What Does Exodus 17:6 Mean?
Look, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You will strike the rock, and waters will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.THE KEY
Moses, the one whose name is linked to being drawn out of water, stands at the rock as water is drawn out for the people.
THE MEANING
God is present at the hard place, and water comes from the rock after it is struck. Moses, whose name echoes being drawn out of water, stands where the people receive drink. The blow remains part of the scene: the rock is struck, and the people drink.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A place that looks hard and barren has nothing within it that can sustain you.
THE ROOT
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out or pull out, especially from water.
Exodus 2:10 links Moses’ name with the act of drawing him out of the water. Here Moses stands at the rock as water comes out for the people: the name and the scene echo one another.
ALSO GROWS
māšâ: To draw out or pull out.
מָשָׁה
This is the root action echoed by Moses’ name and by the water coming out of the rock.
meshitihu: “I drew him out,” as in Exodus 2:10.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form makes the link between Moses’ name and being drawn from water explicit.
צוּר
tsur
GROWS FROM
צור
ts-w-r
Rock or cliff; the related verbal use means to enclose or besiege.
The rock is a hard boundary, yet water comes out from within it. The related sense of enclosing or besieging sharpens the image: what seems shut in becomes a source of drink.
ALSO GROWS
matsor: A siege or encirclement.
מָצוֹר
This related form carries the sense of something hemmed in, echoing the rock’s closed surface.
tatsur: “You besiege,” as in Deuteronomy 20:19.
תָּצוּר
The same consonants can describe pressing around a city; here the rock is struck open and yields water.
חֹרֵב
Ḥorev
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To dry up or become desolate.
Horeb’s name carries the language of dryness and desolation. Water comes from the rock in a place whose name itself echoes what seems unable to provide it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārēv: Dry or desolate.
חָרֵב
This form makes the dryness associated with Horeb audible in the scene.
ḥorbah: A ruin or desolate place.
חָרְבָּה
This related form deepens the contrast between the place’s barrenness and the water that emerges there.
THE PATTERN
What appears closed and barren can become the source from which a whole people drink.
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his staff he struck the rock twice, and the many waters came out, and the assembly drank, and their beasts also.He opened the rock, and waters gushed out, and walked through the dry places like a river.And all drank the same breath-given drink, for they drank from the breath-given rock that followed them, and that rock was the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And they did not thirst when he set them walking through the dry places. He brought waters out of the rock for them; he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.Isaiah repeats the Hebrew word for rock, tsur, and pairs it with thirst in the deserts. It makes Horeb’s dryness part of the image: water flows from the rock while the people are still being led through the barren place.
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