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By William Van Zyl (Published 4 January 2024)
*Credit cover image: By Lgcharlot – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8514260
What is the biggest miracle you have ever seen? What is the biggest miracle you have ever heard of?
I share mine with you. It is mindboggling.
Imagine 1 to 2 million people in a desert with their animals drinking water daily. Washing and doing all their essential chores.
Let us assume a million people with their animals would each need a gallon of water (1 gallon = 5 Liters of water) daily. Total liters of water per day for all 1 million people in the desert: 1,000,000 x 5 liters per day = 5,000,000 liters. By the way to get an idea of the volume: A standard Olympic-sized swimming pool measuring 50m long and 25m wide, contains 2.5 million liters of water. Thus, they needed 2 x Olympic swimming pools of water every day to survive. In total, 5 million liters per day. What a miracle! It has also been estimated that these people needed two freight food trains daily to survive the harsh desert conditions.
And, to make the miracle even more significant, a rock provided the water every day. Are you serious?
Yes, I am.
Water flowed out of it. However, the camp moved from time to time – they were on a journey through the desert. From Egypt to Canaan. They would have moved away from the water sources available from time to time. How did they survive without water? Did the water source follow them? This rock-providing phenomena, how could it walk or slide over the dunes?
I have asked AI (Discord/Midjourney) images to provide an image of such a miracle . The prompt is: ‘Water flowing from a rock in the desert. Context. The story of Moses, who hit the rock with his staff and water gushed out.’
IMAGE (AI-generated): ‘Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.’ Exodus 7:6 NKJV. In fact Moses struck the rock 2 times. King David proclaims many years after the event: ‘He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; They ran in the dry places like a river’ (Psalm 105:41).
Images (AI-generated). Just for fun, I include these 4 images of Moses striking the rock in the desert. Prompt: ‘Moses strikes the rock in the desert with his staff (hammer?), and water gushes out (Discord).’
Personally, I like this AI-image. The rock-bed which ‘Moses’ stands on oozes out water – like water flowing from a sieve.
On Yahweh’s command, Moses struck the rock and water flowed from it. In the background, see the people carrying a water. They have a skin – filled with water – hanging on a pole. Credit image: Discord.
Water gushing out of a rock in the desert, is a crazy idea, isn’t it? And by the way, the Israelites had to carry tents to provide shelter during the day and night. The second ridiculous miracle is that a pillar of cloud provided shade during hot days, and a column of fire provided light and just the right amount of heat during the night. In the desert it was hot during the day and cold at night.
Table of Contents
Temperatures in the Desert
Haaretz magazine (Law, 2018) ran an article entitled, “Is This Where the Israelites Camped on Their Way to Canaan 3,200 Years Ago?” The article features the the excavation at the unique ruins of Khirbet el Mastarah which could be loosely translated as “hidden ruins” located 5 miles north of the Dead Sea. The site is located in the lowlands of the Jordan valley, an inhospitable area below sea level that today is one of the hottest places on Earth. Yearly rainfall amounts to about 6 inches (150 mm), and summer temperatures often reach over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius).
Credit: Patterns of Evidence. Link: https://www.patternsofevidence.com/2018/09/28/footprint-evidence-of-the-israelites/
The Israelite’s journeying through the desert is a famous story. Let’s investigate more.
Estimated number of people in the camp ( 2 x censuses taken)
The book of Numbers provides the answer to the question. There were two censuses taken, the first one a few months after leaving Egypt. In Numbers 1:2–3, it says to count all the males aged 20 and older, capable of going to war. The tribe of Levi was an exception and not included in the count, resulting in a total of 603,550.
The second census took place 40 years later after a plague that claimed 24,000 lives. Numbers 26:2 instructs to count males aged 20 and older, capable of going to war, resulting in a total of 601,730.
The counts excluded women and children under 20. An estimate suggests there were between 2 to 3 million Israelites in total.
Credit Pastor Guillermo Jensen (Quora). Link: https://www.quora.com/How-many-Israelites-wandered-in-the-desert-for-40-years
A map tracking Israel’s 40-year-journey through the desert
Let’s focus on the water sources. I include a map of the 40-year journey through the desert. There was water around from time to time, however not all the time. Remember, 5,000,000 (five million) liters of water (1,000,000 gallons) were needed daily. Please note, I have conservatively estimated 5 liters of water per day for only 1 million people.
Here is a map of their 40 year journey from Egypt to the promised land – Canaan (red dashes and some arrows).
Credit image: Bible history online. Link: https://bible-history.com/maps/route-exodus
As you can gather, they had water close to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. But what about when they were away from the significant water sources? How did they carry water with them? Remember they did not have modern day containers, or mobile water tanks like we have today.
IMAGE: Skin bottles used to carry water, made from a dressed goat skin. Fantastic photograph! Credit image: By Library of Congress (photographer unknown) – Library of Congress, photo dated from 1890-1900, now in Public Domain, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130897979. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterskin#/media/File:Waterskin_(Library_of_Congress)_1890-1900.jpg
_1890-1900.jpg){kind=link}
About the ‘goat-skin bottle’ shown in the picture: A waterskin is a receptacle used to hold water. Normally made of a sheep or goat skin, it retains water naturally and therefore was very useful in desert crossings until the invention of the canteen, though waterskins are still used in some parts of the world. Though it may have been used over 5000 years ago by tribal peoples, the first pictures of it are from ancient Assyrians, who used the bladders as floats in 3000 BCE. It also was used by large ancient empires such as Rome before the advent of the canteen. What is a canteen? A canteen is a reusable drinking water bottle designed to be used by hikers, campers, soldiers, bush firefighters, and workers in the field. It is usually fitted with a shoulder strap or means for fastening it to a belt, and may be covered with a cloth bag and padding to protect the bottle and insulate the contents (typical to the water bottles we use today). Credit: Wikipedia.
Back to the path of the Israelites.
Note that the path does not run next to the freshwater sources. They must have had water with them to survive. How did they survive? Food wise we know they had manna and quail – sent to them by Yahweh every day.
There is an enormous miracle staring at us on the above map! A minimum of 1,000,000 million gallons of water were used every day! What a miracle! More than a million people survived for 40 years in the desert with some animals. We can get very technical about many things, which would make the miracle even more profound, but let us keep to the water source in this article.
The Chabad
To bring more depth and insight into the miracle, allow me to refer to the Chabad.
What do Chabad Jews believe?
Chabad Chassidism is a system of religious philosophy that teaches understanding and recognition of the Creator through the application of the three intellectual qualities of Chochmah (wisdom), Binah (understanding) and Daat (knowledge). The initials of these three Hebrew words form the word “Chabad”. See the concepts and ideas of these Hebrew scholars (Rabbis): Search the net for ‘Chabad.’
You can read more below – too much to comment on here. Link to the full story: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3839434/jewish/Moses-Strikes-the-Rock-The-Full-Story.htm
Miriam’s Well – Details from the Chabad
Miriam was credited with a well that provided water, and the Mishnah considers it one of the ten unique things created on the first Shabbat. According to a story, this “well” was more like a rock that could move with the people, and when they stopped, it would dig into the sand. According to the Midrash, the “well” was actually a rock shaped like a sieve. The leaders would ask it to give water, and it would. Some say the rock didn’t move, but the water sprang up in new places. This rock, associated with Moses, gave water when people complained about the lack of it in Exodus. After Miriam died, Moses struck the same rock to get water again in Numbers.
The Symbol of the Rock: King David’s words
There are many examples of God and Jesus called ‘The Rock.’ Here, David called God (or Jesus) his Rock.
Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I will take refuge; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower (Ps 18:2).
Scientists could reason that the rock could have been a ‘sailing rock.’
How did the rock move? Walking? Sliding? I include an interesting phenomena – just for fun – below: Sailing Rocks – they really exist!
Sailing Rock. Image: CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2080023
Image – Sailing Rock: CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2080023
IMAGE: Sailing rock. Credit: Jon Sullivan – PD Photo.org. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2238548
How do sailing stones or sailing rocks move?
In a cold and icy environment: On sunny days, melting caused the ice to break into large floating panels that, driven by light winds, pushed against the rocks to move them. Of course, this will leave tracks on the desert floor. The editor- and peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE published their study. Here is the abstract (summary).
Title:
Sliding Rocks on Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park: First Observation of Rocks in Motion (Norris, R. D., Norris, J.M., Lorenz, R.D., Ray, J., Jackson, B. (2014).
Abstract
The engraved trails of rocks on the nearly flat, dry mud surface of Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, have excited speculation about the movement mechanism since the 1940s (Norris et al., 2014). Rock movement has been variously attributed to high winds, liquid water, ice, or ice flotation, but has not been previously observed in action. We recorded the first direct scientific observation of rock movements using GPS-instrumented rocks and photography, in conjunction with a weather station and time-lapse cameras. The largest observed rock movement involved >60 rocks on December 20, 2013 and some instrumented rocks moved up to 224 m between December 2013 and January 2014 in multiple move events. In contrast with previous hypotheses of powerful winds or thick ice floating rocks off the playa surface, the process of rock movement that we have observed occurs when the thin, 3 to 6 mm, “windowpane” ice sheet covering the playa pool begins to melt in late morning sun and breaks up under light winds of ∼4–5 m/s. Floating ice panels 10 s of meters in size push multiple rocks at low speeds of 2–5 m/min. along trajectories determined by the direction and velocity of the wind as well as that of the water flowing under the ice.
Link to the research: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0105948
ABOVE 2 x IMAGES: Figure 2 (Norris et al., 2014). View from the ‘source hill’ on the south shore of Racetrack Playa. View is looking north on December 20, 2013 at 3:15 pm. Steady, light wind, 4–5 m/s has blown water to the northeast exposing newly formed rock trails. Lower image shows overlay of lines to emphasize the congruent shape of adjacent rock trails as well as the proximity of rock trails to rocks that did not move. Image has not been enhanced.
I don’t think the rock that provided the water to the Israelites was sailing, walking, or sliding. There is no evidence of ice in the desert during the Israelite’s journey about 3500 years ago. I am convinced thaT it moved supernaturally. Yeshua – The Rock – was present, and moved with them.
Jim Hamilton, in his research, claims the following:
Title: The Rock was Christ. How Paul read the Pentateuch.
ABSTRACT: “And the Rock was Christ.” Some have interpreted Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 10:4 as a departure from grammatical-historical exegesis, or even as evidence that Paul gave credence to unhistorical Jewish myths. A close reading of his words against the backdrop of the canon, however, shows that Paul was reading Moses the way Moses intended. In the Pentateuch, Moses identifies the two water-giving rocks in the wilderness with Yahweh himself. Later in the Old Testament, the psalmists and prophets further identify the rock with Yahweh and look forward to a new exodus. In the Gospels, Jesus fulfills Old Testament expectations for that new exodus, with himself as the bread from heaven and water-giving rock. And in 1 Corinthians, therefore, Paul embraces the united perspective of the biblical authors. In drinking water from the rock, the Israelites drank from a type of Christ, who now lives as the thirst-quenching spiritual Rock of the church.
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4
Credit: Jim Hamilton (Professor, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). Published – November 10, 2022. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-rock-was-christ
Jim Hamilton identifies several verses pertaining to the ROCK:
Water from the Rock in Later Old Testament Writings:
There are a number of references to the Lord providing water from the rock through the rest of the Old Testament (Hamilton, 2022). Consider the following:
- Isaiah 48:21: “They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock [ṣūr]; he split the rock [ṣūr] and the water gushed out.”
- Psalm 78:15: “He split rocks [ṣūr] in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.”
- Psalm 78:16: “He made streams come out of the rock [selaʿ] and caused waters to flow down like rivers.”
- Psalm 78:20: “He struck the rock [ṣūr] so that water gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he also give bread or provide meat for his people?”
- Psalm 78:35: “They remembered that God was their rock [ṣūr], the Most High God their redeemer.”
- Psalm 81:16: “But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock [ṣūr] I would satisfy you.”
- Psalm 105:41: “He opened the rock [ṣūr], and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river.”
- Psalm 114:8: “. . . who turns the rock [ṣūr] into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.”
- Job 29:6: “. . . when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock [ṣūr] poured out for me streams of oil!”
Did Israel left a “Footprint” in the desert?
Look at the interesting sandal-shaped archeological finds in the desert below. Could this be a ‘footprint’ of the Israelites 3500 years ago?
“The site was discovered during the Manasseh Hill Country Survey directed by the late Professor Adam Zertal of Haifa University, for 38 seasons continually from 1978 until his death in 2015. The survey covered a thousand square miles of the western Jordan valley where Zertal found signs of thousands of archaeological sites (Law, n.p. 2018)”.
There is great debate among archaeologists today, as to whether the first Israelites gradually emerged from the local Canaanite population, whether they infiltrated the region from the east, or whether it might have been a combination of infiltration punctuated by conquests of Canaanite cities. Very few would endorse the Bible’s account of a massive and sudden Israelite conquest of Canaan from across the Jordan River under the leadership of Joshua, after 40 years in the wilderness. The discoveries of several large footstep-shaped enclosures, along with numerous unusual settlements in the area north of Jericho, are adding an intriguing aspect to the dispute (Law, 2018).
“Many mainstream scholars are (at a minimum) suspicious of attempts to link archaeological evidence with the biblical account. They think conclusions referencing the Bible are overly biased. They charge that such views don’t consider alternatives that would call the Bible into question. However, it should also be noted that bias is present on all sides of the debate. Many scholars who don’t think the Bible is relevant to these issues are unwilling to “waste their time” with ideas that show a link between the Bible’s account and real history. Asking whether the Bible’s historical report can find matching evidence among the archaeological data is a legitimate scientific question. – Keep Thinking! (Law, n.p., 2018).”
Conclusion:
It means that Jesus Christ – The Lord – himself was The Rock in the desert for the Israelites.
Did Jesus say ‘I am the living water?’
Yes He did.
Firstly, Jesus is what we drink. “Come to me and drink.” Jesus doesn’t just have what our souls need; he is what our souls need.
John 6:35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” He is the bread of life. He is the living water.
Secondly, dear reader, are you thirsty? Are you hungry?
Irrespective of the controversy, thirdly, let us contemplate the sandal-shaped ‘footprint’ in the desert:
Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you. – Deuteronomy 11:24-25 (ESV).
Are you a follower of Christ? What a wonderful scripture. What a promise!
References:
Hamilton, J (2022). The Rock was Christ. How Paul read the Pentateuch. Link: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-rock-was-christ
Law, S. (2018). Footprint Evidence of the Israelites. (Patterns of Evidence). Article: https://www.patternsofevidence.com/2018/09/28/footprint-evidence-of-the-israelites/
Norris RD, Norris JM, Lorenz RD, Ray J, Jackson B (2014). Sliding Rocks on Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park: First Observation of Rocks in Motion. PLOS ONE 9(8): e105948. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0105948.
Citation:
Van Zyl, W.N. (2024). The Sliding-Walking Rock. Published to Five House Publishing. Link: https://fivehousepublishing.com/2024/01/03/the-sliding-walking-rock/
Copyright © 2024 by William Van Zyl
The Sliding-Walking Rock.
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Published by Five House Publishing (New Zealand)
First Publishing, January 2024
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More about the author at http://williamvanzyl.com/
