The LORD said to Moses, “Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water; so you shall bring water out of the rock for them; so you shall give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle. (Numbers 20:7-10; see also Exodus 17:5-6)
In the Old Testament God commands Moses to strike a rock in order to bring forth water to slake the thirst of parched Israel in their sojourn through the inhospitable desert. One can read the text as another miracle story and accept that its purpose is to create awe or inspire faith. However, through history, interpreters have advocated that these water-from-the-rock narratives are not to be read just literally because they have a hidden meaning in them – our task as believers is to find that meaning.
Modern scholar George Lamsa in his popular book, Idioms in the Bible Explained and a Key to the Original Gospels, is concerned that a literal reading of the text will not explain the meaning of many biblical stories because there are many metaphors, idioms and colloquialisms contained in the Bible which are misunderstood if read literally. For example, he says of “striking a rock to find water” that some desert dwellers hid their wells by covering them with a large desert rock which would blend into the wilderness scenery. If one didn’t know exactly where the well was, one could take one’s staff and strike the ground – if there was a well beneath the rock, it would make a “hollow” sound different from if solid ground was beneath the rock. It was a way to find water in the desert by striking a rock.
Lamsa’s interpretaton may be correct but it still is reading the text too literally. In the Bible itself, St Paul interprets the “striking the rock” narrative to be a spiritual story, more than a historical one. He is clear that the Old Testament is read to find Christ more than to learn about Israel’s ancient history. Lamsa’s focus on figures of speech falls short of the meaning in the biblical text. St Paul says:
I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. (1 Corinthians 10:1-5)
St Paul uses the Numbers’ miracle to foreshadow baptism and salvation in Jesus Christ. Ancient Israel was participating in the same salvation through Christ which we all experience today. It is one of the many instances in which New Testament authors do not rely on a literal reading of the Old Testament but rather see the importance of the Old Testament not as history but as prophecy and allegory foreshadowing the life in Christ. This serves as a warning to all of us not to read the Old Testament simply literally, as we will miss the revelation which God gives us through these Scriptures. A literal reading remains pedantic – focusing on small details while missing the big picture and main message of the Old Testament which is Christ Jesus and God’s love for the world rather than merely Israel’s history. We have to remember that the Old Testament saints were also participating in Christ as we are. The way we count years – BC to AD – is misleading in the sense that there is no time before Christ since He existed from all eternity.
Fraternized 