Exodus 17:6

6. I will stand before thee In the pillar of cloud .

In Horeb The name of the mountain cluster, or district, towards which Israel was now advancing . The Sinai peak, or mountain of the law, was one of the summits of this cluster .

In the sight of the elders Chosen witnesses who could bear record to the reality of the miracle . In endeavouring to rationalize away this miracle, men have imagined arrangements of rocks and fountains, etc . , more miraculous far than anything in the narrative .

Palmer’s account of a rock and its accompanying tradition, at this place, is interesting. He says: “It is a significant fact that in Wady Feiran, immediately before the part of the valley where the fertility commences, I discovered a rock, (a large mass of granite fallen from the wady wall,) which Arab tradition regards as the site of the miracle. This rock, which has never before been noticed by travellers, is called Hesy el Khattatin, and is surrounded by small heaps of pebbles, placed upon every available stone in the immediate neighbourhood.” It will be noticed that this is a totally different rock from that shown by the monks of St. Katharine as the Rock of Moses. That is near their convent at Jebel Musa, and is a large, cubical block of red granite, traversed obliquely from top to bottom by a seam of finer materials, twelve or fifteen inches wide, which contains several horizontal crevices, which are shown by the monks as the mouths from which the water gushed. (Robinson, Olin.) But it is wholly impossible for Rephidim to have been at Mount Sinai; and the monks, in forming their traditions, seem to have been wholly careless, if not ignorant, of the Scripture narrative. They have simply grouped all the holy sites within easy walking distance of their convent.

The allusion which the Roman historian Tacitus makes to this miracle, as well as to the exode and wandering of the Israelites, is most instructive, as showing what confused ideas the most enlightened Romans had of Hebrew history, and also what a deep impression this miracle made, even upon the heathen world. Having stated that the Egyptian king drove the Israelites into a vast desert, he says: “While the others were stupefied with grief, Moses, one of the exiles, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, seeing that they now were abandoned by both, but trust him as a celestial leader, who had first helped them in their present missions. To this they agreed, and began their random journey, ignorant of every thing. But nothing exhausted them so much as the want of water. And now they had thrown themselves down over all the ground, near unto death, when a herd of wild asses came from feeding, and went to a rock overshadowed by a grove of trees. Moses followed them, conjecturing that there was grassy soil there, and opened great sources of water, ( largas aquarum venas operit.) This was a relief, and, after journeying continually for six days, they on the seventh drove out the inhabitants, (allusion to the Jewish week and Sabbath,) and obtained the lands in which their city and temple were dedicated. They consecrated, in the most holy place of their temple, an image of the animal who saved them from their thirst, and their wandering(!)” TACITUS’ History, 5: 2-5. And in this way history is written by one of the most famous of historians!