What is a rock?

            I don’t know the Hebrew word for rock. I could have looked it up, but I didn’t feel that I particularly needed to. I am no great expert on Israel’s historical and cultural understandings at that time in history, either. But I will go out on the first of two limbs here and say that I think those children of Israel of so long ago — different time, different place — still pretty much looked at rocks in the same way we do. Rocks are solid, unyielding — being caught between a rock and a hard place, had they heard such an expression at the time, would have made sense to them as it does to us. We don’t get water out of rock. Oh, water might come flowing out from between or under or over rocks — a good thing, because rock by its very nature isn’t going to soak the stuff up before we can get to it. But you can’t get water out of rock; that is our understanding, and we can safely say that it would have been Israel’s, too. This would have been Israel’s expectation, vis-à-vis rock — and Moses in leading them to a rock would not have been seen as overturning that expectation.

            The children of Israel, here and elsewhere in the five books of Moses, have issues with expectations. What was Israel expecting, anyway? I’m sure Moses asked himself that question many, many times during the journey from Egypt to the outskirts of the Promised Land — and I hesitate to put myself in the place of God, but I can imagine God asking God’s self that question, too. Who are these people? What do they want?

...approximately 1,346 words remaining. You are not logged in. Please see options at the top of this page to view complete sermon.