Exodus 15:22-27 - Homilies By D. Young

The want of water and the want of faith-Marah and Elim.

It will be noticed at once how the interest of this passage is gathered round that great natural necessity, water. It is a necessity to man in so many ways. He needs it for drinking, for cleansing, for cooking, and for helping to renew the face of the earth. We may note also that Israel was soon to discover the necessity of water in ceremonial duties. A great deal of water had to be used in the tabernacle service. ( Exodus 29:4 ; Exodus 30:18-21 ; Le Exodus 6:27 , Exodus 6:28 ; chaps, 13-17.) Hence it is no wonder that the very first thing Jehovah does after delivering the Israelites finally from Pharaoh, is to bring them face to face with this great want of water. We see them passing in a short time through a great variety of experiences with regard to it. First, they go three days in the wilderness and find no water; next they come to the waters of Marah and find them undrinkable; then these waters are suddenly made sweet; and lastly, they journey on to the abundant supplies, and therefore inviting neighbourhood of Elim.

I. THE ISRAELITES EXPERIENCE THE WANT OF WATER , There is here a curious contrast between the fate of the Egyptians and the want of the Israelites. Water proved the ruin of Pharaoh and his host, while the want of water led Israel rapidly into murmuring and unbelief. Thus we have another illustration of how temporal things—even the very necessities of life from a natural point of view—are only blessings as God makes them so. He can turn them very rapidly and easily into curses. We call to mind the grotesque words of Laertes over his drowned sister:—"Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia." So the Egyptians had too much of water, and the Israelites could not get any at all. God was immediately beginning to teach and test his own people according to the explanation of Moses in Exodus 15:25 , Exodus 15:26 . They were to learn faith in Jehovah for support as well as deliverance ; and the first lesson was to be taught by a three days' deprivation of water. If they had had the believing spirit in them this was an opportunity to say, "Assuredly such an awful deliverance has not been wrought that we may straightway perish of thirst." Notice also how the reality of the wilderness life is at once brought before us by these three days of waterless wandering. So short a time had they been out of Egypt, and so little distance had they got away; and yet they are as it were in the very worst of wilderness experiences. Thus even the moment they became effectually clear of the external bondage of Egypt, the truth was impressed upon them that they were without a home. There was no swift exchange from one storehouse of temporal comforts to another. For remember, Egypt with all its misery was a sort of home; there the Israelites had been born and trained; there they had got into a bondage of habits and traditions which was not to he removed in a day. And now Jehovah would have them understand that to be free and able to serve him meant that they must endure with these privileges the privations of the wilderness. We cannot have everything good all at once. If we would be clear of the bondage of this world's carnal ways, we must be ready for certain consequent and immediate privations. We cannot get away from Egypt and yet take with us the pleasant waters of Egypt. Unless our springs be in God, and heaven begun in the heart, the needful change of external associations may bring little but pain. External circumstances, and to some extent external companionships, may remain the same; the new home feeling must be produced by the change within.

II. WHEN THE ISRAELITES FIND WATER IT IS BITTER . Imagine, when they see the water after three days privation, how they run to it. But taste does not confirm sight. The water is not drinkable. Possibly this was a just complaint; although it may rather be suspected that the water, even if bitter, was not so bitter but that it could have been drunk by thirsty people. The Israelites, however, were thinking of the sweet waters of Egypt. A little longer privation and they might have found sweetness even in bitter waters. Still one cannot but consider how it is there should be this difference between the bitter waters and the sweet, between Marah and Elim. And then we are at once reminded that bitterness is no essential part of water, but comes from foreign and separable matters. So the comforts and resources flowing from God get mixed on the way with human and embittering elements, and these elements are so strong and disturbing that we utterly forget the sweet Divine part because of the discomforts of the bitter human one. We are ready to cast all away as if the nauseous could not be expelled. When Jesus told his disciples certain things which required a changed mind, and the creation of spiritual perceptivity in order to lay them to heart, they called these things hard sayings; not considering that hardness might be made easiness. In our early experiences of religion there is sure to be something of the bitter. The exhortation, "Taste and see that the Lord is good," is a serious and experimental one, yet many on their tasting find bitterness. The water of life has flowed through nauseating channels. Moses had his Marah: he got a taste of it even here, and he had full draughts afterwards. ( Exodus 32:19 ; Numbers 11:10-15 ; Numbers 12:1 ; Numbers 14:5 ; Numbers 16:3 .) David also had his Marah. ( Psalms 42:3 ; Psalms 80:5 ; Psalms 102:9 .) One can see a good deal of Marah even in the letters of the Christian Paul to his brethren in Corinth and Galatia. He had expected great things from the gifts of the Spirit, and correspondingly bitter would be his disappointment. We must have our Marah water to drink. Water may fail altogether for a while, and then when it does come it may seem worse than none at all.

III. GOD QUICKLY MAKES THE WATER PALATABLE . Note the request of the people . They do not stop to consider even for a moment whether this water, bitter as it is, may be made palatable. They turn from the whole thing in disgust and despair. "What shall we drink?" If Moses had straightway replied, "Ye shall drink of Marah," they would have counted him a mocker; yet his reply would have been correct. In the very things from which we turn as obviously useless, we may be destined to find an ample and satisfying supply. Moses himself knew not at the moment what they were to drink, but he takes the wise course and cries to Jehovah. More and more does his now habitual faith come out in contrast with the unbelief of the people. With regard to the casting in of the tree , it may have been that the tree had in itself some salutary effect; but the probability rather is that Moses was asked for another pure act of faith . This is more in harmony with the miraculous progression observed hitherto. When we remember the multitude that had to be supplied from these waters, there is something ludicrously inadequate in the supposition that the branches gathered to themselves the saline incrustations. The casting in of the tree was rather a symbolic channel for the sweetening than the actual cause of it.

IV. GOD SEIZES THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW ISRAEL WHEREIN THEIR SAFETY LIES . "He proved them" (verse 25). He points out, as it were, that they have been subjected to a test and have failed. At Marah they are shown forth as inattentive to past experiences, forgetful as to how God had remembered them and delivered them. Being now free from the bondage of Egypt, they must no longer blame outward constraints, but look earnestly on inward defects, for these are about to prove their greatest hindrance and danger. Yet this was not a time to speak sternly, even though unbelief had put forth its baleful front; they were but at the beginning of the journey, and gentle admonition was more proper than stern reproach. Therefore he counsels them—

1 . To listen steadily to his voice;

2 . To make his will, as expressing most clearly that which is right, the rule of their conduct;

3 . To carry out all his commandments and statutes, some of the most important of which had already been laid before them in connection with their departure from Egypt. Let them attend to all this, and they will be free from Egypt's calamities. Notice the negative aspect of this promise . God promises exemption from suffering rather than attainment of good. It was well thus to make Israel give a backward look, not only towards the Red Sea, but across it, and into Egypt, where so many troubles had come on their recent oppressors. It would almost seem as if already the hearts of many were filling with the expectation of carnal comforts. They were thinking, eagerly and greedily, of what they were to get. But God speaks out very plainly. He demands obedience; and the most he has to say is that if obedience is given, there will be exemption from suffering. The positive element is left out, and doubtless there is wisdom in the omission. That element will come in due time. Yet of course it is there even now, for the devout and discerning, who can penetrate below the surface. The keeping of Jehovah's commandments is, infallibly, the attaining of the highest and purest blessedness.

V. AFTER MARAH HAS DONE ITS WORK , THE ISRAELITES COME TO ELIM . The pillar of cloud doubtless led them to Marah purposely before Elim, and to Elim purposely after Marah. Thus the people got a rest before coming to another trial of their faith and submissiveness; God did not take them straight from the difficulty with regard to the water to the next difficulty with regard to the bread. It is easy to understand that there were many attractions at Elim which would make them wish to linger there; but at Elim they could not stay. It had water in abundance; but water, great blessing as it is, is not enough. Pleasant it was to rest for awhile at these wells and seventy palm-trees; but before them lay a still better land where they would have, not only brooks of water and fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, but also wheat and barley and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; and all the rest of the good things mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:7-9 . The great lesson of Elim is that we must not make a resting-place, however attractive, into a home.— Y .