The Traveling Rock and Miriam’s Well
From the Apostolic writings and the Tosefta, to Chasidic tales and modern accounts, the tradition of the life-giving rock that accompanied Israel in the wilderness highlights the continuous presence of G_D, while connecting with Messianic themes of redemption.
In Exodus 17, the Israelites stood at Rephidim without water. The situation became dire when they began to quarrel with Moses.
G_D told Moses:
"Strike the rock and water will issue from it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." - Exodus 17:6
As the text says, water began to flow miraculously from a rock.
What the Biblical text does not make explicit, however, is that this water source accompanied Israel throughout the next forty years as they wandered from place to place.
In early Jewish tradition, this idea seems to have been a powerful symbol of G_D’s provision with hints of Messianic foreshadowing, which the Apostolic writings would leverage.
Like a Rolling Stone
One early trace of this tradition appears in Pseudo-Philo, a late first-century work:
And the water that followed them in the wilderness forty years, went up to the mountains with them and down into the plains.¹
This idea is also mentioned in the Tosefta², a second-century Rabbinic work produced between the time of the Mishnah and Talmud. Here, the Sages describe this miraculous water source in the desert as a kind of mobile well that traveled with the people.