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17. Water from the Rock

¹ The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ² So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?”

³ But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

⁴ Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

⁵ The LORD answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. ⁶ I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. ⁷ And he called the place Massah Massah means testing. and Meribah Meribah means quarreling. because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

The Amalekites Defeated

⁸ The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. ⁹ Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”

¹⁰ So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. ¹¹ As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. ¹² When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. ¹³ So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

¹⁴ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.”

¹⁵ Moses built an altar and called it The LORD is my Banner. ¹⁶ He said, “Because hands were lifted up against Or to the throne of the LORD, The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain. the LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.”

4. And Moses cried. This cry seems not to have been conformed to the true model of prayer, but to have been mixed with confused complaint, to which Moses was impelled by the deep perturbation of his mind: for excessive earnestness sometimes carries away the godly, so that they rather fret in their prayer than duly and moderately express their requests. For there is something in these words which sounds angry and obstreperous, “What shall I do unto this people?” as if Moses, struck with indignation, complained that he was weighed down with a heavy burden, which he would willingly shake off if he could obtain permission and deliverance from God. Interpreters variously expound what follows. Some thus render it, that “Unless God immediately came to his help, or should He dissemble for ever so short a time, Moses must be stoned.” Some, “It is but little that they will rush upon me to stone me.” Some, too, read it in the past tense, but to this the particle עוד,¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸ Shortly. — W. gnod, which relates to the future, is an objection. I am most pleased with this sense; that if God delay His assistance but for a short time, the people’s rage could not be restrained from stoning Moses.