Bible Notes Ex. 17:1-7

1) Meribah means place of contention, dispute or even place of a trial. massah means place of testing or tempting. Ma=place of.
2) Notice the water comes from Horeb, the mountain of God, the future to which they are headed. so the place of Torah will give drink physically before it will give spiritual drink. Paul will refer to this as prefiguring Christ as the rock from which water sprang.
3) The movement by stages could be a good metaphor for one’s journey through life. It oculd talk of christian nurture as opposed to a road to Damascus moment in faith.
4) Notice the childlike dependence on Moses here. I realize it is understandable, but in thiese accounts is starting to learn to be adults, not slaves.
5) Testing god/putting god to the test is dangerous business. it may even underlie the lead us not into temptation/trail/testing not of us but of us testing God.
6)Basic human need shortens memory. It as if the red Sea and manna do not exist at all. Notice how they turn the situation into Moses being a new pharaoh taking life.
7)Moses cries out, the same verb that caught God’s attention form the people at the beginning. I love the leader’s frustration and plaintive one here. Remember he was dragged into this position.
8) God responds very calmly and deals with the issue with instructions.
9) Notuice that Moses does it in sight of some of Israel. this is not a private miracle. Why?
10) Notice the background for the names at the end, “is the Lord among us or not?” when do we ask a similar question? The testing seems to be revolving a god at our beck and call, a god we may command.