ContradictionsReading order 465Bible context 2 min read
How did Moses get water out of the rock?
The passages prescribe different actions in parallel water episodes, while the third passage recalls testing without describing a water producing method.
- Textual conflict
- Weak contradiction
- The supplied passages do not establish incompatible claims. Different events, meanings, or conditions may account for the difference.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
Different water-producing instructions are not incompatible without identifying the two episodes as the same occasion.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
God commands Moses to strike the rock at Horeb
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?
Exodus 17:5-7
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Exodus 17
God commands Moses and Aaron to speak to a rock
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.