OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS

Exodus 17:1-7 is the first account of God providing Israel with water from a rock. Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16 is a historical psalm that recounts God's merciful guidance during Israel's wilderness wandering.

Exodus 17:1-7 - "Is the Lord in Our Midst or Not?"
Setting.   Exodus 17:1-7 is one of the early wilderness stories. The Lord has delivered Israel from Egypt in  Exodus 15  and the once enslaved people now have the responsibility of political freedom without the benefit of a country, because the Lord frees Israel into the wilderness. As the lesson makes very clear, this is a mixed blessing, for it means that Israel is still a people at risk. In many ways their enslavement to Egypt has really become an enslavement to God, for just as they could not live without Egyptian fa…