irty-ninth
year of the Exodus they came to Ezion-gaber (Num. xxxiii. 36), which
was a part of the Red Sea a great way down the Arabian side, where it
is supposed the waters from Horeb went into that sea." Barnes says:
"Mount Horeb was higher than the adjacent country, and the water that
thus gushed from the rock, instead of collecting into a pool and
becoming stagnant, would flow off in the direction of the sea. The sea
to which it would naturally flow would be the Red Sea. The Israelites
doubtless, in their journeyings, would be influenced by the natural
direction of the water, or would not wander far from it, as it was
daily needful for the supply of their wants. At the end of thirty-seven
years we find the Israelites at Ezion-gaber, a seaport on the eastern
branch of the Red Sea, where the waters probably flowed into the sea
(Num. xxxiii. 36). In the fortieth year of their departure from Egypt,
they left this place to go into Canaan, by the country of Edom, and
were immediately in distress again by the want of water."

These comments involve several objectionable features. (1) The
Israelites were guided in their course by the pillar of cloud and fire;
not by the stream of water on its course to the sea. (2) Paul says the
rock followed them; not that they followed the river. (3) We can not
allow that when God sets out to work a miracle, He is defeated by
natural causes. The idea that the river ran into the sea, and left the
children of Israel without water, just because the situation would
naturally lead to that result, is to let go the miracle and have God
defeated, because the surroundings are not favorable! The idea that God
could cause a river to flow from a flinty rock, and then have to leave
it to seek its natural way to the sea, leaving His people destitute
when the surface of the country would be in the way of its natural
flow, is equaled only by admitting that God created the heavens and the
earth, but could not give sight to the blind or call Lazarus out of the
grave. We, therefore, repeat the question, If the river followed the
people, what became of it when they came into the wilderness of Zin?

On the hypothesis that it was the rock which followed them, just as
Paul says it was, there is nothing unreasonable in the supposition that
for some cause, not given, God withheld the flow of water to chastise
them for their wickedness, as He did in other ways, and make them
realize their dependence. As favoring t