160
Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
it would become unfit for use, was designed to impress them with
the sacredness of the Sabbath. After they were abundantly supplied
with food, they were ashamed of their unbelief and murmurings, and
promised to trust the Lord for the future. But they soon forgot their
promise, and failed at the first trial of their faith. They journeyed from
the wilderness of Sin and pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water
for the people to drink. “Wherefore, the people did chide with Moses,
and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto
them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And
the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against
Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out
of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And
Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people?
They be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go
[256]
on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and
thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and
thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the
people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because
of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the
Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?”
God directed the children of Israel to encamp in that place, where
there was no water, to prove them, to see if they would look to him in
their distress, or murmur, as they had previously done. In view of what
God had done for them in their wonderful deliverance, they should
have believed in him in their distress. They should have known that he
would not permit them to perish with thirst, whom he had promised to
take unto himself as his people. But instead of entreating the Lord in
humility to provide for their necessity, they murmured against Moses,
and demanded of him, water. God had been continually manifesting
his power in a wonderful manner before them to make them understand
that all the benefits which they should receive, came from him; that
he could give them, or remove them, according to his own will. At
times they had a full sense of this, and humbled themselves greatly
[257]
before the Lord. But when thirsty, or when hungry, they charged it all
upon Moses, as though they had left Egypt to please him. Moses was
grieved with their cruel murmurings. He inquired of the Lord what he