The Waters of Meribah

Numbers 20 opens in the first month of a year near the end of the wandering. Miriam died at Kadesh and was buried there. There was no water, and the people assembled against Moses and Aaron. Their words echoed their parents: We wish that we had died when our brothers died before Yahweh! It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.

Moses and Aaron fell on their faces, and Yahweh's glory appeared. God said, Take the rod... and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it pour out its water. Moses took the rod, gathered the assembly, and said, Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you? He struck the rock twice, and water came out abundantly. Yahweh said, 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. The place was named Meribah, meaning quarreling.

Israel asked Edom, descended from Jacob's brother Esau, for passage on the King's Highway, but Edom refused with an army. At Mount Hor, Moses removed Aaron's garments and put them on Eleazar, and Aaron died on the top of the mount. Israel mourned thirty days. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that the rock that followed them was Christ. Jesus later offered living water to all who come to Him (John 7:37-38).