EXODUS—NOTE ON Exodus 17:6 at Horeb. See note on 3:1. I will stand before you there on the rock. A further example of God’s promise to Moses, “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12). The Lord’s presence presumably was in the pillar of cloud (see Exodus 13:21). Because of God’s promise to stand there “on the rock,” some interpreters see a close identification between God’s presence and the rock itself. The command, you shall strike the rock, is therefore understood as a command to strike God himself, the source of the life-giving water that flowed from the rock.

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