The Water of Meribah
1 The children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month. The people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there. 2 There was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. 3 The people quarreled with Moses, and spoke, saying, “We wish that we had died when our brothers died before Yahweh! 4 Why have you brought Yahweh’s assembly into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals? 5 Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.” 6 Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. Yahweh’s glory appeared to them. 7 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 8 “Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it pour out its water. You shall bring water to them out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink.” 9 Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, as he commanded him. 10 Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you?” 11 Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice, and water came out abundantly. The congregation and their livestock drank. 12 Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” 13 These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with Yahweh, and he was sanctified in them.
Moses is told to speak to a rock and strikes it twice, and the charge against him is about who the water appeared to come from.
Thirty-eight years pass in the white space before this chapter. The camp is back at Kadesh-barnea in the wilderness of ZIN, and the first thing recorded is a death: Miriam died there, and was buried there Numbers 20:1. One clause for the sister who watched the basket in the river.
Then the same complaint as forty years earlier, from the children of the people who made it. No water; why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? Numbers 20:5.
The instruction given to Moses is specific and it is different from last time. Take the rod... and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it pour out its water Numbers 20:8.
The rod is to be carried and the rock is to be spoken to. At the first rock, years before, he had been told to strike it Exodus 17:6, and this time he is not.
What he does instead is recorded in two parts, and the words come before the blow.
Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you?”
The pronoun is the problem. Shall we — as though the water were his to give or withhold, and as though the miracle were a favor extracted from a reluctant provider. He is furious, and after four decades of this he has every human reason to be, and in his anger he puts himself between the people and God in the wrong way: not as an intercessor but as a source.
Then he struck the rock with his rod twice Numbers 20:11. Twice — the second blow is a small detail and it says that the first was not obedience either.
The water comes anyway, abundantly, and the people and their animals drink. God does not withhold the mercy to make the point.
The verdict is precise about what was wrong: because you didn't believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel Numbers 20:12.
Not the temper, and not the striking as such. He failed to make God holy in their sight — to let them see, at that moment, whose the water was. Everyone present learned that shouting at a rock produces water, and the man doing it looked like the one who had decided to.
The cost is the land, for both brothers. And the closing verse gives the place its name and adds, without irony, that he was sanctified in them Numbers 20:13.
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