000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

There is testing of another kind going on in this passage—God is still
testing the people Israel (16:4). In today’s passage, the people still have difficulty
trusting God and understanding that God’s purposes are not identical
with theirs. So they put God to the test, in the fashion of those prayers
we sometimes hear that regard God as our cosmic fetcher, the One who
is to deliver to us whatever we ask for.
But God does not respond with anger to Moses’ plea, “What shall I do
with this people?” (v. 4). Instead, God instructs Moses to take the elders
of the people and the staff with which he struck the Nile, making the water
in the Nile unfit to drink (Exod. 7:17–18), and go to Horeb and strike the
rock “and water will come out of it” (17:6). This water is life-giving.
Horeb is Sinai, where Moses will receive the Torah from God. Both
Torah and life-giving water are received from God at Sinai. In Deuteronomy
30:19, after having given the Torah to Israel, God declares: “I have
set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life, so that you
and your descendants may live.” Torah is not an arbitrary compilation of
laws foisted upon the people for the purpose of subjecting them to an
authoritarian rule. The recurrent themes of Torah are the treatment of
the stranger whom we are to love as we love ourselves, the plight of orphans
and widows, the oppression of the poor by the rich, the cruel and unjust
behavior of the powerful. The vulnerable other is the one whose voice
speaks through the Torah. The Torah is God’s instruction as to how the
people of God are to live if they are to receive life and well-being. Not living
by Torah, committing idolatry, theft, murder, breaking up families by
lusting after our neighbors’ spouses, is to bring curse and death upon ourselves
as a consequence of our decisions and behavior.
Our passage relates life-giving water to life-giving Torah. One is essential
to our physical well-being, the other to our personal and communal
well-being; without either, we die. Jesus, too, gives us living water (John
4:10–15).
Fourth Sunday in Lent/Year A
1 Samuel 16:1–13
Fourth Sunday in Lent/Year A 35
This lection presupposes the Deuteronomic theology (see Proper 17/Year
B), especially the Deuteronomic editing of the books of Samuel (see
Proper 2/Year B) and the request of the elders to change Israel from a confederacy
living in covenant under the leadership of judges and prophets
to a monarchy. Although Samuel warned against such a course (1 Sam.