1 COR. x. 4. “And
did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of
that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ.”

THERE is an allusion in these words to a tradition among
the Jews, not mentioned in the Old Testament, that a well
formed out of the spring at Horeb, gathered itself up into
a rock, and followed the people for forty years, sometimes
rolling of itself, sometimes carried by Miriam. The use
of an illustration does not commit a man to its actual truth,
and there is no reason, but the reverse, to believe that Paul
credited it.
I. The Lord Jesus was as truly present in the Jewish
as He is in the Christian Church. The Angel of the
Covenant occupied as important a place relatively in the
Old Testament as the Lord Jesus in the New; and Jewish
as well as Christian theologians have acknowledged him to
be the Messiah (Exod. iii. 2; Acts vii. 38; Exod. xxiii.
2O; Josh. v. 13; Isa. Ixiii. 8, 9).
Here are incarnations of Christ. As we read of Him
thus following His ancient people in their long pilgrim-
ages, satisfying their spiritual needs with Himself the
living water, we are not only touched to think of the
strange and wonderful interest He has ever taken in man,
but we read with new thankfulness and delight His words:
“If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.”
II. There is a warning in these words. The Jews all
drank of the same spiritual drink, and yet with the greater
part of them God was not well pleased, for they were over-
thrown in the wilderness. The higher spiritual privileges
are no infallible security against apostacy. “Take heed,
brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of un-
belief, in departing from the living God.”
G. S. Barrett, B.A.