25 And in answer to his prayer, the Lord made him see a tree, and when he put it into the water, the water was made sweet. There he gave them a law and an order, testing them;
For the purpose of testing Israel by them, to see if they would give ear to the orders of the Lord, which he had given to their fathers by the hand of Moses.
And keep in mind the way by which the Lord your God has taken you through the waste land these forty years, so that he might make low your pride and put you to the test, to see what was in your heart and if you would keep his orders or not.
For you, O God, have put us to the test: testing us by fire like silver.
Now these are the nations which the Lord kept in the land for the purpose of testing Israel by them, all those who had had no experience of all the wars of Canaan;
Who gave you manna for your food in the waste land, a food which your fathers had never seen; so that your pride might be broken and your hearts tested for your good in the end;
Then the Lord said to Moses, See, I will send down bread from heaven for you; and the people will go out every day and get enough for the day's needs; so that I may put them to the test to see if they will keep my laws or not.
But he said, Get some meal. And he put it into the pot, and said, Now give it to the people so that they may have food. And there was nothing bad in the pot.
Then he went out to the spring from which the water came, and put salt in it, and said, The Lord says, Now I have made this water sweet; no longer will it be death-giving or unfertile.
You have cause for great joy in this, though it may have been necessary for you to be troubled for a little time, being tested in all sorts of ways, So that the true metal of your faith, being of much greater value than gold (which, though it comes to an end, is tested by fire), may come to light in praise and glory and honour, at the revelation of Jesus Christ:
For the word of the cross seems foolish to those who are on the way to destruction; but to us who are on the way to salvation it is the power of God.
So the Lord of armies has said, See, I will make them soft in the fire and put them to the test; this I will do because of their evil-doing.
The heating-pot is for silver and the oven-fire for gold, but the Lord is the tester of hearts.
When his cry comes up to me, I will give him an answer: I will be with him in trouble; I will make him free from danger and give him honour.
You gave a cry in your trouble, and I made you free; I gave you an answer in the secret place of the thunder; I put you to the test at the waters of Meribah. (Selah.)
And the people said to Joshua, No! But we will be the servants of the Lord. And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have made the decision to be the servants of the Lord. And they said, We are witnesses. Then, he said, put away the strange gods among you, turning your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to Joshua, We will be the servants of the Lord our God, and we will give ear to his voice. So Joshua made an agreement with the people that day, and gave them a rule and a law in Shechem.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Exodus 15
Commentary on Exodus 15 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 15
In this chapter,
Exd 15:1-21
Having read how that complete victory of Israel over the Egyptians was obtained, here we are told how it was celebrated; those that were to hold their peace while the deliverance was in working (ch. 14:14) must not hold their peace now that it was wrought; the less they had to do then the more they had to do now. If God accomplishes deliverance by his own immediate power, it redounds so much the more to his glory. Moses, no doubt by divine inspiration, indited this song, and delivered it to the children of Israel, to be sung before they stirred from the place where they saw the Egyptians dead upon the shore. Observe,
Exd 15:22-27
It should seem, it was with some difficulty that Moses prevailed with Israel to leave that triumphant shore on which they sang the foregoing song. They were so taken up with the sight, or with the song, or with the spoiling of the dead bodies, that they cared not to go forward, but Moses with much ado brought them from the Red Sea into a wilderness. The pleasures of our way to Canaan must not retard our progress, but quicken it, though we have a wilderness before us. Now here we are told,