When God led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and into the Wilderness, their first great need was water. With two million pilgrims and all their flocks and herds, the need was colossal. Here’s what happened…
“Then Moses led Israel on from the Red Sea, and they went out to the Wilderness of Shur. They journeyed for three days in the wilderness without finding water. They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water at Marah because it was bitter—that is why it was named Marah. The people grumbled to Moses, ‘What are we going to drink?’ So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he threw it into the water, the water became drinkable” (Exodus 15:22–25).
When the nation was camped at the base of Mount Sinai, God instructed Moses to take his staff and strike a huge boulder. Miraculously, water gushed from the rock! (Exodus 17:1-7). Later, when the nation needed water, God instructed Moses to “speak to the rock” (Numbers 20:8). He didn’t. He stuck the rock and God brought forth water.
Hundreds of years later, Israel (the northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom) joined forces to fight against the Moabites. Strategically, instead of charging them directly, they determined to sneak up on the Moabites from the south. So, they marched out into the Wilderness, the Sinai Peninsula, the very same desert that the Israelites had wandered through for forty years. Guess what happened. They ran out of water.
Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah said, “Isn’t there a prophet of the Lord here? Let’s inquire of the Lord through him.” One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, ‘Elisha … is here’ ” (2 Kings 3:11). Only God knows why Elisha was hanging out hundred of miles from home, in the middle of the desert, but he was there.
The kings pleaded with Elisha to tell them how to find water where there was no water, only miles and miles of dry sand. Did God tell them to strike the rock, or to speak to the rock? Nope. “This is what the Lord says: ‘Dig ditch after ditch in this wadi.’ For the Lord says, ‘You will not see wind or rain, but the wadi will be filled with water, and you will drink—you and your cattle and your animals’ ” (2 Kings 3:16–17).
God provides.
“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).
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