1 Corinthians 10:4

and did all drink the same spiritual drink This miraculous supply of water, vouchsafed on two occasions (Exodus 17:1-6; Numbers 20:1-11) belonged, like the manna, not to the natural, but to the spiritual order of God's Providence, which has its necessary points of contact with the lower and more contracted natural order, and issues in what we call miracles. Hence they were types of still greater miracles, which belong however more exclusively to the spiritual order of things, namely, the nourishing the Christian Church with the "spiritual food of the Body and Blood of Christ" In this sense, St Augustine (Tract. 26 super Joannem) says well, "Sacramenta illa fuerunt, in signis diversa fed in re quæ significatur paria," because it was Christ who was the miraculous support and preservation of the Israelites in the wilderness, as well as of Christians in their pilgrimage through the world.

for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan speak of a -well" which followed the Israelites in their wanderings. In the Bemidbar Rabbah(c. i.) it is a Rock, in shape like a bee-hive, which rolled. continually forward to accompany the Israelites on their way (for the tradition consult Wetstein, or Schöttgen). Our great Rabbinical scholar Lightfoot rejects this interpretation, and believes that the expression refers, not to the rock, but the streams which issued from it, and which were gathered into pools wherever they encamped. It was to this, and not to the rock, that the words in Numbers 21:17 are supposed to be addressed. Estius cites Psalms 78:16; Psalms 105:41 in support of the same view. See also Deuteronomy 9:21, -the brook that descended from the mount." Meyer thinks that the tradition was a later invention of the Rabbis, since the Targums in their present shape cannot be traced back farther than the second century. It possibly grew out of an older tradition, here referred to, that a spiritual power invisibly accompanied the Israelites, and ministered to their temporal wants.

and that Rock was Christ See last note but one. Christ was the true source of all their nourishment, and He went with them whithersoever they went He, the Angel of the Covenant (Exodus 23:20-21; Exodus 23:23; Exodus 32:34; Joshua 5:13) was their guide and their support. Cf. St John 4:10; John 4:14; John 7:37-38. For the term Rock, as applied to God, see Deuteronomy 32:4; Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:18; Deuteronomy 32:30-31; Deuteronomy 32:37; Psalms 18:1, and many other passages in the Psalms too numerous to quote. We can hardly dismiss this passage without quoting Bengel's remark; "Had there been more than two Sacraments, St Paul would have pointed out some spiritual resemblance to them."