Exodus 15:25
Read Exodus 15:25 Using Other Translations
What does Exodus 15:25 mean?
And he cried unto the Lord
Or prayed, as all the Targums, that God would appear for them,
and relieve them in their distress, or, humanly speaking, they
must all perish: happy it is to have a God to go to in time of
trouble, whose hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his
ear heavy that he cannot hear! Moses knew the power of God, and
trusted in his faithfulness to make good the promises to him, and
the people, that he would bring them to the land he had swore to
give them:
and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into
the waters,
the waters were made sweet;
what this tree was is not known; if it was in its own nature
sweet, as the author of Ecclesiasticus seems to intimate, when he
says, in chapter 38:5 "was not the water made sweet with the
wood, that its virtue might be known?" Yet a single tree could
never of itself sweeten a flow of water, and such a quantity as
was sufficient for so large a number of men and cattle; and
therefore, be it what it will, it must be owing to a miraculous
operation that the waters were made sweet by it: but the Hebrew
writers say the tree was bitter itself, and therefore the miracle
was the greater: Gorionides
F12 says it was wormwood; and both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it the bitter tree, Ardiphne, which Cohen de Lara F13 makes to be the same which botanists call Rhododaphne or rose laurel, and which, he says, bears flowers like lilies, which are exceeding bitter, and are poison to cattle; and so says Baal Aruch F14; and much the same has Elias Levita F15: and this agrees well enough with the mystical and spiritual application that may be made of this; whether these bitter waters are considered as an emblem of the bitter curses of the law, for that bitter thing sin, which makes work for bitter repentance; and for which the law writes bitter things against the sinner, which, if not prevented, would issue in the bitterness of death; so that a sensible sinner can have nothing to do with it, nor can it yield him any peace or comfort: but Christ, the tree of life, being made under the law, and immersed in sufferings, the penalty of it, and made a curse, the law is fulfilled, the curse and wrath of God removed, the sinner can look upon it with pleasure and obey it with delight: or whether these may be thought to represent the afflictions of God's people, comparable to water for their multitude, and for their overflowing and overwhelming nature, and to bitter ones, being grievous to the flesh; especially when God hides his face and they are thought to be in wrath: but these are sweetened through the presence of Christ, the shedding abroad of his love in the heart, the gracious promises he makes and applies, and especially through his bitter sufferings and death, and the fruits and effects thereof, which support, refresh, and cheer, see ( Hebrews 12:2 Hebrews 12:3 ) ,
there he
made a statute and an ordinance:
not that he gave them at this time any particular law or precept,
whether moral or ceremonial, such as the laws of keeping the
sabbath and honouring of parents, which the Targum of Jonathan
mentions F16; and to which Jarchi adds that
concerning the red heifer: but he gave them a general instruction
and order concerning their future behaviour; that if they
hearkened to his commandments, and yielded obedience to them, it
would be well with them, if not they must expect to be chastised
and afflicted by him, as is observed in the following verse, to
which this refers:
and there he
proved them;
the people of Israel; by these waters being first bitter and then
sweetened, whereby he gave them a proof and specimen how it would
be with them hereafter; that if they behaved ill they must expect
the bitter waters of affliction, but, if otherwise, pleasant and
good things: or, "there he proved him" F17;
Moses, his obedience and faith, by ordering him to cast in the
tree he showed him; but the former sense seems best to agree with
what follows.
F12 Heb. Hist l. 6. c. 38. p. 742.
F13 Ir. David, p. 21.
F14 Fol. 51. 3.
F15 In Methurgeman, fol. 9. 2.
F16 So T. Bab. Sanhedrin. fol. 56. 2.
Seder Olam Rabba, c. 5. p. 17.
F17 (whon) "tentavit eum", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius, V.
L. Tigurine version; "prebavit eum", Vatablus; "tentavit ipsum",
Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
