turning bitter water into sweet water in the first story, sending manna in the second, and bringing water from the rock in the third.

The stories are thus quite similar to one another. They share another literary feature, namely, foreshadowing. They contain hints and anticipations of the great covenant-making moment that is narratively ahead of them. So, for instance, the first wilderness story includes a notice, “There the Lord made for them a statute and an ordinance” (Exodus 15:25b), and it holds out a condition, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes …” (Exodus 15:26). Such language is covenantal. It feels lifted directly from the book of Deuteronomy. 

The second wilderness story emphasizes Sabbath observance, which represents a key concern of the covenant revealed by God to Moses on the mountain (Exodus 20:8–9; 23:12; 31:12–17; 35:2–3). 

The third wilderness story refers to an important place-name. The Lord says to Moses: “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink” (Exodus 17:6). Horeb had not been mentioned in the book of Exodus since Moses’s encounter at the burning bush: “He led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb” (Exodus 3:1b). Its next occurrence names the mountain of God, the site of the covenant (Exodus 33:6). 

In view of their similarities, the differences between the stories are crucial for interpreting them. One key difference concerns the Hebrew verb nāsāh, meaning to test. The first time this verb appears in the Bible is the story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac; God tested Abraham (Genesis 22:1). Its next appearance is in each of the three Exodus wilderness stories. In the opening story, the Lord tested Israel (Exodus 15:25), and so also in the second (16:4). But in the third story, the direction of testing is reversed. Moses names the place Massah, meaning Testing, and Meribah, meaning Quarrel, “because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord” (17:7b). This is the Bible’s first instance of humans putting God to the test.  

Another key difference is related; it pertains to the names that Moses gives to these thirsty places. The first wilderness story says that Moses “called its name Marah [meaning Bitter]” (15:23b). This name commemorates the opening challenge the Israelites faced: the problem of bitter water, about which they complained and which the Lord then resolved. By contrast, the third story says that Moses “called the name of the place Massah and Meribah” (17:7a). These names remember not the opening challenge but rather the Israelites’ response that followed. The text links their agitation to a deep theological question: “The Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” (17:7b). 

These differences—the direction of the testing and the object of commemoration—are sermonically suggestive. They present a third option beside the two common moves for Christian preaching of the wilderness texts. On the one hand, sermons on the wilderness can moralize, admonishing believers not to complain like the Israelites complained. On the other hand, sermons on the wilderness can evangelize, announcing the good news that in spite of distrust on the part of God’s people, God comes through with water, even water from the rock. 

These are both strong messages, to be sure, but the differences outlined above open another possibility, especially in consideration of the final verse questioning the Lord’s presence. These differences can activate preaching that invites discernment. In good Lenten fashion, they help us to take spiritual inventory.

For these stories narrate much the same scenario—thirst; and they relate much the same response—complaint. They furthermore show the Lord acting miraculously to quench that thirst. But only in the third and final wilderness story do the Israelites test the Lord. Only in the third story is the Lord’s presence raised as a question.

These observations mean that the same challenging experience can test our faithfulness toward God—or that through it, we can put God’s faithfulness to the test. Is our situation of deficit or crisis, our thirst, disclosing the character of our commitment to God? Is it ushering us, even painfully, toward a new dimension of trust? Toward a fresh conviction that God is a provider and a healer despite the circumstance of want? This was what happened in the first wilderness story: There, uniquely, in the final verse of the story, the Lord declares, “I am the Lord who heals you” (Exodus 15:26b). 

Or is our situation of lack or hardship, loss or crisis, causing us to find God himself lacking? Do we read the deficit in our circumstances back onto the divine character? Or do we wonder if God is simply absent? So, once again, the very ending of the third wilderness story: “Is the Lord among us or not?” (17:7b). 

God is able to sweeten bitter water and to bring water out of the hardest surface. But our own response to situations of thirst and lack, like the Israelites’, varies. Sometimes it generates new insight about ourselves and about God. Sometimes it occasions new fears and doubts. Which describes you?