18. The Waters of Marah

Bitter Water/Sweet Water

As we study the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites it becomes more and more obvious that the situations and the "salvations" in which they found themselves were basically natural events.  This, of course, is not to say that The Lord was not present with them to guide, to protect and also to punish.  Starting with this post, and for the next number of posts, we will see that the curses and the cures, to a large extent, are natural occurrences.

And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Ex. 15:22.  As mentioned earlier, this probably does not mean that they were totally without drinking water.  It might mean only that they found no water with which to refill their "canteens".

Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Ex. 15:23.  Marah means bitter. 

So he (Moses) cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. Ex. 15:25.  Our English translations obscure this focus because of the difficulty in translating the verb ... "showing" or "directing". The verb used actually means to instruct or teach. 
Steve Rodeheaver @ Christian Resource Institute.  

In other words, the Lord did not just show a tree to Moses, He taught Moses how to use the tree to make the water drinkable.

When he cast it (the tree) into the waters, the waters were made sweet. Ex. 15:25. ... one tree being used to purify water today is Moringa oleifera. This tree has been used successfully to cleanse turbid waters from the River Nile and other areas. Could this be the one referred to in the Bible?

One of the most remarkably useful trees is one being cultivated heavily for use in the Sudan. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said that village women had successfully used the tree Moringa oleifera to cleanse the highly turbid water of the River Nile. After trying other moringa species in Egypt, Namibia, Somalia, and Kenya, they too have shown properties that clarify water quickly.

When moringa seeds are crushed and poured into a pot or bottle of dirty water, the water turns transparent within seconds. The seeds' anti-bacterial properties can turn low, medium, and high turbidity waters into tap-water quality in an hour or two.

Studies on the effectiveness of moringa seeds for treating water have been done since the 1970s, and have consistently shown that moringa is especially effective in removing suspended particles from water with medium to high levels of turbidity (muddiness or dirtiness). 
Creation Tips.

Nature Does what Nature Will Do

In the various stories in the Bible, when bad things happen to people the story is written as though the Lord is punishing the people involved. When good things happen, the Lord is credited with bestowing blessings.

So often, in the wars that the Israelites fought with the Canaanites when the Israelites won it was because they lived God-pleasing lives; if they lost, the loss was blamed on their wicked lifestyle. This kind of thinking is also very common among Evangelical Christians.

It seems a lot closer to reality to believe that life just happens to people as it does. Perhaps the Lord is not distinctly involved with the average, run-of-the-mill human at all. If people make bad decisions it is most likely that their lives will end up worse than if they would have made good decisions. If they make good decisions it is more likely that they will prosper.

The above statement does not preclude the idea that the Lord can be invoked to bestow physical or material blessings, and that, because of the prayer, sometimes He does. However, the default in the lives of the human race is that one has to take what one gets, and if one can improve the situation, all the better. However, in most cases, these improvements may have nothing to do with Jehovah's intervention.