[First posted November 4, 2012.]
This chapter covers two incidents; this first one should have been attached to the manna incident in the previous chapter since it is similar and almost sounds like a refrain; in fact, this pattern of ‘need-complaint-wishwewerebackinEgypt’ will keep recurring, but for now the narrative says:
- the people complain again because they are thirsty;
- they ask Moses why they were taken out of Egypt where they at least had water to drink;
- this gives their gracious and surely, still PATIENT Provider yet another opportunity to demonstrate yet another miracle,
- as if they didn’t see enough divine intervention in their lives to be convinced that they have been undeservedly blessed from the night of their liberation through their days of hunger to this day of thirst!
Image from www.coopertoons.com
Evidently they were never taught by their forbears how to be grateful, appreciative and uncomplaining or if they were, they didn’t learn. Honestly, was their life of bondage really better? What short memories these people have! Is it just these people or is it human nature in general, notice any similarities with people in this day and age? Of course when we keep reading how these liberated slaves continue to behave throughout their wilderness wanderings, it is easy to judge them and condemn their behavior. The rabbis teach that one should not judge another until one has been in that other’s shoes. What baffles readers of today is — how can witnesses of one miracle after another even have the slightest doubt that their God will fulfill every promise, prophecy, and warning He has uttered through Mosheh; He hasn’t failed in a single one as yet! But perhaps when miracles (unusual events) become somewhat part of life, as in the “new normal”, there are no more surprises since they are ‘expected’ and eventually are taken for granted.
This next discussion is irrelevant to the text under study, but it might be helpful to website visitors who are Christian and are wondering about the “Rock” symbolism they have been taught in their bible studies. It first springs out of the misinterpretation of Matthew 16:18 the translation of which has confused interpreters, making you wonder who is the “rock”:
- Peter
- Jesus
- or the answer of Peter to Jesus’ question “Who do they say I am?” which is “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
That Matthew verse is followed up by Paul’s interpretation of OT, as well as the writer of 1 Peter whose identity has been questioned by textual critics:
- Matt. 16:18, “And I also say to you that
- you are Peter (petros),
- and upon this rock (petra)
image from steadfastlutherans.org
- I will build My church;
- and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.”
- 1 Cor. 10:4,
- “and all drank the same spiritual drink,
- for they were drinking from a spiritual rock (petras)
- which followed them;
- and the rock (petra) was Christ.”
- 1 Pet. 2:8, speaking of Jesus says that
- he is “A stone of stumbling
- and a rock (petra) of offense”;
- for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.”
The answer? None of the above, if the original TORAH context is to be the basis.
Allegorization is the general tendency among Christian interpreters because that is the only way the Hebrew Scriptures could be reinterpreted into something totally alien to its teachings. As we have repeatedly emphasized, the NT is antithetical to TNK so there is no way it is a “continuation” except in Christian reorientation of OT.
NSB@S6K
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[Translations: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses; AST/Artscroll Tanach]
Exodus/Shemoth 17
1 They moved on, the whole community of the Children of Israel, from the Wilderness of Syn, by their moving-stages, at YHVH’S bidding. They encamped at Refidim, and there is no water for the people to drink! 2 -The people quarreled with Moshe, they said: Give us water, tha
t we may drink! Moshe said to them: For-what do you quarrel with me? For-what do you test YHVH? 3 The people thirsted for water there, and the people grumbled against Moshe, and said: For-what-reason then did you bring us up from Egypt, to bring death to me, to my children and to my livestock by thirst? 4 Moshe cried out to YHVH, saying: What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me! 5 YHVH said to Moshe: Proceed before the people, take some of the elders of Israel with you, and your staff with which you struck the Nile, take in your hand, and go! 6 Here, I stand before you there on the rock at Horev, you are to strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people shall drink. Moshe did thus, before the eyes of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place: Massa/Testing, and Meriva/Quarreling, because of the quarreling of the Children of Israel, and because of their testing of YHVH, saying: Is YHVH among us, or not?The second incident this chapter deals with concerns Israel’s encounter with the Amalek; here’s some background on these people who were hostile to Israel, from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1351-amalek-amalekites (reformatted):
- Name of a nomadic nation south of Palestine.
- That the Amalekites were not Arabs, but of a stock related to the Edomites (consequently also to the Hebrews), can be concluded from the genealogy in Gen. xxxvi. 12 and in I Chron. i. 36.
- Amalek is a son of Esau’s first-born son Eliphaz and of the concubine Timna, the daughter of Seir, the Horite, and sister of Lotan (Gen. xxxvi. 12; compare Timnah as name of an Edomite chief or clan, verse 40).
- On the other hand, Gen. xiv. 7 speaks of Amalekites, in southern Palestine, in the time of Abraham.
- That they were of obscure origin is also indicated in Num. xxiv. 20, where the Amalekites are called “the first of the nations.”
- The Amalekites were the first to come in contact with the Israelites (Ex. xvii. 8), vainly opposing their march at Rephidim, not far from Sinai (compare Deut. xxv. 17, “smiting the hindmost, all that were feeble behind,” and I Sam. xv. 2).
- Consequently, they must be considered as possessors of the Sinaitic peninsula, of the modern desert et-Tih, or at least of the northern part of it. According to Num. xiii. 29, xiv. 25, which speaks of Amalekites defeating the Israelites in the lowland (verses 43, 45), they occupied also southern Palestine, partly together with the Canaanites; see also Gen. xiv. 7 (Amalekites in “En-mishpat, which is Kadesh”).
- The extreme south seems to be meant, the pasture lands of the Negeb, not the arable parts.
- The relation of the Kenites to the Amalekites is not quite plain. According to I Sam. xv. 6, they live with them (or at their side; compare Judges, i. 16; Num. xxiv. 21), while elsewhere they are associated with Israel (I Sam. xxvii. 10) or even specially with the tribe of Judah (I Sam. xxx. 29; I Chron. ii. 55).
- This would indicate that the Kenites formed a connecting-link between the Israelites, or their southern tribes, and the Amalekites. Gen. xv. 19, which foretells dispossession of the Kenites by Israel, would agree with this (see Cain; Kenites).
- A similar relationship might be assumed for the Kenezites.
S6K: Yahoshua’, in case you are not familiar with the Hebrew name, is Joshua, some sort of a personal “bodyguard” to Mosheh and the warrior leader who would eventually take over from Mosheh in leading the children of Israel into battles to claim tribal territories in the Promised Land.
AST comment: “Was it Moses hands that won the battle or lost the battle? Rather [the Torah] teaches you: As long as Israel looked heavenward and subjected their heart to their Father in Heaven, they would prevail. But when they did not, they would fall” (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:*).
14 YHVH said to Moshe: Write this as a memorial in an account and put it in Yehoshua’s hearing: Yes, I will wipe out, wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens! 15 Moshe built a slaughter-site and called its name: YHVH My Banner. 16 He said: Yes, Hand on YAH’S throne! War for YHVH against Amalek generation after generation!
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