Major Events in the Wilderness Journey: Marah to Wilderness of Sin

Introduction

This evening we are looking at the major events that took place across the 4th to 7th campsites.

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So here are the campsites, and the 4th to 7th campsites are Marah, Elim, by the Red Sea, and the wilderness of Sin. Before we get into it, I’d like to read the scripture reading for today.

Scripture reading: Ex. 15:22-26

Exodus 15:22–26 ESV

Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”

God gives two commands

The Israelites arrived at Marah on the 24th day of the 1st month. How do we know this?

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We saw that they crossed the Red Sea on the night of the 21st day of the 1st month. And the Bible tells us that they journeyed for three days in the wilderness before arriving at Marah (Ex. 15:22-23).

Marah means “bitterness.” And it was named so because the Israelites had travelled for three days without a source of water. They come to Marah and see an oasis of water, and they rush there, kneel down, they drink, and it tastes bitter, like seawater.

And so the Israelites grumbled to Moses. Moses cries out to God, and God tells him to throw a log into the water. And the water becomes sweet.

And after this, God gave them two things. A statute, and a regulation.

Exodus 15:25 (NASB95)

Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them.

The Hebrew word for statute is חֹק (hoq). Regulation is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat).

The word for “statute” in Hebrew is Hoq, and it means “something prescribed, owed, or what is appointed.” It comes from the word haqaq (חקק), which means “to inscribe, cut in, mark, decree, or boundary.” So this highlights the forcefulness of God’s Word.

The word for “regulation” in Hebrew is Mishpat, which means “judgement, decision, or sentence.” And it comes from the word “shaphat”, meaning “to judge, or to govern”. So this regulation from God is how we grow in wisdom and discernment, to judge between what’s right and what’s wrong.

And both of these words are used in the singular form, meaning that God gave one of each. But when these two words are used together, they refer to the Ten Commandments. You can see this in Deut. 5:1.

So this means that at Marah, God gave two of the Ten Commandments in advance. In fact, you could say that He gave the compressed summary of the Ten Commandments.

How do we know? The proof is in Deuteronomy, when Moses reiterates the Ten Commandments for the Israelites. He adds something extra. He says “As the Lord your God commanded you.” But only for the 4th and 5th commandment. Nothing else.

Deuteronomy 5:12 ESV

“ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.

Deuteronomy 5:16 ESV

“ ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Now, if we go back to Marah, it says that God tested them, as to whether they would obey the commandments or not.

Exodus 15:25 ESV

And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them,

So this is a clue as to how long the Israelites camped at Marah.

*SHOW CALENDAR*

Which day did they arrive at Marah?

They arrived on the 24th of the 1st month. That’s a sabbath day. And God tested them to see when they would keep the Sabbath day. So when’s the next sabbath day? The 1st day of the 2nd month. They would have stayed at Marah until the 1st day of the 2nd month, kept the sabbath there, and then depart on the 2nd day of the 2nd month.

So at Marah, God gave the 4th and 5th commandments. Before all the other Ten Comandments. Why? Because these two commandments give them something to do. All the other commandments say “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” On the other hand, the 4th and 5th commandments say to do something. Keep the Sabbath day holy. Honor your father and mother.

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And if we think about it, the only way to keep the Sabbath day is to keep the first three commandments. It’s as if God’s saying, “Keep the Sabbath day. And this is how you do it.” Don’t have any other gods. Don’t make carved images. Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain. These are like the pillars that keep the Sabbath day holy. Unless you have these pillars in your life, you can’t truly keep the Sabbath.

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The same goes for the 5th commandment to honor your father and mother. The Hebrew word for “honor” is kabod, which literally means to make something heavy. So if someone lives like a scumbag and breaks the other commandments, their parents will be dishonored. That’s true even in our society today. If a man commits a terrible crime, his parents can’t show their faces in public. So unless you keep the 6th to 10th commandments, you can’t honor your parents.

God sends Manna

After leaving Marah, the Israelites camped at the 5th campsite Elim, 6th campsite by the Red Sea. And then they arrive and set up camp at the Wilderness of Sin. And by this time, it’s the 15th day of the 2nd month.

Exodus 16:1 ESV

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.

After arriving at the Wilderness of Sin, the people are officially out of food. And they grumble against Moses, and before Moses even has a chance to pray to God, God comes to him first. And God promises to send manna.

Exodus 16:3–4 ESV

and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

So when does the manna come?

The Israelites grumble about food on the 15th day of the 2nd month, and God sends it the very next day, on the 16th day.

*SHOW CALENDAR*

And it’s there on the ground every day for six days, but not on the seventh, because it was the Sabbath. And in order to eat on the Sabbath, God commanded them to collect twice as much manna on the sixth day. That’s all in Exodus 16:22-26.

So we can see that the manna started falling on a Sunday, the 16th. And the Sabbath was on the 22nd day of the 2nd month.

So God used manna to train the Israelites to keep the Sabbath.

Finally, how long did God provide manna for the Israelites? After they entered into Canaan and encamped at Gilgal, the 42nd campsite.

Joshua 5:10–12 ESV

While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

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That’s a total of 39 years and 11 months, or 2084 weeks.

Start: 16/2/1446

End: 15/1/1406

Conclusion

In conclusion, we need to place the tree of life into our hearts.

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God places the physical reality and the spiritual reality side by side for us to see and understand.

The physical reality is that the waters are bitter. God shows Moses a tree. And Moses throws the tree into the bitter waters, and it became sweet.

On the other hand, the spiritual reality is that the people’s spirits are bitter. Their words are bitter, and they’re grumbling against God and Moses. So what does God do? He gives us His Word.

So the tree and the Word of God are parallel. They turn things from bitter to sweet. And the tree symbolizes the tree of life, Jesus Christ the Word of God.

The sad thing is that the Israelites’ hearts remained bitter. They kept grumbling and complaining for the rest of the wilderness journey. But God never abandoned them. God kept sending manna every morning. Until when? Until they entered the promised land and camped at Gilgal. This is how much God loves us.

Even though we are so slow to learn, so slow to obey, so slow to put the tree of life into our hearts, God still gives us all that we need. The tree of life is with us. He’s always been there. And all we need to do is to invite Him in.

So finally, how can we invite Jesus into our lives? We have to go beyond just lip service. Many times it’s like we say “Come in, Jesus” but the door’s still locked.

We have to actually keep the Sabbath day holy. We have to actually put away our idols and stop behaving in a way that cheapens the name of God. Then when it’s the appointed time to meet with God, we can truly worship Him and keep the sabbath.

That’s how we can unlock the door to receive Jesus into our hearts, to turn the bitter waters sweet.