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Chapter 17—Israel’s Journeyings
This chapter is based on
Exodus 15:23-18:27
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The children of Israel traveled in the wilderness and for three
days could find no good water to drink. They were suffering with
thirst, “and the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall
we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord shewed him a
tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made
sweet: there He made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there
He proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice
of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and
wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will
put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the
Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.”
The children of Israel seemed to possess an evil heart of unbelief.
They were unwilling to endure hardships in the wilderness. When
they met with difficulties in the way, they would regard them as
impossibilities. Their confidence in God would fail, and they could
see nothing before them but death. “And the whole congregation
of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the
wilderness: and the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God
we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when
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we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full,
for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole
assembly with hunger.”
They had not really suffered the pangs of hunger. They had food
for the present, but they feared for the future. They could not see
how the host of Israel was to subsist, in their long travels through the
wilderness, upon the simple food they then had, and in their unbelief
they saw their children famishing. The Lord was willing that they
should be brought short in their food, and that they should meet with
difficulties, that their hearts should turn to Him who had hitherto
helped them, that they might believe in Him. He was ready to be to
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