The Staff and The Stone

The Knowledge of Good and Bad

Author’s Note:

This post is inspired by the thoughts and writings of Matthieu Pageau, and his recent comments on The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So far as I’m aware this particular take on The Staff and The Stone is unique to him. It’s his idea, I’m merely exploring it. Please give him a follow and consider purchasing his book which is a trove of insightful biblical wisdom.

Water From Rocks

Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him.

Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy. — Bible, Numbers 20: 2-13

Symbolism Happens.

When we speak of symbols, or when we say that something is “symbolic”, we tend to mean that it’s A) not real, and B) arbitrary. We tend to think that symbolism is a thing conjured up by theatre kids with too much time on their hands or screenplay writers trying to shoehorn a political point into a script. We have a tendency to see symbolism as artificial, as unnatural. At best maybe we think it is an artistic choice.

This isn’t so.

There are patterns in the universe, in reality, that are beyond our comprehension. Patterns which play themselves out whether we’re keen enough to notice them or not. The fact that the phone in your pocket is a “black mirror” isn’t arbitrary. The fact that it has an image on the back of the forbidden fruit with a bite taken out of it…

Well that’s not arbitrary either.

Symbolism Happens.

Basic patterns of the universe play themselves out at various scales. At fractal scales. As above, so below. What happens in the macro is repeated in a different key in the micro, and at all points in between. The fundamental facts of the cosmos are not atoms and quarks and electrons… but Plot. Narrative. Story and character.

The Universe is primarily a Narrative. Or, as it says in the Bible, a word.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.

Reality is a Story.

From my previous posts perhaps I have given the impression that I don’t believe in reading deeper meanings into the Biblical texts. I have said that I am a Biblical Literalist, and that is true, but if you take that to mean that I therefore don’t see the deeper patterns present in the Bible, you’d be far off the mark. Metaphorical, “spiritual” readings to the text of course exist… I just think they exist secondarily to the literal interpretation. I think they exist on top of the literal, not instead of it. This allows me to look at the story of Moses striking the rock and having it bring forth water as literally true… yes. But also deeply symbolic at the same time. A literal, concrete moment in history that nonetheless encapsulates a cosmic truth. It’s a fractal pattern of the whole. A distillation. A universal reality captured in miniature in a particular time and place within the life of a particular man.

The Staff and the Stone.

The Waters of Life.

I’ve always enjoyed “Sunday School” style artwork.

After their escape from slavery in the land of Egypt, the Israelites, under Moses’ guidance, have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. That’s a long time, but it’s also realistic. You know a lot of people, in their own small ways, are struggling under the yoke of all kinds of different slaveries. Addictions, bad relationships, even actual slavery to corporations and managers and bosses. So called “wage-slavery”, which I think is a very accurate term. And you know on one level they’d really like to be free of their various chains but… on another level… they know that being freed would be very, very difficult. You want to walk away from your cigarette addiction? Well in theory you can… at any moment. But, of course, the question is always what are you going to replace it with? All that time you spent smoking now becomes dead hours. That fidgeting it allowed you to do with your hands. The social aspects of sharing a smoke. The conversations it engendered. The buzz… the good feelings. The comfort, the familiarity, the dopamine.

What goes in all those holes?

Nothing in particular against smokers by the way. Lest you think you’re better, trying getting off the internet for a few days. See if you aren’t likewise enslaved.

And so the Israelites, just like you, had an abusive employer. A slave master. And the problems they faced walking away from theirs are the exact same problems you’d face walking away from yours. You know, “just start your own business!” “Just quit cold turkey!” “Just make it work!”

Fine to say.

Damn difficult to do.

And your health insurance. The money for your food. The roof over your head and your water bill. Your entertainment. How you socialize. How you get those good feelings…

Until you reach your own promised land… where’s all that going to come from?

Don’t know.

You only know that between where you are and where you’d like to be in life there’s a great big desert. A wilderness you have no idea how to cross. Exodus you see, the story of leaving Egypt, of leaving bondage… was a real, literal event.

That doesn’t stop it from also being a symbolic one.

And Moses, their leader, was a literal and symbolic man too. You see, the biblical account I gave you at the beginning was not the first time Moses had to resort to supernatural means to get his people water. Not at all. In fact, it was the third.

The first instance happened not long after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. They found themselves in a place with water a plenty, yes, but none of it drinkable. The well or spring they’d found was bitter. It tasted horrible. There was something wrong with it somehow, something contaminating it, making it diseased. The people were thirsty but convinced that drinking whatever was in the water would kill them. In response, God directed Moses to take a large stick, some translations say a log, and hurl it into the waters of the spring.

Somehow, this made the waters drinkable. The bitter became sweet. The day was saved and the Israelites survived a little longer. Refreshed on their journey to the promised land.

The second instance comes a little later. They are farther along into the wilderness now and, once again, without any water. Unlike the last time though, now they are truly parched, for there is no water at all… not even the bitter kind. In answer God tells Moses to take his staff and to go and strike a particular rock with it. He does and, once again, miraculously the people are saved. The rock splits. Water starts flowing out of it for everyone to drink.

The third instance, the one I gave you at the beginning, comes a great many years after the first two. Again the Israelites find themselves in a pinch without any water and, again, God’s proposed solution involves a staff and a rock. He directs Moses to take his staff, go to the rock, and “tell” it to bring forth water.

For whatever reason, Moses doesn’t do this though. Instead, maybe just because it’s what worked the first time, he opts to, once again, strike the rock. Interestingly the text says he had to do it twice, perhaps indicating that the first attempt didn’t work and that maybe there was an awkward pause between the blows where it looked like Moses had lost his power. The second strike does the trick though, in spite of God’s directions, water flows, and, though perhaps it seems very enigmatic to us, somehow this time striking the rock is a very grave offense. Grave enough that God says that because they’ve done it, neither Moses nor his brother Aaron can see the Israelite’s journey through to its finish.

Neither of them will get to see the promised land.

Harsh.

What are we to make of it?

Well for starters you have to realize that the rock in story two and the rock in story three are the same rock.

Yes.

It escapes people today because it’s not spelled out in so many words in the Bible, but people wandering for forty years in the desert are going to need water too. We’re told explicitly how God gave his people food, in the form of manna and quail, and how he guided them, in the form of cloud and fire, but… how did he give them water?

Well, the rock that Moses hit to get water at the start of their journey?

They just carried that with them.

It gave them water the whole time.

That’s why the rock has the same name, Meribah, in both stories. Because it’s the same rock.

For same reason though, after the death of Moses’s sister Miriam, you know, the girl that followed her baby brother floating in a basket down the Nile, that rock stopped giving water. Traditionally, the explanation for this has been that, in some way, God granted the miracle of water specifically on the spiritual merits of Miriam. This makes sense. Miriam was a prophetess after all (Exodus 15:20). Indeed, in Jewish tradition this is made so explicit that they go so far as to call that rock, “Miriam’s Well.” I know some people will be skeptical here. People who’ve read their Bibles for decades and never heard this stuff about Miriam’s Well and the ever-flowing stone. But, lest you think this is all just wild conjecture, no, it’s firmly grounded in the Bible, and Saint Paul himself makes reference to this stone, when he says in 1 Corinthians 10: 3-4 “They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them…”

Interesting stuff.

But, as I say, when Miriam died her well ran dry, and the people found themselves in the same situation they’d been in at the beginning of their journey. Wandering about without water. So Moses, maybe understandably, decides therefore to do the same thing to the same rock, and gives it a good old whack with the same stick.

Doesn’t work though.

That isn’t what God told him to do this time. He was supposed to speak to the rock instead.

Undeterred however, Moses lifts high his staff and strikes the rock a third time, and the rock relents, and spews forth its miraculous well once more.

Okay.

So what’s all this about then?

As I say symbolism happens. That, actually, is a phrase that Matthieu’s brother, Jonathan uses quite a bit (check out his stuff too, btw). So let’s take a step back for a moment.

Have you ever wondered by Magicians carry staves?