Water from the rock
The Old Testament
“Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Exodus 17:6
Read the full text in a modern translation BSB
Read the full text (14 verses)
In the New Testament
and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4
BSB
Read the full text in a modern translation BSB
Read the full text (8 verses)
The people are thirsty in the wilderness and quarrel with Moses. God says: smite the rock, and water will come out of it. Moses strikes, and the people drink.
Paul writes something surprising: they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. He is drawing on a Jewish tradition that the rock travelled along with the people. John draws the line differently. At the feast Jesus cries that whoever is thirsty should come to him and drink. And on the cross, after the spear thrust, blood and water come out of his side. The struck rock and the struck body: from both comes life. In the second story Moses strikes the rock in anger when he was told to speak to it, and so he is not allowed into the land.