The Israelites had a history of trusting in God because of what they saw. The most famous example, which we repeat in the daily morning service, quotes their experience after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds: “Israel saw the wondrous power which God had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared God; they had faith in God and in God’s servant, Moses” (Exod. 14:31). They have needed this public, indisputable evidence of their eyes ever since. God knows that what they see is what is most important. And what he wants them to see is Moses speaking—not striking the rock, as he was commanded to do on the former occasion.
God seems to be trying to wean the Israelites from one kind of perception to another: from dependence on the visible and tangible to reliance on speech in connecting with God. At Sinai, all their senses were engaged, but the revelation itself was auditory. When Moses retells and reframes the story (Deut. 4:12), he reminds the people, “The sound of words you did hear, but no image did you see except the sound.” There is a grave danger in relying on the visible. The word for image in the verse above is temunah—the same word that is used in the Ten Commandments in the warning against idolatry (Exod. 20:4).
What God wants the people to see is that Moses speaks in performing the miracle at the rock. It is a potentially powerful transitional moment in which Moses’s publicly perceived action would be speech. What he would say would become part of the people’s religious consciousness—part of the repeated narrative of the people—a way of adducing to God a caring relationship with God’s people, and conveying that care to the people. We can imagine the speech Moses might give, performing the quintessential task of a prophet, in bringing God and the people closer together. Instead, he calls them “rebels,” distancing the people from himself and, by association, from God; disdaining their legitimate needs; and losing the opportunity to attribute the provision of water to God.
via The Jewish Theological Seminary – Parashat Hukkat/Balak.
Interesting take on why Moses was told to speak to the rock and not strike it. For a generation that had sensory and sometimes tangible proof of God’s existence and providence, it makes sense that God should want them to follow His (God’s) ways without the need for constant miracles and revelations.
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