1 Corinthians 10:4, commentary and pictures

All Israel shared the same spiritual drink from the spiritual Rock who traveled with them through the wilderness after sharing the same cloud, sea, baptism and manna. That Rock was Christ himself, the invisible leader who guided, sheltered and taught them in cloud and fire while Moses and Aaron served only as visible leaders under him. The rock struck to give water was a figure of him smitten and wounded for transgressions, bearing divine wrath so the stream of salvation and living water could flow to every thirsty soul. It was to be smitten once because he was to be offered once, and afterward blessings are to be sought by speaking to the rock in his name. People in every age are saved through him alone, so the patriarchs and prophets had him as truly the water of life as believers do now. Even with his presence and all sharing the same spiritual blessings, many were overthrown for lust, idolatry, tempting him and murmuring, and these things were written as examples to warn those on whom the ends of the world are come not to fall the same way.

Words and Wilderness Setting

The word rendered followed means accompanied or went with them, not merely came after them. It is the same Greek word used for the angels following one another in Revelation 14, and its margin gives the sense went with them.

All Israel were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual meat, and all drank the same spiritual drink. They drank of that spiritual Rock that accompanied them, and that Rock was Christ.

By the power of his word Christ himself caused the refreshing stream to flow for them wherever need existed. It flowed not only at first from Horeb but again and again from clefts of rock beside their encampment. He stood by Moses at the rock in Horeb, with the cloud of glory resting directly before the rock, when water came from the flinty rock struck with the rod of God. He stood at the center of the rocks as the source of the life-giving water that gushed from the cleft rock and spread in streams across the barren desert.

God had led Israel to encamp where there was no water to prove them, to see whether after wonderful deliverance they would look to him in distress and trust him for food and water. He had promised to take them as his people, and they were to know he would not let them perish with thirst and to understand that all benefits came from him and he could give or remove them at will. Instead they murmured against Moses, demanded water, tempted the Lord, and questioned whether he was present with them and whether he had brought them out yet withheld water as well as bread, which was criminal unbelief. Because they did not endure this test of faith they failed it, and God suffered their enemies to make war with them to manifest to them from whence came their strength. The stream from the rock sustained the people through the journey, and its ceasing at Kadesh tested in the same way whether they would trust God or repeat their fathers’ unbelief and murmuring.

Christ Led Israel Personally

Christ himself was the spiritual Rock from whom Israel drank in the wilderness, and he went with them as their invisible leader through all their travels. He guided them in the cloud by day and the fire by night, directing when to camp and when to move, sheltering them and helping them despite their murmuring and rebellion. Moses recognized his presence with the people and relied on him as a real, present help in need and danger. By his power he cared for and delivered them throughout the journey, providing bread from heaven and water from the rock as lasting reminders of his care and mercy, manifesting divine love and patience. The wilderness provision of water pointed to him as the living water, recalled when Jesus invited the thirsty to come to him.

He was the angel sent to keep Israel in the way and bring them into the prepared place, whose voice they were to obey and not provoke, for he would not pardon transgressions because God's name was in him. He went before Moses and Joshua to lead his chosen people to Canaan, and he gave Moses the ceremonies and ordinances of the Jewish law to be repeated to the people. Moses and Aaron were only the visible leaders acting under him, while he ruled his people directly as his family with personal interest in every one of them. Veiled in the pillar of cloud he delivered more than a million people from Egyptian bondage and pledged himself to lead the vast multitude safely to the promised land if they would follow his guidance. As their safe guide he would have kept everyone who started from Egypt from falling a prey to disease or death in the wilderness if they had obeyed, but rebellion, unbelief, murmuring, ingratitude and self-exaltation brought punishment.

He was their instructor and teacher for forty years, speaking from the pillar of cloud and giving instruction through Moses. He made the principles of morality and religion clearer by particular precepts specifying duty to God and to fellow men, to protect life and guard the sacred law from being forgotten in an apostate world. He commanded the law and the Sabbath, statutes and judgments, ceremonies and ordinances, constantly setting the requirements of God before the people. Through Moses he commanded Israel to keep the Sabbath day holy, to labor six days but do no work on the seventh, remembering that the Lord brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and stretched-out arm. The people's ordered journey and assigned work, including the children's part, gave practical lessons in education, discipline, unity and obedience, teaching that prosperity and very life depended on obedience to all his statutes and judgments and on righteousness in all dealings with one another. The truths he gave then are to be gathered up, cherished and sacredly obeyed now, for his people today are likewise under divine guidance, and obedience brings perfect safety and marks of his favor while rejecting his plans leads to failure.

He was the leader of the Hebrews in all their wilderness travels and the source of their spiritual drink from the Rock that followed them, acknowledged by God's protection of Israel as his church with the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night and by safe conduct through the Red Sea. He sustained them in the wilderness and was active in the former dispensation, supplying bread from heaven and water from the rock and daily feeding them manna from heaven. He enriched them with precious truth as the river of God, supplying them through the Son with the dews and showers of grace. He led them invisibly and supplied the water of life, acting for them through nature and providence with love and patience.

Rock Symbolizes Smitten Christ

The wilderness rock was a figure and symbol of Christ, and its being struck was a sign of His being smitten in death. Through that death He causes living streams of salvation to flow to all who thirst. His words are the water of life offered to the world.

The smitten rock typified Christ wounded for human transgressions, that salvation might flow to people. He was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, bearing the wrath of an offended God so that the stream of salvation and living water might flow to all and even the very worst sinner may receive pardon. He is that rock smitten in the desert by the rod of Moses from which streams of pure water gushed forth. As that same rock in human flesh, the only-begotten Son of the Father from manger to cross, He calls weary, homesick, sin-sick souls to come to Him and drink, including many longing to understand the Lord and His ways and many disappointed and perplexed.

The rock was to be smitten once because Christ was to be offered once. Afterward blessings are to be asked for in the name of Jesus by speaking to the rock, and those who ask receive living water. Smiting the rock the second time took away the force of the lesson God purposed to teach and destroyed the significance of this beautiful figure of Christ.

The water from the rock represented His life-giving words and love and the spiritual refreshment He offers. His words are the water of life, satisfying the soul's thirst for what does not perish. Received, His love and life become within the believer a spring and well unto everlasting life. Those who have this spring share it with others through good works, right example, and Christian counsel.

By His death He causes living streams to flow to all who thirst, and He is that living Rock and living water still. He stood before the people at the feast declaring Himself to be that same rock they had drunk from in the wilderness. His invitation for any thirsty person to come to Him and drink continues that same desert gift. The ceremony on the last great day of the feast commemorated that desert giving while pointing to Him.

Salvation Through Christ Always

People in every age are saved through Christ, so the patriarchal and prophetic age was not a Christless age. He was just as truly the water of life to Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and all who received his instruction then as he is now to those who ask of him the refreshing draft. The patriarchs and prophets were Christians, for the gospel was already proclaimed before the Christian era. As invisible leader of God's ancient chosen people through all their travels in the wilderness, he enriched them with precious truth as the river of God and supplied them through the Son with the dews and showers of grace. Enshrouded in the pillar of cloud, he guided the children of Israel and gave directions to Moses to be given to them, and there was plenty of light in that old way to lead every soul to the abodes of bliss, so to pour contempt upon that old way is to pour contempt upon Christ himself. His grace has sustained his people throughout history, though people often overlook his blessings and take credit for them.

The Old and New Testament Scriptures do not contradict each other, because Christ was the originator and foundation of all the Jewish ceremonies and the true leader of Israel enshrouded in the cloudy pillar, while Moses was only the administrator of God's law. The ceremonies he gave Israel were sacred and prophetic types that pointed to mysteries in the plan of redemption and to his work. Types and shadows were to exist in religious worship until Christ was given to the world, and type met antitype in the death of Jesus Christ. He took the death penalty and suffered all that was necessary so human nature could endure and the world could be saved. True religion under the former dispensation was just as essential and thorough and full in its requirements as under the gospel dispensation when Christ himself became the minister of the better covenant, and the passing of those types did not mean that God's enduring moral law was abolished.

This same Christ was the angel God sent to keep Israel in the way and to bring them into the prepared place, going before Moses and guiding the travels of the children of Israel in the wilderness. His voice they were to obey and not provoke, for he would not pardon transgressions because God's name was in him. He gave Moses the ceremonies and ordinances of the Jewish law to be repeated to the people, with both moral precepts and ceremonial requirements. His teachings and miracles were therefore in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law, upholding rather than displacing the law and not supplanting it or lessening its claims. In union with the Father he proclaimed the law at Sinai as leader of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, showing that the law and the Sabbath were not merely Jewish traditions to be rejected as such.

It was Christ himself who was with his church in the wilderness, leading from the pillar of cloud and constantly setting the requirements of God before the people. Through Moses he commanded Israel to keep the Sabbath day holy, to labor six days but do no work on the seventh day, and to remember that the Lord brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and stretched-out arm as the reason to keep it. He conducted the Hebrews on their journey and daily fed them manna from heaven to preserve their physical lives. That wilderness provision points to Christ, God's gift, as the true bread from heaven and the bread of life through whom people may receive spiritual life and immortality. When the people later reminded him that their fathers ate manna in the desert, they were blindly referring him in caviling unbelief to a miracle he himself had wrought, for as God gave manna to preserve physical life, so the Father sent his Son that through him they might eat the bread of life and become immortal. Temporal food is thus to be shared unselfishly so others will receive spiritual food.

Warning From Israel's Fall

All drank the same spiritual drink from the spiritual Rock that went with them, and that Rock was Christ, after all being under the cloud, all passing through the sea, all being baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all eating the same spiritual meat. But with many of them God was not well pleased, and they were overthrown in the wilderness. Shared spiritual provision did not make them immune to temptation or unfaithfulness, and did not save those who disobeyed. Their history warns God's people not to repeat their unbelief.

Their sins to be shunned were lusting after evil things as they lusted, idolatry, fornication, tempting Christ, and murmuring. Lightness, vanity, love of ease and pleasure, selfishness, impurity, rebellion, and gratification of appetite also brought judgment, and the blessings rewarding obedience stand beside the judgments following disobedience as an example. Murmuring brought destruction by the destroyer, tempting Christ brought destruction by serpents, and fornication brought falling in one day. Through gratification of appetite Satan overthrew them so that nearly all who left Egypt died in the wilderness.

These things happened as examples and were written for admonition upon those on whom the ends of the world are come. The faithful record joins mighty miracles wrought for them with murmurings, rebellious discontent, idolatry, ingratitude, rebellion and punishment, for if only virtues were told the history would fail to teach what God intended. Their experience is also recorded in Psalm 105 and Psalm 106, which God's people in the last days especially need to study, those psalms to be read at least once every week. The wilderness life was chronicled for the benefit of the Israel of God till the close of time, fraught with warning and instruction in exposure to hunger, thirst and weariness and in striking manifestations of power for relief in giving drink. Believers are to benefit by reviewing with humble heart and teachable spirit the trials through which ancient Israel passed as a school of preparation for the promised home in Canaan, seeing where the favored and responsible were overcome by temptation and fell even as people fall now, yet through grace could gain fresh vigor to rise above evil nature, take heart again and conquer, which encourages desponding hearts to renew the conflict rather than despair. The Bible, not the experience of men, is the needed evidence and counselor bringing truth down from age to age in testimony to the unchangeableness of truth, no ancient defense worn out and no part dead from old age, so that he who thinks he stands will take heed lest he fall.

The same snares that tested Israel just before entering Canaan confront God's people again in preparation for the heavenly Canaan, for Satan laid snares then and lays the same snares now. Present believers are repeating that history through self-indulgence of appetite in eating and drinking as they please, which leads gradually to carelessness of instruction on other phases of present truth and ends surely in reaping as sown. Some among the remnant wish to move independently, unwilling to submit to the teachings of the Spirit of God and to listen to advice and counsel, choosing unsanctified human judgment and despising counsel and reproof, which brings departure from the faith and disaster and ruin of souls. There is need for holiness and power, for watchfulness and sobriety instead of sleeping as do others, for reproof of sin in the church, and for men firm and fearless in declaring the whole counsel of God rather than weakness, inefficiency and self-exaltation unlike Christ. Those who murmured and complained and refused to turn from evil ways perished in the wilderness, while the obedient were sustained and strengthened and were light-bearers to the nations through whose land they passed, meaning God's faithful people today are to be aggressive missionaries consecrating all resources, talents and powers of mind and body to God's honor and using institutions He has established for saving the world.

Being led by Christ did not excuse disobedience, for He spoke from the pillar of cloud for their good but His word did not benefit them because they failed to receive it by faith, put it into practice, heed His voice, and trust and move forward. Their murmuring and complaining was sin against Christ Himself, not merely Moses, and He bore their iniquities and suffered more deeply than Moses did. Lack of faith in those words, refusal to trust, rejection of Him as Redeemer, and rebellion, unbelief, murmuring against Moses and Aaron for bringing them out of Egypt, ingratitude and self-exaltation left them a troubled history and brought punishment, ruin and Jerusalem's destruction. He had pledged to lead more than a million delivered from Egyptian bondage safely to the promised land and would have kept everyone who started from Egypt from falling prey to disease or death in the wilderness if they had obeyed and remembered the evidence that Moses talked with God. If the teachings and commandments given in the cloud had been obeyed, the nation would have stood forth to glorify God above every nation and people, with heavenly protection, triumph and no need for Jerusalem to be destroyed.

Christ the Foundation Today

Christ is the eternal Rock, the Rock of Ages, the solid and only sure foundation on which every person must build and plant the feet firmly. Building on him means hearing his voice, doing his will, and accepting his word as it reads, standing on the platform of truth in Christ rather than on the shifting sand of men's words. So grounded, the believer endures trial, opposition, persecution, storm and tempest, moral evil, temptation and error, and is not deceived by Satan's deceptive workings or swept away by the world's influence. The structure so built stands secure, holds firm through the coming test, and brings rest, peace, growth, fruitfulness, and power to influence others and draw sinners toward safety.

To be anchored, riveted and rooted to him is to rely on him and follow him in humility, meekness and lowliness, trusting and obeying his words and heeding warnings rather than following changeable men. This anchoring is without self-centered theatrical display, for exhibition woven with self opens the way for bewitching power, while the lowly follower carries an altogether different influence. He never changes, and is a rock of strength, a shelter and hiding place without fear, a river in a dry place, beside his people to conquer and save. Joined to him by thorough conversion and radical change of life and character, teachers and believers gain a steady basis for faith, unity, steadfastness against error, recovery of clearness, loyalty to the Sabbath, and hope full of immortality, lifted above skepticism and unbelief into security and triumph.

Falling upon that Rock means the heart broken of pride, self-reliance and self-righteousness, yielding to the working of the Spirit and permitting the old nature to be broken up. It means coming in broken repentance and confession without delay, as a helpless sin-sick soul seeking pardon and strength to resist temptation, seeing his spotless purity, losing confidence in own goodness, and trusting his word and promises through temptation and discouragement into the light of his love. With this surrender comes the implanted new nature, knowledge of God, communion with him and trust, and even one whose fault is ever so grievous finds sure support, unfailing strength, pity, help, and salvation from death. Without it, people may hold truth only in theory and fail to recognize it, like those represented by the foolish virgins who regard truth, advocate truth and are attracted to believers yet rest content with a superficial work.

Drinking from the Rock means daily partaking of Christ for spiritual life as food is for the body, eating his flesh and drinking his blood from the living fountain that still flows from himself. What is eaten spiritually composes the eater, so those who keep heavenly principles before the mind and instilled in the heart are transformed into his likeness, and his presence within becomes a well of water springing up to everlasting life. Its streams are unceasing, and ministers need to drink deeply from them for renewed spiritual life and changed experience, through conversion anew, rather than seeking the temporary excitement produced by debate or opposition. The sick are to be told that Christ is their Rock by workers who keep him at the head, copying his life, following his manner of teaching, and holding to the principles of the Word un-defiled by worldly plans.

All who partake of the same spiritual food and drink from the same spiritual Rock feel one want and entire dependence on him for strength, life, prosperity, and divine wisdom to be received and imparted. This sitting together in Christ requires self crucified, controversies hushed, old grudges given up, injuries forgiven, enmities and bitterness buried lest the root of bitterness spring up to its harvest. Feet must be firmly set on the Rock by precept and example, with living faith in Christ as a personal Saviour and the power of his grace known in heart and life, counting every selfish interest as nothing to win souls. Only this firm standing gives influence in a skeptical world, establishes the weak, wavering and straying who are in danger of losing their souls, and makes it possible to draw sinners out of the swift-running current.