The Rock as a Type of Christ

Another type of Christ found in the Hebrew Scriptures is the rock from which they drank in the wilderness.

Christ the Rock

First, let's look at Christ the antitype,which is something that is represented by a symbol. The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

"For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ." (1Co 10:1-4)

In this passage, notice he said that the Israelites "all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ." 

The Rock of Horeb

The Split Rock of Horeb

Now let's look at the type of Christ, which was the rock. There were two times when the Lord supernaturally brought forth water from a rock in the wilderness. One was at Mount Horeb in the Desert of Sin during their first year after leaving Egypt (Ex 17:6), and the other time was during their fortieth year of wandering in the wilderness around the time of Miriam's death (Nu 20:1). In his epistle to the Corinthians, Paul was obviously referring to the first occasion, which is recorded in the passage below:

"Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, 'Give us water that we may drink.' And Moses said to them, 'Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?' But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, 'Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?' So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, 'What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.' Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.' And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, 'Is the LORD among us, or not?'" (Exo 17:1-7).

Notice the Lord said, "I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." The Lord stood there on the rock and supernaturally made water spring from it for the people to drink. While the rock itself was an ordinary one, it was a type of the Lord who was their spiritual Rock, who followed them wherever they went in the wilderness. The Rock who gave them water to drink in their desert pilgrimage is the same Lord Jesus who follows us in our earthly pilgrimage and gives us refreshment from His springs of living water.

For He said to the Samaritan woman at the well, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." (Joh 4:10). He added, "...whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." (Joh 4:14).

Therefore, we can clearly see that Jesus is the spiritual Rock who followed them into the wilderness, who gave them water to drink, and the apostle even called it spiritual drink, because it was supernatural in its origin. The Lord still does the same for us today.

Archaeological Discovery

The Split Rock of Horeb

A couple of researchers produced a video documentary in which they describe their amazing findings at the site of what they believe to be the biblical rock of Horeb. This is a huge rock with a split in the middle, which they can stand inside. It sits atop a hill, and from a distance it is huge, but from close up it is enormous, standing four stories tall.

They said that this part of the world is so arid that it only gets about a half inch (1.27 cm) of rain every ten years. Yet this rock shows evidence that something came up from the bottom of it with great force. It is clear evidence that it happened just as the Scripture says in Exodus 17:6, that water gushed forth, sprang up, or shot forth (Hebrew: yâtsâ'). Normally granite rocks like this would have normal erosion patterns happening from wind and rain running down upon them, resulting in some pieces cracking and falling off. But this one has evidence of pressure-flaking, resulting in very smooth scaling on the inside vertically in an upward direction, which could only happen if water gushed up from beneath it with such great force that it eroded the rock's granite surface. In the video, they provide the following illustration shown below, in which you can see the direction of the water flowing from bottom to top like a geyser. Not only did the powerful force of the gushing water split the rock down the middle, but it also made it smooth as well. It seems to be the original site of the rock of Horeb recorded in Scripture.

If this is the case, which I believe it is, then the amount of water had to be enormous, which it most certainly would have to be in order to refresh 2.4 million people and their livestock with plenty to drink. And it may have continued gushing for a significant period of time afterward. The researchers also found distinct evidence of significant erosion on the rocks comprising the side of the mountain upon which this rock sits. The erosion is found on the smooth stones of that mountain where the water was running down all the way to the bottom, washing out the rocks and sand, and forming a lake at the bottom. To this day there is still an ancient lake bed there as a testimony to this miracle.

They cited Psalm 78 which says:

"He split the rocks in the wilderness And gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths. He brought forth streams also from the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers." (Psa 78:15-16). This psalm agrees completely with what they found at this archaeological site -- a split rock in the wilderness, where the Lord once made water gush forth in streams that ran down the mountain like rivers, which collected at the bottom of the mountain and formed a lake as abundant as the sea. There is no other archaeological site in the world that fits this description, except this particular split rock in the desert on top of a mountain.

Closing Words
There are many references to the Lord as our Rock in Scripture, but the one that I want to emphasize here and leave you to consider today is the rock from which the water sprang in the wilderness, which was a type of Christ. As John Wesley said, "And that rock was a manifest type of Christ - The Rock of Eternity, from whom his people derive those streams of blessings which follow them through all this wilderness." Do you know that Rock, who is a spring of Living Water?

Attribution notice: Most Scripture quotations taken from the NASB copyright The Lockman Foundation, all rights reserved, used by permission. Image of the rock may be subject to copyright, used per Fair Use Act for educational and commentary purposes.

Author's note:  Also see Adam as a Type of Christ, Noah's Ark a Type of Christ, Moses as a Type of Christ, and Hagar and Sarah as Types. You can access the Main Directory for Biblical Typology, or my complete blog directory at Writing for the Master. Now I'd like to ask a very important question.

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"

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Len Lacroix is the founder of Doulos Missions International.  He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission. www.dmiworld.org.