This is the third of three testing narratives in this section (cf. Overview of 15:22–17:16). Similarly to the previous two, the people have a need, doubt the Lord’s goodness, and then see him miraculously and graciously provide. Unlike in the previous two, in which the Lord tested his people, this time the people test the Lord—an act universally condemned in the Bible as a sign of unbelief (cf. 17:2). Indeed, whereas the last passage ended by commemorating the Lord’s faithfulness (16:31–36), this passage ends by commemorating the people’s faithlessness (17:7), a tragic reminder of what rebellious unbelief looks like in action. The Lord is to be trusted, not tested.

  III.  Israel travels through the wilderness to Sinai: the Lord tests his people and provides for their needs (15:22–17:16)

A.  Three stories of testing and provision in the wilderness (15:22–17:7) . . .

3.  The Israelites test the Lord and he provides for their needs (17:1–7)

Why Does God Test His People?

It is one thing to profess faith and love for God but quite another to trust and love him in real life. Tests of faith help to show whether our profession matches our behavior (Deut. 8:2; 13:3; Judg. 2:21–22; 3:1–4). As in our passage, the test often consists of a difficult situation requiring obedient faith (Gen. 22:1–2; Deut. 8:2, 16). True faithfulness is shown not when obedience is easy but when it is hard. Will we follow God not only when the sun shines but also when dark clouds gather? True faith shows itself most clearly when we march on during the storm, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2).

But testing not only gives us an opportunity to show faithfulness; it also helps us to become more faithful. Moses later explains that the Israelites were tested in order to humble them, putting them into situations where their self-reliance was shown to be bankrupt (Deut. 8:2–3, 16). Such humbling is never easy. It involves dying to self and can make it feel like our bones are being broken. But God does not break his people’s bones to cause pain; he does so to straighten their crooked limbs. This is why testing is described as doing Israel “good in the end” (Deut. 8:16). The humbling is meant to help them to stop living as though they are their own saviors and to start living with the Lord as their Savior (Deut. 8:3). Indeed, as the testing narratives in Exodus 15–17 make clear, the Lord is present during the test all along, ready to help, strengthen, and deliver. In short, tests are meant to rescue us from foolish self-reliance and to bring us to reliance on the God who faithfully walks with us in our trials. This is the lesson Paul would learn. During a trial that made his weakness clear, he came to rejoice because the trial also helped him to experience the grace and strength of Christ to make him strong (2 Cor. 12:7–10; cf. Heb. 12:4–11; James 1:2–4).

All this should lead us to ask, How am I responding to the trials in my life right now? Can I see ways the Lord might be humbling me through this and wanting me to learn to rely on him instead of myself? These are the questions the Israelites should have been asking themselves, but sadly they did not.

How Do the Israelites Respond to These Tests?

In each of the three scenes the Israelites respond to the test by grumbling or quarreling (Ex. 15:24; 16:2; 17:2). While they aim their complaints at Moses, he makes clear that they are actually complaining about the Lord (16:7–8; 17:2). It was the Lord who had led them out of Egypt, and it was his pillar of cloud and fire that is leading them through the wilderness. This, too, is a reminder: if God really is the sovereign King, grumbling or complaining is something we ultimately do against him.

The Israelites’ complaints are especially tragic considering what has recently occurred. The Lord heard their cries for help in Egypt and delivered them through miraculous and unheard-of strikes against the land. He then came down in a pillar of cloud and fire and led them out of that land and remained among them as a faithful guide. He divided the sea in two so that they could walk safely through, and then he destroyed the most powerful army on earth in order to protect them. And, even after he provides for their thirst and hunger in the first two narratives, they are still complaining in the third.

In fact, it is worse, for now they put God to the test, asking, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (17:7). Their question differs from those in lament psalms. There the psalmists ask similar questions but from a posture of belief; they seek to understand as they remember the goodness of God’s character and deeds. Not surprisingly, their prayers typically end with affirmations that God is good and can be trusted (Psalm 13 is a classic example, though cf. Psalms 3–7; 9–10; 22; 25; 27–28; etc.). In this text the Israelites’ posture is rebellious unbelief, as they choose to ignore or forget what they have learned about God’s good character and deeds. As a result, they look at their difficulty and conclude God cannot be good and therefore cannot be trusted—unless he meets their demands to show them otherwise. This is the wrong posture for the creation to take before its Creator, and numerous passages use this and similar passages to warn that testing God is something his people must never do (Num. 14:22–23; Deut. 6:16; Pss. 78:17–20, 40–41, 56; 95:7–11; 106:13–15; Matt. 4:7; Heb. 3:7–12).

Sadly, the Israelites’ complaining is accompanied by disobedience, especially in the second narrative, in which the Lord issues very specific commands about not leaving any manna for the next day (Ex. 16:16, 19) and not collecting any manna on the seventh (vv. 5, 23, 25–26). Following these commands takes obedient trust, since the natural instinct in the wilderness would be to gather as much food as possible while it is available and to ration what one gathers. This is in fact what some of the Israelites do (vv. 20, 27–29). When choosing between trusting God’s commands versus following their natural intuitions, their intuitions win out.

This is not simply an ancient problem.

The same sort of challenge exists today. If people think God demands a behavior that runs against their intuitive sense of what is right, or pleasurable, or reasonable, or just “not so bad” (sex out of marriage, e.g.), it is easy for them not to take a commandment seriously, which (although few realize it) is the same as not taking God seriously.312

Are there ways in which we might be following the footsteps of the Israelites? In every culture certain parts of the Bible will feel unnatural, even counterintuitive. How is this the case in our culture? The life of faith is one that evaluates culture in light of biblical standards, not the Bible in light of cultural standards. The Israelites struggle with this, which leads to a final question.

How Does the Lord Respond to the Israelites?

Fortunately, the Lord responds to his slow-to-believe people with tremendous grace. This can be seen in two ways. First, he withholds punishment for their complaints and disobedience. In later passages the Lord will respond to complaints and disobedience with strong discipline (Num. 11:1–3, 33–34; 14:20–23, 26–37; etc.). In these three accounts, however, he does not. This is similar to Exodus 3–4, in which the Lord responds very patiently with Moses’ reluctance to obey—up to a point (cf. 3:1–4:13 with 4:14–17). Like a good parent, the Lord eventually meets disobedience with discipline but begins with patience and grace as the child is learning to obey. Here the Israelites are in their infancy in their relationship with the Lord, and he responds patiently to their childlike complaining and disobedience.

But the Lord also provides bountifully for their physical needs, turning bitter waters sweet (15:25, 27), raining meat and bread into the camp (16:13–15), giving them a day of rest (16:23), and causing water to pour out of the rock (17:5–6). Not surprisingly, later OT writers look back on these events and break out in praise and thanksgiving for how lavishly the Lord provides for his people’s material needs (Neh. 9:15; Pss. 78:15–16, 20, 23–25; 105:40–41; 114:8; Isa. 48:21).

In the NT at least two passages look back on some of the same events and see them as early signs of how the Lord will lavishly provide for our spiritual needs in Jesus. The first is very brief and found in 1 Corinthians 10:4, where “Paul alludes to this passage, implying that when the Israelites physically drank and ate in the wilderness, they shared spiritually with those who centuries later would feast on Christ.”313 In short the provision of manna points to the provision of life in Jesus. The second passage, which is more extended, does the same. As John 6 begins, Jesus miraculously provides bread for a large crowd (John 6:1–13). The next day the crowd asks him to do the same and refers to the manna provided in the wilderness (John 6:30–31). Jesus responds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Once more the manna points ahead to Jesus. There is a hunger of the soul that can be satisfied only in him. Just as our stomachs need the nourishment that only food provides, so our souls need the nourishment that only Jesus provides. Our temptation is to attempt to satisfy that hunger with earthly things, which Jesus warns against in this passage: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:27; cf. 6:49–51).

That God provides such sustenance for us in Jesus testifies again to his lavish provision for our needs, which brings us full circle to the issue of testing. If God has provided for our deepest needs so richly in Jesus, is he not worthy of our trust in the face of current trials? As Paul asks,

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? . . . Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:32, 35, 37–39)

No matter what trial may come, we know that the love the Father has shown us in Christ has not left us and never will. And that is why we can continue to trust and obey.Exodus 17:1–7

Exodus 17:8–16