XVI. REPHIDIM AND AMALEK

“All the congregation of the children of Israel,” we read [Exod. 17:1.] , “journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.”—“And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this, that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” (v. 3.) Moses upon this entreats the Lord for Israel; and the narrative proceeds in the words of the Almighty—“Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that my people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” “Then came Amalek,” the narrative continues, “and fought with Israel in Rephidim.”

Now this last incident is mentioned, as must be perceived at once, without any other reference to what had gone before than a reference of date. It was “then” that Amalek came. It is the beginning of another adventure which befel the Israelites, and which Moses now goes on to relate. Accordingly, in many copies of our English version, a mark is here introduced indicating the commencement of a fresh paragraph. Yet I cannot but suspect, that there is a coincidence in this case between the production of the water, in an arid wilderness, and the attack of the Amalekites—that though no hint whatever to this effect is dropped, there is nevertheless the relation between them of cause and consequence. For what, in those times and those countries, was so common a bone of contention as the possession of a well? Thus we read of Abraham reproving Abimelech “because of a well of water, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away.” [Gen. 21:25.] And again we are told, that “Isaac’s servants digged in a valley and found there a well of springing water—and the herdsmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, The water is ours, and he called the name of the well Esek, because they strove with him. And they digged another well, and strove for that also; and he called the name of it Sitnah. And he removed from thence, and digged another well, and for that they strove not; and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” [Gen. 26:22.] In like manner when the daughters of the Priest of Midian “came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock, the shepherds,” we find, “came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.” [Exod. 2:17.] And again, when Moses sent messengers to the King of Edom with proposals that he might be permitted to lead the people of Israel through his territory, the subject of water enters very largely into the terms: “Let me pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields and through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king’s highway—we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me lest I come out against thee with the sword. And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the highway: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it.” [Num. 20:17.] Again, on a subsequent occasion, Moses sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, with the same stipulations:—“Let me pass through thy land: we will not turn into the fields or into the vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well, but we will go along by the king’s highway, until we be past thy borders.” [Num. 21:22.] And when Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy recapitulates some of the Lord’s commands, one of them is, as touching the children of Esau, “Meddle not with them; for I will not give you their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth, because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession. Ye shall buy meat of them for money that ye may eat, and ye shall also buy water of them for money that ye may drink.” [Deut. 2:6.] And at a later date we find the well still associated with scenes of strife—“They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord.” [Judges 5:11.] Indeed the well is quite a feature in the narrative of Moses, brief as that narrative is. It unobtrusively but constantly reminds us of our scene lying ever in the East—just as the Forum could not fail to be perpetually mixing itself up with the details of any history of Rome which was not spurious. The well is the spring of life. It is the place of meeting for the citizens in the cool of the day—the place of resort for the shepherds and herdsmen; it is here that we may witness acts of courtesy or of stratagem—acts of religion—acts of civil compact—acts commemorative of things past; it is here that the journey ends—it is by this that the next is regulated; hither the fugitive and the outcast repair—here the weary pilgrim rests himself; the lack of it is the curse of a kingdom, and the prospect of it in abundance the blessing which helps forward the steps of the stranger when he seeks another country. It enters as an element into the language itself of Holy Writ, and the simile, the illustration, the metaphor, are still telling forth the great Eastern apophthegm, that of “all things water is the first.” Of such value was the well—so fruitful a source of contention in those parched and thirsty lands was the possession of a well.

Now, applying these passages to the question before us, I think it will be seen, that the sudden gushing of the water from the rock (which was the sudden discovery of an invaluable treasure), and the subsequent onset of the Amalekites at the very same place—for both occurrences are said to have happened at Rephidim, though given as perfectly distinct and independent matters, do coincide very remarkably with one another; and yet so undesigned is the coincidence (if indeed coincidence it is after all), that it might not suggest itself even to readers of the Pentateuch whose lot is cast in a torrid clime, and to whom the value of a draught of cold water is therefore well known; still less to those who live in a land of brooks, like our own, a land of fountains and depths that spring out of the valleys and hills, and who may drink of them freely, without cost and without quarrel.

If then it be admitted, that the issue of the torrent from the rock synchronizes very singularly with the aggression of Amalek, yet that the narrative of the two events does not hint at any connection whatever between them, I think that all suspicion of contrivance is laid to sleep, and that whatever force is due to the argument of consistency without contrivance, as a test, and as a testimony of truth, obtains here. Yet here, as in so many other instances already adduced, the stamp of truth, such as it is, is found where a miracle is intimately concerned; for if the coincidence in question be thought enough to satisfy us that Moses was relating an indisputable matter of fact when he said that the Israelites received a supply of water at Rephidim, it adds to our confidence that he is relating an indisputable matter of fact, too, when he says in the same breath, that it was a miraculous supply: where we can prove that there is truth in a story, so far as a scrutiny of our own, which was not contemplated by the party whose words we are trying, enables us to go, it is only fair to infer, in the absence of all testimony to the contrary, that there is truth also in such parts of the same story as our scrutiny cannot attain unto. And indeed it seems to me, that the sin of Amalek on this occasion, a sin which was so offensive in God’s sight as to be treasured up in judgment against that race, causing Him eventually to destroy them utterly, derived its heinousness from this very thing, that the Amalekites were here endeavouring to dispossess the Israelites of a vital blessing which God had sent to them by miracle, and which He could not so send without making it manifest, even to the Amalekites themselves, that the children of Israel were under his special care—that in fighting therefore against Israel, they were fighting against God. And such, I persuade myself, is the true force of an expression in Deuteronomy used in reference to this very incident—for Amalek is there said to “have smitten them when they were weary, and to have feared not God;” [Deut. 25:18.] that is, to have done it in defiance of a miracle, which ought to have impressed them with a fear of God, indicating, as of course it did, that God willed not the destruction of this people.