A human question, and its answer
Is the LORD Among Us?
Thirsty and afraid in the wilderness, Israel turned on Moses and behind him questioned whether God was really with them at all. "Is the LORD among us, or not?" It is the doubting cry of people in the desert who cannot yet see the water.
“And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?”Exodus 17:7
Who asked, and why
Who asked, and why. The question was asked at Rephidim, in a place later named Massah and Meribah, meaning temptation and strife (Exod 17:7). Israel had been delivered from Egypt, had walked through the sea on dry ground, and had eaten bread from heaven, yet now "there was no water for the people to drink" (Exod 17:1). Real thirst is a real crisis, and their fear was not imaginary. Their little ones and their cattle would die without water. But their thirst curdled into accusation. "Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" (Exod 17:3). Moses cried to God, "they be almost ready to stone me" (Exod 17:4). Beneath the grumbling lay the deeper doubt that had been growing in them: whether the God who had done such wonders was truly present, or whether they had been abandoned to die. It is the question of every soul in a dry season who wonders if God has left, the question born where fear meets faith and struggles.
The answer
The answer. God did not rebuke Israel with silence; he answered their doubt with provision. "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so" (Exod 17:6). God himself stood upon the rock, and from it flowed water enough for a whole nation. The place was named Massah and Meribah as a lasting record, "because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?" (Exod 17:7). Notice how God answered. He did not deliver a lecture proving his presence; he gave water, an act of presence that met their need at its point of pain. Yet the name of the place remained a warning that Israel had doubted the God who had never left them. The answer to their question was there all along, standing on the rock beside them.
How Christ answers it
How Christ answers it. Paul lifts the veil on that desert scene and shows us who was truly present. "They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4). The Lord Israel doubted was the very one from whom their life flowed. In Jesus the question "Is the LORD among us?" receives its final answer, for he is Immanuel, "God with us" (Matt 1:23), and the smitten rock foreshadows the smitten Saviour. To the woman at the well he said, "whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst" (John 4:14), and standing in the temple he cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). The rock was struck so that the water might flow; Christ was smitten so that living water might reach us. When we ask in our dry seasons whether God is among us, the cross answers that he came near enough to be broken for us and lives to satisfy our thirst.
Questions people ask
Was Israel wrong to be thirsty and afraid?
Their thirst was real and their fear understandable; the danger was not their need but the way it hardened into accusing God of abandonment. God still met them with water, but the place was named to remember their doubt (Exod 17:7).
Does God always answer this question with provision?
Not always in the way we expect. Sometimes the answer is God's presence rather than a change in circumstances. Here he gave water, but the deeper answer to "Is the LORD among us?" is always yes, most fully shown in Christ, God with us.
How is the rock connected to Jesus?
Paul writes that the Rock that gave Israel water "was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4). The smitten rock pouring out water pictures the smitten Christ, who gives living water to all who come to him thirsty (John 7:37).