Exodus 17:2 - Exposition

The people did chide. I .e. "quarrelled," made open murmurs and complaint—as before frequently ( Exodus 14:11 , Exodus 14:12 ; Exodus 15:24 ; Exodus 16:2 , Exodus 16:3 ). Give us water . As Moses had already given them flesh (the quails) and bread (the manna), so it perhaps seemed to the people easy that he should give them such a common thing as water. Stanley notices that the wadys suggest the idea of water, and make its absence the more intolerable—they are "exactly like rivers," with "torrent bed, and banks, and clefts in the rock for tributary streams, and at times even rushes and shrubs fringing their course"—signs of "water, water everywhere, yet not a drop to drink." Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord ? To "tempt the Lord" is to try his patience by want of faith, to arouse his anger, to provoke him to punish us. It was the special sin of the Israelites during the whole period of their sojourn in the wilderness. They "tempted and provoked the most high God" ( Psalms 78:56 ); "provoked him to anger with their inventions" ( Psalms 106:29 ), "murmured in their tents" ( Psalms 106:25 ), "provoked him at the sea" ( Psalms 106:7 ), "tempted him in the desert" ( Psalms 106:14 ). God's long-suffering, notwithstanding all, is simply amazing!