Exodus 17 KJV
Water from the Rock
Exodus Chapter 17: Water from the Rock
The rod that strikes the rock at Horeb is explicitly called 'the rod of God,' the same instrument previously used to turn the Nile to blood and divide the sea, linking the water miracle to the larger Exodus pattern of creation reversal and divine weaponization of nature.
1nd all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.cf.
2 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?cf.
3 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?cf.
4 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.cf.
5 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go 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.cf.
6 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.cf.
7 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?cf.
8 Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9 And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.
10 So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Mosesโ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
13 And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
15 And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi:
16 For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
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Did You Know?
The rod that strikes the rock at Horeb is explicitly called 'the rod of God,' the same instrument previously used to turn the Nile to blood and divide the sea, linking the water miracle to the larger Exodus pattern of creation reversal and divine weaponization of nature.
Moses' raised hands during the Amalek battle require physical support from Aaron and Hur, presenting the surprising image of prophetic intercession as a cooperative, embodied act that fails when one man attempts it alone.
The Amalekites specifically attack 'the hindmost... feeble... that were feeble behind,' a detail that later becomes the legal justification in Deuteronomy 25 for their total erasure from memory.
The dual naming of the site as Massah and Meribah is the first time a single location receives two distinct etiological labels in Exodus, encoding both divine testing of Israel and Israel's testing of God within the same geographic marker.
Jehovah-nissi is the only altar in the Pentateuch whose name is framed as a military banner rather than a memorial of provision or covenant, shifting emphasis from the preceding water miracle to the ongoing war with Amalek.