seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Exodus 15:22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”
25 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.
There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. 26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.
Here's the link to the commentary.I left out some verses again. Basically, I left out Miriam's song and dance. After the Egyptian army was drowned, Miriam, Aaron's sister, started dancing and singing! It was pretty contagious.... I imagine a flash dance with timbrels and lots of skirt twirling. They had to be beyond happy once they saw Pharaoh's army wiped out like that. After a celebration they went on their journey to the "Promised Land". through the desert.
I live in Arizona now... just barely outside of the desert. Yesterday.... hubby was drawing water from the tap and the water turned brown. We don't drink the water out of the tap here. It's ok to make coffee with or to cook with, if I leave out the salt, but it's not drinkable out of the tap. But until yesterday, it was clear water. Hubby grabbed a glass bottle from under the sink and drew some brown water from the tap and I took it to the office.
Isn't it kind of strange... After all the hubbub I raised about the arsenic in the drinking water in CRE, I should have to carry some brown water to the rental office... I could almost giggle at the irony. It turns out the city had just tested all the fire hydrants in the community and that test stirred up some dust in the water lines. After a little while, the water went back to "clear" again.
Anyway... back to Moses and the water. Moses was instructed to throw the wood in the water. When he did, the water cleared up and became potable.
This is from the commentary.
In his work on the Exodus journey, Buckingham explains how this may have worked. The chemicals in the sap of the broken limb drew the mineral content down to the bottom of the pools and left only good water on top.
He further speculates that even though the waters were now drinkable, there was still a significant magnesium and calcium content in the water. The laxative effect of this would clean out the digestive systems of the children of Israel, cleansing them of common Egyptian ailments such as amoebic dysentery and bilharzia, a weakening disease common among Egyptian peasants. In addition, calcium and magnesium together form the basis of a drug called dolomite — used by some athletes as a performance enhancer in hot weather conditions. At Marah, God provided the right medicine to both clean out their systems, and prepare them for a long, hot march to Sinai.
Oh, I figure they got a good case of the poops!
Over the years, I thought these verses were about how God provided water for the refugees. Now I realize, God made them ready for the long trip across the desert. God said "follow my instructions and you won't get any of the sickness I brought on Egypt". Yep... He cleaned them out and made them capable of dealing with the dry desert heat.
Isn't that something.... God was healing them of any parasites or bacteria they might have picked up in Egypt... by leading them to a dolomite pool.
They got a good case of.... the poops!
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