Yahweh Promises Water From A Rock At The Voice of Moses' Command (Numbers 20:7-8).
Yahweh's response was gracious and generous. He recognised the strain under which His people were, and He responded accordingly. There was no hint of criticism in that response. He was ready to meet His people's needs. He recognised the disappointment that they had received on arriving at Kadesh. And he knew that, unlike their fathers, they had not recently received good reports of the land. They had grounds for discouragement. So He was eager to encourage them, and at a word of command from Moses, to provide them with abundance of water. He was all compassion.
It should therefore have become a time of abundant blessing for all, a time when all experienced God in a way that would never be forgotten. But it would not be so for Moses and Aaron. There is no indication at this stage of the devastating event that would soon follow, an event that would blight Moses' final days. But those who would serve God and be used by Him have to follow in the way of obedience, and must recognise that to fail to do so can only result in loss. While God was patient and understanding, Moses and Aaron were sadly less so. It was in fact in its own way an indication that they needed to be replaced. Yet as the future would reveal, this event probably raised Moses from the depths to which he had sunk to a new spiritual level. Without it his career might well have been over. He learned again that he was the servant of Yahweh, not the lord of Israel, a lesson all God's leaders have to keep in mind.
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,'
Once again we have confirmed that we are dealing with words spoken to Moses by God.
“ Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak you (ye) to the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water. And you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock. So you shall give the congregation and their cattle drink.”
Patiently God prepared to give His people an indication of the power of His word. They would see what Yahweh could do using but the voice of His servants, and He would from it receive great glory. He would be ‘sanctified', set apart as the Holy One, the unique and peerless One, in their eyes. And the people would gain great assurance in readiness to face the future. And they would see that all it would require was a word. They would go forward confident in the One Who spoke and it was done. They would be reminded of how when God had spoken through His word the world came into being (Genesis 1).
“Take the rod.” This was possibly the one Moses had used in Egypt through which such wonders had been done. Or it may have been the one which had budded revealing Aaron's authority as High Priest. Or it may have been a specific one which revealed Moses' status. Certainly it was the one that was the sign of Moses' authority from Yahweh. This in itself was a significant action. To take the rod, the symbol of Moses' authority received from God, was to declare to the people that they were about to act on the authority of Yahweh. It was a symbol not a weapon.
Then they were to assemble all the congregation in order that they might see the great thing that their God was going to do. He was going to give them abundant water in the wilderness at the spoken word of His servant acting in Yahweh's name.
“Speak you (ye) to the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water. And you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock. So you shall give the congregation and their cattle drink.” The instructions were quite clear. In the eyes of the whole congregation Moses and Aaron were to speak to the rock which would produce water. They were to bring forth water from the rock with a word. In this they would reveal that they were the favoured servants of Yahweh. And there would be sufficient for all to drink, both men and cattle. So would God be magnified and the faith of the people strengthened. The future would suddenly become bright again. By the word of Yahweh the water would gush forth, and they would recognise that He and He alone was the One to Whom they could always look with full confidence, even when there appeared to be no water.
Before the Reed Sea he had lifted up his rod and the sea had parted. Here he would lift up his rod and speak and water would gush forth. In its own way it would be a repeat of the Reed Sea miracle.