8 The Rock That Followed Them (1 Cor. 10)
It should be evident enough that the rock which
Moses smote in the desert was simply a rock; it wasn't Christ
personally. The Jewish book of Wisdom claimed that "the rock was
Wisdom" (Wisdom 11). Paul, as he so often does, is picking up this
phrase and saying that more essentially, the rock represented Jesus
personally, and not 'Wisdom' in the Jewish misunderstanding of this
figure. It "was" Him in the sense that it represented Him. Likewise He
said about the communion wine: "This is my blood". It wasn't literally
His blood; it was and is His blood only in that it represents His
blood. Paul is describing the experience of Israel in the wilderness
because he saw in it some similarities with the walk of the Corinthian
believers towards God's kingdom. The whole of 1 Cor. 10 is full of such
reference. And this is why he should speak about the rock which Moses
smote as a symbol of Christ. The Israelites had been baptized into
Moses, just as Corinth had been baptized into Christ; and both Israel
and Corinth ate "the same spiritual food; and did all drink the same
spiritual drink". "Spiritual food... spiritual drink"shows that Paul
saw the manna they ate and the water they drank as spiritually
symbolic- just as He saw the rock as symbolic. Paul goes on in 1 Cor.
10:16,17 to write of how Corinth also ate and drank of Christ in the
breaking of bread, and in chapter 11 he brings home the point: like
Israel, we can eat and drink those symbols, "the same spiritual
meat...the same spiritual drink", having been baptized into Christ as
they were into Moses, and think that thereby we are justified to do as
we like in our private lives. This is the point and power of all this
allusion. The picture of their carcasses rotting in the wilderness is
exhortation enough. Baptism and observing the 'breaking of bread'
weren't enough to save Israel.
Jesus Himself had
explained in John 6 how the manna represented His words and His
sacrifice. He spoke of how out of Him would come "living water", not
still well water, but bubbling water fresh from a fountain (Jn. 4:11;
7:38). And He invites His people to drink of it. It was this kind of
water that bubbled out of the smitten rock. Ps. 78:15,16,20; 105:41;
Is. 48:21 describe it with a variety of words: gushing, bursting, water
running down like a high mountain stream, "flowed abundantly".....as if
the fountains of deep hidden water had burst to the surface ("as out of
the great depths", Ps. 78:15). So the Lord was saying that He was the
rock, and we like Israel drinking of what came out of Him. The Law of
Moses included several rituals which depended upon what is called "the
running water"(Lev. 14:5,6,50-52; 15:18; Num. 19:17).
"Running"translates a Hebrew word normally translated "living". This
living water was what came out of the smitten rock. The Lord taught
that the water that would come out of Him would only come after His
glorification (Jn. 7:38)- an idea He seems to link with His death
rather than His ascension (Jn. 12:28,41; 13:32; 17:1,5 cp. 21:19; Heb.
2:9). When He was glorified on the cross, then the water literally
flowed from His side on His death. The rock was "smitten", and the
water then came out. The Hebrew word used here is usually translated to
slay, slaughter, murder. It occurs in two clearly Messianic passages:
"...they talk to the hurt of him [Christ] whom thou hast smitten"(Ps.
69:26); "we esteemed him [as He hung on the cross] smitten of God"(Is.
53:4). It was in a sense God who "clave the rock"so that the waters
gushed out (Ps. 78:15; Is. 48:21). "Clave"implies that the rock was
literally broken open; and in this we see a dim foreshadowing of the
gaping hole in the Lord's side after the spear thrust, as well as a
more figurative image of how His life and mind were broken apart in His
final sacrifice. Yahweh, presumably represented by an Angel, stood upon
[or 'above'] the rock when Moses, on Yahweh's behalf, struck the rock.
Here we see a glimpse into the nature of the Father's relationship with
the Son on the cross. He was both with the Son, identified with Him
just as the Angel stood on the rock or hovered above it as Moses struck
it... and yet He also was the one who clave that rock, which was
Christ. As Abraham with Isaac was a symbol of both the Father and also
the slayer, so in our far smaller experience, the Father gives us the
trials which He stands squarely with us through. And within the wonder
of His self-revelation, Yahweh repeatedly reveals Himself as "the
rock"- especially in Deuteronomy. And yet that smitten rock "was [a
symbol of] Christ". On the cross, "God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto Himself". There He was the most intensely manifested in His
beloved Son. There God was spat upon, His love rejected. There we see
the utter humility and self-abnegation of the Father. And we His
children must follow the same path, for the salvation of others.
The rock "followed [better, 'accompanied'] them"(1).
We must understand this as a metonymy, whereby "the rock"is put for
what came out of it, i.e. the fountain of living water. It seems that
this stream went with them on their journey. The statement that "they
drank"of the rock is in the imperfect tense, denoting continuous
action- they kept on drinking of that water, it wasn't a one
time event, it continued throughout the wilderness journey. A careful
reading of Ex. 17:5,6 reveals that at Rephidim, Moses was told to "Go
on before the people", to Horeb. There he struck the rock, and yet the
people drank the water in Rephidim. The water flowed a long way that
day, and there is no reason to think that it didn't flow with them all
the time. The records make it clear enough that the miraculous
provision of water was in the same context as God's constant provision
of food and protection to the people (Dt. 8:15,16). The rock gave water
throughout the wilderness journey (Is. 48:21). This would surely
necessitate that the giving of water at Horeb was not a one-off
solution to a crisis. There is a word play in the Hebrew text of Is.
48:21: "He led them through the Horebs [AV 'desert places']" by making
water flow from the rock. The Horeb experience was repeated for 40
years; as if the rock went on being smitten. Somehow the water from
that smitten rock went with them, fresh and bubbling as it was the
first moment the rock was smitten, right through the wilderness (2).
It was living, spring water- not lying around in puddles. The water
that came from that one rock tasted as if God had opened up fresh
springs and torrents in the desert (Ps. 74:15 NAS). It always tasted as
if it was just gushing out of the spring; and this wonder is commented
upon by both David and Isaiah (Ps. 78:15,16,20; 105:41; Is. 48:21). It
was as if the rock had just been struck, and the water was flowing out
fresh for the first time. In this miracle, God clave the rock and there
came out rivers (Hab. 3:9; Ps. 78:16,20; Is. 43:20). Each part of
Israel's encampment had the water as it were brought to their door. And
so it is in our experience of Christ, and the blessing enabled by His
sacrifice. The blessings that come to us are deeply personal, and
directed to us individually. He died once, long ago, and yet the effect
of His sacrifice is ever new. In our experience, it's as if He has died
and risen for us every time we obtain forgiveness, or any other grace
to help in our times of need. We live in newness of life. The cross is
in that sense ongoing; He dies and lives again for every one who comes
to Him. And yet at the end of their wilderness journey, Moses reflected
that Israel had forgotten the rock that had given them birth. The water
had become such a regular feature of their lives that they forgot the
rock in Horeb that it flowed from. They forgot that 'Horeb' means 'a
desolate place', and yet they had thankfully drunk of the water the
first time in Rephidim, 'the place of comfort'. We too have done the
same, but the length of time we have done so can lead us to forget the
smitten rock, back there in the loneliness and desolation of Calvary.
Not only did his disciples forsake him and his mother finally go away
home, but He even felt that the Father had forsaken Him. As Abraham
left alone in the Messianic "horror of great darkness", as Isaac alone
with only his Father, leaving the other men behind...so the Lord on the
cross was as a single green root grown up out of a parched desert. Let
us never forget that 'Horeb'; and let's not let the abundant new life
and blessing which there is in Christ become something ordinary. God
forbid that we like Corinth, like Israel, should drink of that
sparkling water each week in our 'place of comfort' and go forth to do
just as we please.
Notes
(1) Marvin Vincent [Vincent's Word Studies]
comments: "Paul appears to recall a rabbinic tradition that there was a
well formed out of the spring in Horeb, which gathered itself up into a
rock like a swarm of bees, and followed the people for forty years;
sometimes rolling itself, sometimes carried by Miriam, and always
addressed by the elders, when they encamped, with the words, “Spring
up, O well!” (Num. 21:17)". Whether this is true or not, Paul is
alluding to this idea- hence the rather awkward idiom to non-Jewish
readers.
(2) There is repeated
emphasis in the records that the water came from the [singular] rock.
However Ps. 78:16 speaks of God cleaving the rocks. I suggest this is
an intensive plural- the sense is 'the one great rock'. The next verses
(17,20) go on to speak of how the water came from a singular rock.
