The Rock · The Types of Christ
The Rock in the Wilderness
Twice in forty years a thirsty nation got water out of solid rock. Paul, writing to Corinth about people who presumed on their privileges, said something startling about those two moments: and that Rock was Christ.
Paul Says It First
— 1 Corinthians 10:4 — the sentence every other beat hangs offTHE ARTWORKTintoretto, at the top of this page, paints the moment as chaos rather than ceremony: bodies pressing in, vessels held up, the water already running before anyone has arranged themselves. He is painting thirst, which is what both of these scenes are actually about.
Paul is not decorating. He is warning a confident church that privilege is no protection, and he builds the warning out of the wilderness: they were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink — and with most of them God was not well pleased. In the middle of that list he drops a clause that has occupied readers ever since. The rock they drank from followed them, he says, and that Rock was Christ.
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.The manna and the rock in one sentence, both called spiritual — and then the claim this page is built on.
All symbols seem in some way to personify the realities of which they are symbols. So, St. Paul says, "The rock was Christ," because the rock in question symbolized Christ.
Augustine of Hippo· City of God 18.46, 430Church Father
1 Corinthians 10:4
For behold Marcion, in his blindness, stumbled at the rock whereof our fathers drank in the wilderness. For since "that rock was Christ," it was, of course, the Creator's, to whom also belonged the people.
Tertullian· Against Marcion, Book V, 220Church Father
1 Corinthians 10:4
For they drank out of the spiritual or mysterious rock, the wonderful streams of which followed them in their several journeyings, for many years, through the wilderness. And that rock was a manifest type of Christ - The Rock of Eternity, from whom his people derive those streams of blessings which follow them through all this wilderness.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
1 Corinthians 10:4
One small thing in the Greek is worth having before the scenes. Pneumatikos (G4152), “spiritual,” is the same adjective Paul uses of the food in verse 3 and of the drink and the rock in verse 4. The manna and the rock are bound together by one word in one sentence, which is why those two studies are siblings on this shelf.
Two Scenes, One Rock
— Rephidim and Kadesh, side by sideRephidim
Exodus 17 · the first year
- The command
- Smite the rock
- The word for “rock”
- צוּר tsur · H6697Twice in Exodus 17:6 — and the same word Deuteronomy 32 uses of God Himself.
- The rod
- The rod that struck the Nile, carried across the desert.
Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Exodus 17:6
What happenedWater. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah — testing and quarrelling — after the people, not after himself. No rebuke falls on him.
Kadesh
Numbers 20 · thirty-eight years later
- The command
- Speak to the rock
- The word for “rock”
- סֶלַע selaʿ · H5553Five times across Numbers 20:8, 10 and 11 — and not once in Exodus 17.
- The rod
- The rod taken from before the LORD, out of the tabernacle.
“Take the staff and assemble the congregation. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will pour out its water. You will bring out water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.”
Numbers 20:8
What happenedWater again — and Moses, who struck it twice instead of speaking, is told he will not bring the congregation into the land.
And the New Testament says this about both of them
and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4Readings that are tradition, not the text
The two strikes as the two woods of the cross. Augustine reads the second blow that way, and Caesarius of Arles asks after it in a sermon. It is a devotional reading by two Fathers, quoted further down this page. Numbers says only that the second strike was disobedience.
A rock that travelled with them. Later Jewish tradition pictures a well that rolled along behind Israel through the wilderness. It is reception history, not the biblical text, and it is not what Paul says. It is named here so a reader who meets it elsewhere knows what he is meeting.
Scene One: The Rock Struck
— Exodus 17, at RephidimThere is no water, and the camp is past complaining and close to violence — Moses tells God they are nearly ready to stone him. The instruction he gets back is strange in a way that is easy to read past: Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock. God places Himself at the rock, and the blow falls on the place where He is standing. Then water, in front of the elders, for a nation.
Then the whole congregation of Israel left the Desert of Sin, moving from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So the people contended with Moses, “Give us water to drink.” “Why do you contend with me?” Moses replied. “Why do you test the LORD?” But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What should I do with these people? A little more and they will stone me!” And the LORD said to Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take along in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”The whole scene: no water, the quarrel, God standing on the rock, the rod, and the two names Moses gives the place.
I will stand before thee there, upon the rock in Horeb - The rock, הצור hatstsur. It seems as if God had directed the attention of Moses to a particular rock, with which he was well acquainted; for every part of the mount and its vicinity must have been well known to Moses during the time he kept Jethro’s flocks in those quarters.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Exodus 17:6
The people of the fathers thirsted, Moses touched the rock, and water flowed out of the rock. Did not grace work a result contrary to nature, so that the rock poured forth water, which by nature it did not contain?
Ambrose of Milan· On the Mysteries 9.51, 397Church Father
Exodus 17:6
The artwork
Tissot puts the rock face high and the people low and small at its foot, and gives the whole scene the washed-out light of real desert. Where Tintoretto paints the crowd, Tissot paints the cliff — the two plates on this page between them show both halves of what Exodus 17 describes.
James Tissot, Moses Smites the Rock in the Desert (c. 1896-1902) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Scene Two: The Rock Spoken To
— Numbers 20, at Kadesh — one paragraph, then the doorAlmost forty years later the same complaint comes up in a new generation, and the instruction is different: speak to the rock. Moses takes the rod, calls the people rebels, and strikes it twice. Water comes anyway — and Moses and Aaron are told they will not bring the assembly into the land. What exactly the offence was, and what it cost, is the business of the story page; what this page needs from Numbers 20 is only that the instruction had changed.
In the first month, the whole congregation of Israel entered the Wilderness of Zin and stayed in Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered against Moses and Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the LORD! Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you led us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates—and there is no water to drink!”Miriam dies, the water fails, and the new generation makes the old generation's complaint.
And the LORD said to Moses, “Take the staff and assemble the congregation. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will pour out its water. You will bring out water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.” So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he had been commanded. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, “Listen now, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff, so that a great amount of water gushed out, and the congregation and their livestock were able to drink. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me to show My holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”'Speak ye unto the rock' — then the rod, the two blows, and the sentence.
Take the rod - That with which the miracles in Egypt had been performed (Exo 7:8 ff; Exo 7:19 ff; Exo 8:5 ff, etc.), and which had been used on a similar occasion at Rephidim (Exo 17:5 following).
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832-1869Presbyterian
Numbers 20:8
Because ye believed me not - What was the offense for which Moses was excluded from the promised land? It appears to have consisted in some or all of the following particulars: 1. God had commanded him (Num 20:8) to take the rod in his hand, and go and Speak To The Rock, and it should give forth water.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Numbers 20:12
A page about the type can say that the pattern is there — struck once, and afterwards spoken to — and that Hebrews argues a once-for-all sacrifice at length elsewhere. It cannot say that Numbers 20 teaches the atonement. Numbers 20 is about a disobedience and its price. Paul’s sentence is the claim this page carries, and it does not need help.
Two Words, Not One
— an observable feature of the text — and only thatEnglish prints “rock” in both chapters, so most readers never see this. Exodus 17:6 uses tsur (H6697) twice. Numbers 20 uses selaʿ (H5553) five times, and tsur does not appear in the Numbers scene at all — nor selaʿ in the Exodus one.
Take that for exactly what it is: a fact about the words on the page. It is worth seeing, and it is not a doctrine, and it settles nothing about either scene. What a reader can go and check for himself is the other half of the datum — tsur is the word Deuteronomy 32 uses of God Himself, over and over, in the space of one song.
He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.'He is the Rock, his work is perfect' — the title, stated.
But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.'Lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation' — the title used against them.
You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.'Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful' — a rock that fathers a people.
What Israel Sang About It
— Psalm 78 remembers both scenes and then makes the word a nameAsaph’s long history-psalm keeps the rock in front of the reader three times. He remembers the water (78:15-16). He quotes Israel’s sneer at it — behold, he smote the rock, that the waters gushed out… can he give bread also? (78:20). And then, at the turn of the psalm, he uses the word for God: they remembered that God was their rock (78:35). The Old Testament makes the move before Paul does.
He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas. He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.The rocks cleft; water like rivers.
When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”Israel's own sneer, preserved in the psalm.
And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.'God was their rock' — the same Hebrew word, now a name.
Ver. 15. He clave the rocks in the wilderness. Moses was the instrument, but the Lord did it all. Twice he made the flint a gushing rill. What can he not do? And gave them drink as out of the great depths, --as though it gushed from earth's innermost reservoirs. The streams were so fresh, so copious, so constant, that they seemed to well up from the earth's primeval fountains, and to leap at once from "the deep which coucheth beneath."
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, 1869-1885Reformed Baptist
Psalm 78:15
"He split the rock in the desert." The rock has been split for us in the wilderness. The rock was struck, and the waters flowed: that rock which says, "Whoever thirsts, let him come and drink"; from whose belly rivers flowed. "And he gave them water to drink as if from a great abyss." In the desert, where there was no water, an abundance of waters was made for us. There are many things that might be said, and the psalm is boundless, and we are shut out by time.
Jerome· Homily 11, on Psalm 77, 420Church Father
Psalm 78:15
Where It Points
— thirst, and an invitation — John 7:37-39On the last day of a feast whose ritual included water poured out at the altar, Jesus stood and shouted an invitation built out of thirst: if any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. John adds his own note that the rivers were spoken of the Spirit. The Fathers heard the wilderness in it — Augustine, reading Psalm 78, runs the struck rock, the water, John 7 and the gift of the Spirit into a single sentence.
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’” He was speaking about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.The invitation, and John's own explanation of what the rivers meant.
"He that burst asunder the rock in the desert, and gave them water as in a great deep" [Psalm 78:15]; "and brought out water from the rock, and brought down waters like rivers" [Psalm 78:16], is surely able upon thirsty faith to pour the gift of the Holy Spirit … to pour, I say, from the Spiritual Rock that followed, which is Christ: who stood and cried, "If any is thirsty, let him come to Me:" [John 7:37] and, "he that shall have drunk of the water which I shall give, rivers of living water shall flow out of his bosom.
Augustine of Hippo· Exposition on Psalm 78, 430Church Father
Psalm 78:15-16
Ambrosiaster: why Paul called the food and the drink 'spiritual'on 1 Corinthians 10:4
The manna and the water which flowed from the rock are called spiritual because they were formed not according to the law of nature but by the power of God working independently of the natural elements. They were created for a time as figures of …
Theophylact: why the drink needed explaining and the food did noton 1 Corinthians 10:4
Food required no confirmation, for its extraordinariness was self-evident. But regarding drink, confirmation was needed, because only the manner of its production was extraordinary. Therefore he says: it was not the nature of the rock that gave the water (otherwise it would have been flowing …
What Does 'That Followed Them' Mean?
— the positions, and who holds eachPaul’s participle — a rock that followed — has been read three ways, and the readings are not equally at home in the text. They are set out here with the people who hold them, and this page does not hand down a verdict between the first two.
Position one
Christ Himself accompanied them. The rock is the sign of a presence that went with Israel the whole way. John Wesley reads it so — the Rock of Eternity, from whom His people derive streams that follow them through the wilderness — and Augustine reads Psalm 78 the same direction.
Position two
The supply followed.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take “followed” as attendance rather than motion: He ministered to them as need arose, going before them mostly and behind them when the occasion called for it.
A tradition, not a position in the text
A rock that literally travelled. Later Jewish tradition tells of a well that rolled along with Israel. It is worth knowing because readers meet it, and it is not what Paul says. Difference is presented here as difference and nothing more.
1Pe 2:6), accompanied them (Ex 33:15). "Followed" implies His attending on them to minister to them; thus, though mostly going before them, He, when occasion required it, followed "behind" (Ex 14:19). He satisfied all alike as to their bodily thirst whenever they needed it; as on three occasions is expressly recorded (Ex 15:24, 25;
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
1 Corinthians 10:4
Labelled as tradition — the two strikes, read by two Fathers
Augustine takes the double blow at Kadesh as a figure of the two pieces of wood on the cross; Caesarius of Arles raises the same question and leaves it open. Both are quoted here at full strength and neither is disparaged — and neither is the text’s own claim. Numbers gives one reason for the second strike, and it is disobedience.
The rock is Christ in a sign, the true Christ in the Word and in the flesh. And how did they drink? The rock was struck twice with a rod. The double striking prefigures the two pieces of wood on the cross.
Augustine of Hippo· Tractate on the Gospel of John 26.12.2, 430Church Father
Numbers 20:11
"Therefore Moses struck the rock twice with his staff." What does this mean, brethren? I do not think it is without mystery. What does it mean that the rock was not struck once but twice with the staff? The rock was struck a second time …
Caesarius of Arles· Sermon 103.3, 542Church Father
Numbers 20:11
Caesarius on the first scene: a rock with water in it, and nothing until it is struckSermon 103.3, on Exodus 17:6
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Take the staff and strike the rock, that it may produce water for the people." Behold, there is a rock, and it contains water. However, unless this rock is struck, it does not have any water at all. But …
The Voices, and Where Marcus Lands
— named, with the work to go and readChuck Missler— Pastor Marc’s formative teacher — treated the wilderness provisions as intentional Christology rather than illustration, and worked them that way in Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Sir Robert Anderson, in Types in Hebrews, is the older articulation of the once-for-all argument this page points at but does not make. Both are modern and in copyright: named and pointed to, never reproduced.
Two thirsty crowds, thirty-eight years apart, and one sentence from a letter to Corinth that ties both to a Person. Where Marcus lands on it belongs to him.