Exodus 15-18
Key Verses
15:22-24 Moses guided the people of Israel away from the Red Sea and into the Wilderness of Shur. For three full days they trekked through the parched desert wilderness without finding water to drink. Finally, the Israelites arrived at a spring in a place called Marah. But the water there was bitter and unfit to drink. …That’s when the people began to grumble and complain to Moses…He turned to the Lord in prayer and was directed by God to take a piece of wood and toss it into the water. Moses did so and the water became sweet and safe to drink. The spring at Morah was where God began testing the Israelites. There he issued them a decree.
15:25-16:3 The Lord told Israel through Moses, “If you will listen closely to the words of the Lord your God and live upright lives before me, faithfully following my commandments, then I will not allow any of the diseases that plagued Egypt to inflict you. I, the Lord, will be your health …But a mere six weeks after leaving Egypt, the Israelites grew weary of the hardships in the desert and began to grumble and complain again against both Moses and Aaron. The people said, “We are starving to death out here in this desert wilderness where you have led us. It would have been better if God had just let us die in Egypt. At least there we had nourishing meals and plenty of food to eat.”16:11-21 The Lord told Moses, “The grumbling and complaining has not gone unnoticed by me. Tell the Israelites, ‘Each day when evening comes I will give you meat to eat; and with the dawning of every new day I will provide all the bread you can eat. Then you will know for certain that I, the Lord your God, am here with you.’” As evening came that very day, scores of quail flocked into the camp to roost. And the next morning, as the dew evaporated, a fine flaky substance coated the ground surrounding the camp. The Israelites asked one another, “What is this stuff?”…And Moses told them, “It is bread the Lord has provided for you to eat. But you must follow his rules concerning it: Gather up as much of it as you need for your daily food, which will be about two liters for each person in your family.”…So every morning the Israelites gathered all the flakey substance they needed, and the rising sun melted away any that was left.
16:23-35 Moses then told the Israelites, “Tomorrow will be a day to rest. It is the Lord’s holy Sabbath Day…On the sixth day of the week God will give you enough bread to last two days. There will be none available on the Sabbath, so don’t go looking for any.” … The Israelites humorously called the fine flakes “manna,” meaning, ‘What is this stuff?’ It had a whitish appearance like coriander seed and it tasted sweet and crunchy. Once cooked it was like eating honey-sweetened wafers. …From the day the Lord first provided manna in the desert until the Israelites entered the Promised Land some forty years later, they ate manna exclusively for their daily bread.
17:1-7 At God’s leading, the people of Israel continued deeper into the wilderness…but once again they ran out of water. That’s when they really became upset with Moses, saying “We demand you provide water for us to drink!” But Moses responded, “Why are you taking it out on me and provoking the Lord in the process?” The Israelites, however, could not help being thirsty and in their desperation continued to complain bitterly to Moses…, which caused him to prayerfully cry out to God, “What can I do with these people? Any minute now they may kill me with stones!” Then God answered Moses’ prayer, saying “Go on out ahead of the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel. And take the staff you used to strike the Nile. …I’m going to be present before you at the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock with your staff. Water will gush out of it and the people will drink freely.” Moses followed the Lord’s instructions with the elders of Israel right there watching, and the water flowed just as God had said it would. Moses then named the place Massah (Testing-Place) and Meribah (Quarreling) because of the contentious quarreling of the Israelites and because of their testing God when they repeatedly asked, “Is the Lord here with us or has he abandoned us?”
18:5-23 One day Moses’ father-in-law Jethro came for a visit to the Israelite camp in the wilderness. Jethro brought Moses’ wife and two sons who had been living with him. …The following day Moses took his judgment seat before the people of Israel, as was his custom. For the entire day, people stood around Moses awaiting their turn. Considering the huge work load of Moses, that evening Jethro said to him, “You are carrying too heavy a burden on behalf of your people, and they must wait too long to settle their cases. …The way you are going about it is detrimental to everyone. …I advise you to limit your responsibilities to what is essential. Your role is to be the people’s intermediary with God, teaching them his commandments, guiding them in how to live out those commandments, and showing them how to fulfill their personal responsibilities. Set out immediately to find upright, God-fearing men from among the people to be in charge of manageable-sized groups. The men can then judge everyday issues and only bring the difficult cases before you. Not only will the people be happier but you will avoid a lot of unnecessary stress and hardship yourself. ”
18:24-27 Moses realized that his father-in-law was right and decided to follow his advice. He chose able men representing every walk of life from among the people and appointed them judges. …The men took responsibility for the simple disputes among the Israelites and saved the tough cases for Moses to judge. Once the new arrangement was in place, Moses bid farewell to Jethro who parted company with his son-in-law and headed back home.
Basic Message
After their rescue from the Egyptians, the Israelites set out into the wilderness. They immediately ran into a problem with a polluted water source at their first encampment. God was testing them and they didn’t do well. They complained bitterly to Moses, who in turn prayed to God for help. There at Marah and later at Horeb, where a similar situation occurred from lack of drinking water, God performed a miracle to provide plentiful, clean water to drink. Later the people complained for lack of food and again God provided through miraculous means—meat from quail that came in droves in the evening and bread in the form of tiny flakes of manna that appeared with the morning dew. This was the Israelites diet for 40 years as they traveled through the wilderness on their circuitous journey to the promised land of Canaan.
There in the wilderness God first instructed the people through Moses to observe the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. They were to abstain from work and honor God through rest and holy observance of all God was instructing them. Moses, however, was seriously overworked—a problem pointed out by his visiting father-in-law. The father-in-law’s advice, which Moses decided to follow, was to appoint men of integrity to oversee groups of Israelites in the everyday matters requiring resolution. That then left Moses the time to adequately judge the more difficult cases and to focus on his role as teacher and mediator between God and the people.
Comments
* The songs of celebration on the shores of the Red Sea quickly turned to angry complaints in the wilderness. The discomforts of living in the wild brought out in the Israelites the disaffected side of human nature. They looked back longingly for the way of life they had left behind in Egypt. How quickly they forgot their years of praying for deliverance from slavery in Egypt. How quickly we all forget that things can always get worse. Yet God responded by providing a predictable and adequate diet to meet their needs. In time the Israelites began to complain about that too, wishing, as we all are prone to do, for more than we currently have or need.
* The direct route to the promised land of Canaan was along the Mediterranean coast, but God led Israel on a very indirect route through the desolate wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula. The Israelites took a forty-year detour because God was not interested in efficiency—that is, the quickest way of getting from point A to point B. What must have looked like a crazy, hodge-podge itinerary to the Israelites was, like the two very different appearing sides of a fine weaving, actually a beautifully patterned course of direction crafted by God to benefit the people and accomplish his purposes.
* The scriptures say that God was testing Israel through their trials with insufficient food and water. He was testing their faith in him and his ability and willingness to provide. It is instructive that exercising faith necessarily requires a situation where there is an apparent gap between the knowledge that God is present as our protector and provider and the circumstances that give the opposite impression. But faith cannot blossom in a vacuum; it requires trust when things seem dire or even impossible. Interestingly, God’s miraculous provision in the form of quail and manna were done in such a way that there was no question of his direct provision. He could have provided for the Israelites through more natural means but wanted to make it clear that he was actively present (i.e., I-AM).
* These verses in Exodus also state that the Israelites were testing God through their questioning of his presence and his willingness to provide for their needs. This kind of testing, however, was considered sin. That is because it was based in unbelief that doubted the love and character of God, who had already given them his word through Moses. And God had proven beyond a doubt that he was constantly present and actively caring for them through their deliverance from Egypt. A life of following the Lord seems to imply that whatever is not of faith is based in the sin of unbelief. Moses exemplified a life of faith, and God encouraged him with the reminder that he would stay alongside Moses in his contentious dealings with the fickle Israelites. There may be no more profound insight into life than to know that God is actively present with us in our endeavors. The reminder is repeated again and again throughout scripture to those who follow him in the travails that accompany their lives of faith.
* Although God miraculously provided for the Israelites on a continuous basis, the people still had to work to collect their food. They had to capture and prepare the quail and collect and process the manna. The curse of Adam still continued in effect—that is, labor was to be a normal part of their lives—despite the miraculous presence and intervention of God. Their participation with God in his provision was ennobling for the Israelites. Each time the people collected and ate their food, they were participating with God in the outworking of his overall plan to create a channel through which he would eventually bless the whole world. We can do the same today in our daily lives, and often do so without any awareness of it.
Biblical Themes
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15
