All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?" But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" So Moses cried to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." And the LORD said to Moses, "Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink." And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"
Exodus 17:1-7
One's first impression on reading this passage is to be conscious of its similarity to the incidents we have already studied in the two previous chapters, the provision of manna and the sweetening of the waters of Marah. We ask ourselves therefore why this should be recorded, and the same lesson repeated so to speak, again and again. The answer is inescapable; it was because Israel was so slow to learn (as we also so often are) what God was intent on teaching. This is an important consideration. God, as a wise Teacher and Instructor 'repeats' lessons, when His people fail to learn them the first time. Not only so, it is often necessary to repeat them because even when we may think we have learnt them, we fall back into old mistakes repeatedly, showing that our learning has been at best fitful and superficial. But there is something even deeper to be considered. It is that one principal purpose of the inspired writer is to show us the ultimate failure of this people to rise to God's high destiny for them. A people who have to be pacified and reassured at every turn are not likely to be over much use to God. And in the end, this particular generation of Israel became castaway, and left to spend its years in the wilderness, without ever entering the Promised Land. And we are meant to see that it was this perverse, murmuring spirit that finally led to their downfall. The story of Kadesh Barnea in Numbers 14 is the climax to which such incidents as this before us eventually led.