Let us turn to Exodus 17:1 and see how the account opens up. Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
The first thing that attracts our attention are the words by stages. That is by phases, meaning one period at a time. If one counts the different stages or stops made from Egypt to Israel, we have 42 of them, all listed in Numbers 33 and each one was designed to train and to prepare Israel for the work they were assigned to.
These then were stages of training, stops of sanctification before they reached the Promised Land. Just like it is with the believer in his own journey to our promised land, which is eternity in heaven. You probably noticed that I do not show you many maps, for the simple reason that no one really knows exactly where these places are, because what is important is not so much the location, but the lessons learned in each of them, and this is what the Hebrew word stages conveys to us.
It is the Hebrew word מַסַּע massar, which means quarry. What is a quarry? It is defined as a big pit dug on the ground to extract some valuable stones. The word really means to pull out, to remove like the process of sanctification in the believers where they have their attachment to sin extracted (or plucked out) more and more. This word מַסַּע massar is used right there at the building of the First Temple, which was prepared not from just any stones, but from those dug from a massar as we read in 1 Kings 6:7. The house (the Temple) was built of stone prepared at the quarry. For this verse, the Targum of Jerusalem translates the word quarry as perfectly fitted stones.
This can be linked to the believer who is today considered the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is into this temple, the believer in Yeshua, where the stones are being fitted together as Paul says in Ephesians 2:21, In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And training takes time. For Israel, this 10-day journey took 40 years. Yet right from the onset we are led to understand why they and we are encountering so many stops along the way. It was for their training and for ours as well. We also remember what 1Corinthians 10:6 teaches us: Paul informs us that Israel is an example of our own journey.
And it is in God’s response to Moses where we can see some great types and foreshadowing of the Messiah. In response to the grumbling and rebellion of Israel, one more time God shows His great grace and says to Moses in vs. 5-6, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at 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.
There is something in the way the Lord asked Moses to strike the rock that is unusual. This attracted the attention of some rabbis. Most translations have God asking Moses to strike the rock. But the Hebrew says, strike in the rock. Rashi, the well-known and respected medieval rabbi, wrote on this verse: It is not “strike at the rock,” but “more literally, “strike in the rock.” Why use the preposition in instead of at or on? How did the rod enter the rock? Rashi who is usually more down to earth in his interpretation of scripture, added: This shows that the rod was made of an extremely hard substance called sapphire, which could actually split the rock. But we, who have the revelation of the Brit Chadashah, can understand why it is written this way, for the rock is Yeshua and He was struck so that we may have everlasting life.
And this idea is developed further when we consider the word struck. This word נָכָה naka is a strong word and is used largely to describe a slaying, a killing and even a murder as when one strikes a man to death. Exodus 21:12
But it is also a word used in more than a few messianic prophecies about the mistreatment and killing of the Messiah. We see this in the famous prophecy of Isaiah 53, where in verse 4 it reads, Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. We read as well in Micah 5:1-2, With a rod they will smite the judge of Israel on the cheek. But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah… From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from everlasting, from the days of eternity.” Here we are told that He, the Judge and Ruler of Israel, is stricken and that, as a man, he will be born in Bethlehem.
We also see in Zechariah 13:7 that it says, Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered; And I will turn My hand against the little ones. This is the same word strike, pointing to when the Messiah was stricken and put on the Tav. It was not only His disciples who were scattered, but the whole of Israel was scattered to the four corners of the earth. These things then explain why the rod struck in the rock and this is confirmed by the words of Paul that the Rock is the Messiah.
Click Here for the Teaching: Exodus, Sermon 17: Messiah the Rock