Exodus 17:5-6

17:5 The Lord said to Moses, “Go over before the people; ¹  take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go. 17:6 I will be standing ²  before you there on ³  the rock in Horeb, and you will strike ⁴  the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink.” ⁵  And Moses did so in plain view ⁶  of the elders of Israel.

Exodus 17:9-12

17:9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our ⁷  men and go out, fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”

17:10 So Joshua fought against Amalek just as Moses had instructed him; ⁸ and Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 17:11 Whenever Moses would raise his hands, ⁹  then Israel prevailed, but whenever he would rest ¹⁰  his hands, then Amalek prevailed. 17:12 When ¹¹  the hands of Moses became heavy, ¹²  they took a stone and put it under him, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, ¹³  and so his hands were steady ¹⁴  until the sun went down.

Numbers 20:8-12

20:8 “Take the staff and assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and then speak ¹⁵  to the rock before their eyes. It will pour forth ¹⁶  its water, and you will bring water out of the rock for them, and so you will give the community and their beasts water to drink.”

20:9 So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, just as he commanded him. 20:10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the community together in front of the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, ¹⁷  must we bring ¹⁸  water out of this rock for you?” 20:11 Then Moses raised his hand, and struck the rock twice with his staff. And water came out abundantly. So the community drank, and their beasts drank too.

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ¹⁹  to show me as holy ²⁰  before ²¹  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ²² 

[17:5]  ¹ tn “Pass over before” indicates that Moses is the leader who goes first, and the people follow him. In other words, לִפְנֵי (lifney) indicates time and not place here (B. Jacob, Exodus, 477-78).

[17:6]  ² tn The construction uses הִנְנִי עֹמֵד (hinni ’omed) to express the futur instans or imminent future of the verb: “I am going to be standing.”

[17:6]  ³ tn Or “by” (NIV, NLT).

[17:6]  ⁴ tn The form is a Hiphil perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it follows the future nuance of the participle and so is equivalent to an imperfect tense nuance of instruction.

[17:6]  ⁵ tn These two verbs are also perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutive: “and [water] will go out…and [the people] will drink.” But the second verb is clearly the intent or the result of the water gushing from the rock, and so it may be subordinated.

[17:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[17:9]  ⁷ tn This could be rendered literally “choose men for us.” But the lamed (ל) preposition probably indicates possession, “our men,” and the fact that Joshua was to choose from Israel, as well as the fact that there is no article on “men,” indicates he was to select some to fight.

[17:10]  ⁸ tn The line in Hebrew reads literally: And Joshua did as Moses had said to him, to fight with Amalek. The infinitive construct is epexegetical, explaining what Joshua did that was in compliance with Moses’ words.

[17:11]  ⁹ tn The two verbs in the temporal clauses are by וְהָיָה כַּאֲשֶׁר (vÿhaya ka’asher, “as long as” or, “and it was that whenever”). This indicates that the two imperfect tenses should be given a frequentative translation, probably a customary imperfect.

[17:11]  ¹⁰ tn Or “lower.”

[17:12]  ¹¹ tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.

[17:12]  ¹² tn The term used here is the adjective כְּבֵדִים (kÿvedim). It means “heavy,” but in this context the idea is more that of being tired. This is the important word that was used in the plague stories: when the heart of Pharaoh was hard, then the Israelites did not gain their freedom or victory. Likewise here, when the staff was lowered because Moses’ hands were “heavy,” Israel started to lose.

[17:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”

[17:12]  ¹⁴ tn The word “steady” is אֱמוּנָה (’emuna) from the root אָמַן (’aman). The word usually means “faithfulness.” Here is a good illustration of the basic idea of the word – firm, steady, reliable, dependable. There may be a double entendre here; on the one hand it simply says that his hands were stayed so that Israel might win, but on the other hand it is portraying Moses as steady, firm, reliable, faithful. The point is that whatever God commissioned as the means or agency of power – to Moses a staff, to the Christians the Spirit – the people of God had to know that the victory came from God alone.

[20:8]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, following the two imperatives in the verse. Here is the focus of the instruction for Moses.

[20:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “give.” The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, as are the next two in the verse. These are not now equal to the imperatives, but imperfects, showing the results of speaking to the rock: “speak…and it will…and so you will….”

[20:10]  ¹⁷ tn The word is הַמֹּרִים (hammorim, “the rebels”), but here as a vocative: “you rebels.” It was a harsh address, although well-earned.

[20:10]  ¹⁸ tn The word order and the emphasis of the tense are important to this passage. The word order is “from this rock must we bring out to you water?” The emphasis is clearly on “from this rock!” The verb is the imperfect tense; it has one of the modal nuances here, probably obligatory – “must we do this?”

[20:12]  ¹⁹ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ²⁰ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[20:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ²² tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.