Water From the Rock

Exodus 17:1-7 

         The people were no longer starving, because God sent them manna every morning and quails to catch and roast in the evening. But after a while they ran out of water. While they camping at a place called Rephidim, the people became angry with Moses again. "Give us water!" they shouted.

     "Why are you shouting at me?" Moses asked them. "Why don't you trust God? You are testing God again."

     But the people were so thirsty that they got angrier. "Why didn't you leave us in Egypt?" they cried. "Why didn't you leave us there? Did you bring us out here so we and our children and our cattle would all die of thirst?"

     Moses cried out to God, "These people are about ready to kill me. What should I do?"

     God told Moses, "Walk out in front of the people. Take some of the leaders with you. Take the rod that you held out over the Nile River and go to Mount Horeb. I will be there, and you will strike a rock, and water will come out of it."

     Moses did what God said. He brought some of the elders, or leaders, of the people of Israel with him, and he went to the bottom of the mountain. He struck a rock with his rod, and water came pouring out of it for the people to drink.

     Moses called the place where the rock gave water two names. He called it Massah, which means "proof," because the people asked God for proof again. He also called it Meribah, which means "argument," because the people of Israel argued and fought with him about the water and about nearly everything that happened on the desert.