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“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. (Exod 17:6)

A solar eclipse is an event in which the brilliance of the sun is obscured by the presence of that rock we call the moon. The difference between a solar eclipse and this event in Exodus 17 is that this rock in question functions as a vehicle by which God is seen, not one by which he is obfuscated.

Israel has just experienced hunger in the wilderness and subsequently been given bread from heaven. Now, they have come to Rephidim, which means “places of rest,” but rest eludes them because of their thirst. Combatively, the people become obstinate and argue with Moses.

So, with petition in hand, Moses approaches God imploringly as to what he should do. God tells him to take the staff, the one with which he had struck the Nile River, and strike the rock at Horeb when God’s presence rests upon the rock. There is a connection between the Nile River and this rock at Horeb, but in order to sufficiently investigate it, one should first understand a simple principle.

Speaking of the Old Testament, Augustine said, “it was then the time for concealing the grace, which had to be revealed in the New Testament by the death of Christ,—the rending, as it were, of the veil.”4 The principle is this: in the Old Testament, grace was concealed in a great way; in the New Testament, grace is revealed because Christ is revealed. We use the light of the New Testament to search for the gospel in the Old.

When a writer of the New Testament, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, exegetes another passage of Scripture, especially one from the Old Testament, this explanative passage of Scripture becomes foundational to our understanding of that interpreted passage. It is a simple case of the Spirit preaching his own Word. Truly, when the Bible is studied in this manner, with lines crossing from covenant to covenant, and verses stacked on top of each other, it is experienced as a pulsing and living thing. Thankfully, Paul gives us this interpretive key in relation to our passage:

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. (1 Cor 10:1–4)

Back to the Nile. When Moses, seeking instruction, brings the disturbance to God, he is told that he is to take his staff with him and pass in front of the people. The people are to bear witness to the fact that God has a plan and it is being enacted. There is one qualifier which stands out. What qualifier is that? It is the specification of the staff. Moses is not allowed to bring just any staff, but it is to be the staff with which he struck the Nile River.

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. (Exod 17:5)

In order to see why the qualification is given, we should inquire a bit more about the way in which the staff was used, in this Egyptian event being referenced by God. What is it that struck the Nile? Of course, the staff of Moses struck the river. But, from whence cometh the striking? It was the wrath of God. More specifically, it was the wrath of God over sin that struck the Nile. It was God’s wrath over idolatry, injustice, and rebellion that caused him to strike the Nile. The staff was merely an outward sign of an inward and spiritual reality.

By telling us one of the most important facts about the Old Testament—that the Rock at Horeb was actually Christ—Paul has given us a legend by which we can navigate an understanding of the Nile/Horeb connection, and a host of other passages. The Rock from which Israel drank was Christ. Taking this into consideration, along with what he will go on to say in verse 11 of the same chapter, the basic framework needed for understanding Israel’s relationship with God in the wilderness wanderings is erected. And a basic understanding of Israel’s relationship with God is important, because it was written down in order to teach New Testament Christians about God.

Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Cor 10:11)

What a strange and powerful statement. The history of Israel, and the interactions of the people of God with every circumstance that had beset them, was purposed by the Creator to be used as a physical vehicle for a spiritual understanding of life with God. As if this was not enough, the primary audience was a people who would come much further down the timeline. How humbling. Israel of old, we could see, was designed as a prototype of a newer and fuller Israel that would include people from all over the world. There is a way, Paul tells us, that the history of Israel is an instruction manual for New Covenant believers. This was not simply done by housing the law and prophets, but by physically framing with their very lives the glory of the invisible God.

With these things in mind, why does God lead Moses to this spot called Horeb? The word means desert. Literally, he has led Moses to the Rock in the desert. Henry Law, concerning this Rock, says, “It is a mass of mighty strength. The lashing billows lash in vain. The raging storm stirs not its fixed repose. All changing ages find it still unchanged . . . The falling sparrow and the tottering throne, the fading leaf, and the declining empire, obey a fixed resolve. His purpose cannot be moved. He is a Rock.”5

In other words, God chose a Rock in the desert because, as Paul informed us, it is Christ. He leads them to his presence on the stone because stone shows his immutability. The presence of the Creator will dwell on one of the most lifeless forms of creation. He commands the staff to be used in violence against the stone because one cannot injure a stone; and yet, the presence of God will dwell on the Rock, and the Rock will be stricken, smitten, and afflicted. And the people will drink from the wound in his side.

Who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock? (Deut 8:15)

This is not merely a story in which God is the Afflicted; God is the Afflictor as well. It was A. W. Tozer who once said, “We must take refuge from God in God.”6

God hears the cries of his people and he quenches their thirst with his own blood. It is for this reason that blood and water flowed out of Christ’s side together on Calvary: his work on the cross is not only efficacious for the forgiveness of sin, but he also satisfies our longing. Leonard Ravenhill used to say that this was the greatest confusion people experienced in relation to a Biblical understanding of Communion. It’s not that the wine is truly blood; rather, the greater reality is that his blood is truly wine.

There is a related principle that emerges in these passages surrounding Horeb. It would be clunky and problematic to argue that there was a moment in which Christ transubstantiated into stone, despite the fact that Paul says that the Rock was Christ. The reality is that the literalness of the rock must be held in tension with an accompanying spiritual reality—no different than a snake with an unmentioned spiritual entity accompanying it or bread and wine in remembrance of Christ. The literal vehicle is real. The accompanying presence is real. The spiritual slaking is as real as the literal.

A person may come to God, not only for forgiveness, but satiation. When Jesus announces this on the last day of the feast, there must be no doubt that he is the Rock of God, inviting the thirsty to drink, as he did in the desert. Horeb must be in his mind:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. (John 7:37)

Finally, there is one more note that needs examination. When the line finally dies down and everyone has had a chance to drink their fill, Moses names the place. Rephidim and Horeb are names that already existed; but the naming that Moses does has to do with the events that presently had unfolded in that place. He does not name it once, but twice. There are two great moments of consequence that occur: a quarreling on Israel’s part amongst themselves, and a testing of the Lord.

Quarreling children of God and a testing of the Lord often go hand in hand. One can imagine that if some group of professing believers have given themselves over to infighting, it would be quite natural for them to have also given themselves over to doubting the sovereignty of God. At the core of all murmuring is unbelief. We complain because we assume there must have been a mistake. We argue because we assume we’ve been wronged. We keep murmuring and arguing because we assume God must not have heard us. The only other option in the rebellious and unbelieving mind is that he has heard us and does not care. And this is where we find the people of Israel. Thousands of years later, we will find them there again:

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35–41)

Imagine for a moment that we are watching a film of these two events on a split screen. On one side are the thirsty Israelites complaining to Moses that he could care less that they are dying. On the other side are the Israelites complaining to Jesus that he could care less that they are dying. In both instances, the word of God had been issued, that he would take them to the place to which they were journeying:

Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, ‘I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.’” (Exod 3:16–17)

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” (Mark 4:35)

Both sets of accusations against God rest entirely on one or both of the two options: God is not there, or God does not care. The reality, of course, is that murmuring is unbelief. The word of God is sure, and in both cases the word of God had been delivered. The illusion that God was asleep, or aloof, or sinister is just that—an illusion. Jesus is not sleeping because he couldn’t care less, but because he is convinced that God cares intimately; therefore he can sleep. The disciples wanted the peace of Rome, not the peace of Christ. They wanted escape from the storm, not perseverance through it. They wanted the fragile vessel kept out of harm’s way, which is to say that they did not want God to receive glory for doing what would otherwise be impossible. Murmuring is unbelief. Christ was asleep because he knew God cared, and that God was sovereign. When Israel thirsted, Christ had not withheld water from them because he is a scoundrel; rather, he withheld water to teach them to trust him. The suffering was for the perfecting of faith, but they would have none of it.

Look. We are told that the Rock is Christ. God is before his people. He is struck per his own ordination, and the people of God drink freely from his riven side. And all this in response, not to their worship of him, but their quarreling and rebellion. There is no charge that can be brought against God, other than that of him being merciful and gracious.

Glorious things of Thee are Spoken

(John Newton, 1779)

Glorious things of thee are spoken,

Zion, city of our God.

God, whose word cannot be broken,

formed thee for his own abode.

On the Rock of Ages founded,

what can shake thy sure repose?

With salvation’s walls surrounded,

thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

See, the streams of living waters,

springing from eternal love,

well supply thy sons and daughters

and all fear of want remove.

Who can faint while such a river

ever flows their thirst to assuage?

Grace, which like the Lord, the giver,

never fails from age to age.

4. Augustine, The Anti-Pelagian Writings, 175.

5. Law, The Gospel in Exodus, 98.

6. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, 107.