At the iconic burning bush, I AM WHO I AM commissioned a trembling Moses to say to the king of Egypt: “The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God” (Ex 3:18 NKJV). So on the first confrontation with Pharaoh, Moses petitioned, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword” (Ex 5:3). Just prior to the fourth plague, flies, he likewise announced, “We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He will command us” (Ex 8:27).
Very plain and clear is God’s three times repeated intent of a sacrifice after three days’ journey into the wilderness. So what actually happened?
So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter [mar]. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
Exodus 15:22-25 NKJV
This three day wilderness trek to Marah is what was foretold in the early days of the exodus. Since the last mention of the three days’ journey (Ex 8:27), a lot of supernatural, exciting events have happened! Our attention has been engrossed with intense plagues, Passover, a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, walls of water, Pharaoh’s army drowning, and a victory song by the sea. Having reached the end of the three days’ wilderness journey, the narrative appears to be strangely silent about the intended “sacrifice to the Lord our God.” Oddly, we see nothing of a sacrifice that we’d expect—the burnt offering of a Noah or an Abraham or some animal whose blood had to be shed. There’s just a tree that Moses cast into the bitter waters to make them sweet. Trees aren’t sacrifices, are they? Jesus was crucified on a tree, the cross, but Jesus was the sacrifice, not the tree. So was all this talk about the people holding a sacrifice for the Lord just a deceptive ruse for Pharaoh? Did God fail to keep His word? Heaven forbid!
There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”
Exodus 15:25-26 NKJV
Recall one of the reasons Moses gave for sacrifice: “Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword” (Ex 5:3). Though the sacrifice itself be puzzling, the end result of sacrifice—”Lest He fall upon us with pestilence”—is attested to by the Lord’s pledge at Marah to “put none of these diseases on you.” Apparently the threatened punishment of pestilence was averted by some kind of sacrifice.
So is there a sacrifice? What’s not obvious here, but made plain in the unfolding Bible storyline, is the linking together of the Lord as healer and the bitter waters being made sweet. Far into the future, the prophet Elisha will encounter another drinking water crisis, this time in Jericho, and likewise with a miraculous resolution.
Then he went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘I have healed [rapha] this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.’ ” So the water remains healed [rapha] to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.
2 Kings 2:21-22 NKJV
The Hebrew word for “healed” is rapha (raw-faw’). Fast forward several more centuries. Another prophet, Ezekiel, envisions water flowing from the temple becoming a river of healing. “This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed [rapha]” (Ezek 47:8). This sea is the saltiest, life-resistant waters on earth, hence its name, the Dead Sea. “There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed [rapha], and everything will live wherever the river goes” (47:9). At Marah the bitter waters recovery is not called a healing, but healing is an apt characterization of it. The remaking of bitter waters to sweet is healing!
A parallel between the tree that healed the bitter waters with “I am the Lord who heals you” is being drawn here. Bitter waters healed; you healed. See the parallel? The bitter waters is a historically acted out parable, an earthly story telling a heavenly story about God’s people. The bitter waters being healed is really about bitter people being healed. “And the people complained against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?'” The grumbling is a symptom of a much deeper need of heart healing within God’s people.
Our tree cast into these bitter waters has a starring role in our parable. There’s a heavenly reality that the earthly tree is pointing us to. What is implied is that a live tree had to be cut down—killed—to be cast into the waters. Now, although most English Bible translations say tree, others call it log, stick, piece of wood, or wood. That’s because the Hebrew word etz can mean all these things. Context is what determines etz translated as “tree” versus “stick” or “log.” Regardless of which English word, the tree or log or wood had been severed from its life. For bitter waters to be healed, a tree had to die. For the curse of disease abolished for people doubting God to provide for their needs, a tree had to die. At the heart of Marah is sacrifice. Surprisingly, this sacrifice is pictured by a tree.
Over the last fifteen years gazing at the glory of Jesus in Scripture has consumed me. This summer I downloaded The Bible Project app on my phone. I love their motto: “The Bible is a unified story that leads us to Jesus.” Their scrupulous attentiveness to picking out literary patterns and “scroll technology” by the biblical authors has been eye opening! What I love about The Bible Project is how they tease out the “terrestrial beauty”—the ravishing art and captivating symmetry of the human craftsmanship—of the Scriptures. As this “terrestrial beauty” has become more sharply defined for me, the “celestial glory” of Jesus—the divine side of the Bible—has become all the more precious and thrilling! Just as our Lord Jesus is both human and divine, so too is our Bible. On the human side, the biblical authors employed grammar, cultural context, genres, overarching themes, and a host of clever literary devices in communicating the story-line of the Bible. But without the Holy Spirit’s illumination, we miss the “celestial glory” of Christ from the sacred text. The humble heart waits upon the Spirit to unveil Jesus’ celestial glory from the terrestrial beauty.
The Bible Project’s excellent Paradigm podcast series pointed out how the Hebrew Scriptures are meditation literature. The meticulous arrangement of words, like a carefully curated museum presentation, are intended for a lifetime of meditation. The text doesn’t yield all its treasures of understanding with a read or two. By reading and rereading and comparing with other passages, we emerge into a beautiful world that God has prepared for us. So with this paradigm in mind, the bitter waters story yielded fresh insights I’d never seen before. Let’s take a closer look.
The number three powerfully makes its presence felt in this story. We’ve already observed the three times repetition of a “sacrifice to the Lord our God” after three days of journeying in the wilderness. The tree cast into the waters hints at the third day of creation when trees came to life out of the dry land raised up out of its burial beneath the dark waters of death. Marah is riddled with threes, a key biblical number for resurrection. Thus, Marah emphasizes not death but life. Silence about how the sacrificial tree was killed shifts the narrative spotlight to resurrection. Bitter waters in an arid wilderness spelled death for the people of God. The miraculous intervention of the tree furnished sweet waters to satisfy their thirst—life! It pictures a resurrection from death to life.
As our Bible presents a unified story leading to Jesus, this third day motif culminates in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on the third day. This tree sacrificed into the bitter waters on the third day prefigures Jesus’ resurrection that achieved healing’s ultimate triumph: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1Pe 2:24-25).
But there’s even more to Marah than has met our eye so far. Let’s dig a little deeper.
So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast [shalak] it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
Exodus 15:25 NKJV
“Cast” is the Hebrew word shalak (shaw-lakh’). The narrative could have used the same word for cast (or its synonym “thrown”) that occurred just prior: “The horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” But it didn’t. In fact, Hebrew has many colorful word choices to convey “cast” (so my Young’s Concordance shows). Yet all these were passed over in favor of shalak, used 125 times in the Old Testament but just 9 times prior to this event. A one of a kind, threefold repetition of shalak occurs in relation to Joseph’s being cast into a pit.
Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast [shalak] him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”… And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, but cast [shalak] him into this pit which is in the wilderness…Then they took him and cast [shalak] him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.
Genesis 37:20, 22, 24 NKJV
To the Hebrew mind steeped in the words of the Torah, the deliberate selection of shalak for the tree cast into the bitter waters would likely have conjured up an association to Joseph here. This beautiful literary linkage to the Joseph story was an aha moment for me! I’d not seen it nor heard it anywhere else before. Now, one hyperlink all by itself doesn’t automatically mean these two stories were intentionally paired together. However, several mutually shared elements strongly suggest it. Both take place in the wilderness. As referenced above, Reuben referred to the pit as being “in the wilderness,” the same setting as Marah.
Murmuring is common to both stories. Jacob’s tribes murmured against Moses, God’s appointed deliverer for the people (Ex 15:24); Jacob’s sons murmured against “this dreamer” Joseph, reviling God’s appointed deliverer for them, a comparison that Stephen took notice of (Acts 7:9-36).
Both settings involve no water to drink. At Marah the Israelites grumbled because the water was unfit for consumption. The pit Joseph was thrown into lacked water to drink: “And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.” Although the majority of English Bibles translate bôr (bore) as pit, several translate it as a cistern or a well. Attention drawn to the fact of no water being in it suggests something out of the ordinary or unusual, like a cistern or well being dry. Interestingly, Joseph’s bôr was at Dothan (37:17), which means “double wells.” The patriarchs of Israel had come to a place renowned for its abundant waters, yet found at least one of its wells dry. So both places are noted for having no water to drink.
Joseph’s being cast into the pit was indeed a bitter experience for him. The Genesis account later reveals another detail of that pit through the brothers’ confession, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us” (Gen 42:21). Here, too, is a preview of the suffering Son of God, “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear” (Heb 5:7). Both Joseph and Jesus pleaded in anguish to be delivered from the pit. Whereas Joseph sought deliverance from his brothers, our Lord Jesus sought it from His Father. But this cup would not pass until He drank it. The NKJV here has save Him “from” death. The Greek is ek, which means out from within, so Jesus didn’t pray not to die but to be rescued out from within death. That kind of deliverance is exactly what happened to Joseph.
The pit (bôr) into which Joseph was cast into not only can mean a cistern or well but also a prison:
Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon [bôr]; and he shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh.
Genesis 41:14 NKJV
What’s interesting is that Joseph’s “dungeon” is almost always expressed by Hebrew words other than bôr, one meaning “a house of roundness” and another the usual word for “house.” Thus, bôr has been strategically selected to contrast the most dramatic turning points of Joseph’s life—being cast into the pit (bôr) and being brought up out of the prison (bôr)! Humiliation preceded exaltation. His cross became his crown.
This brings us full circle to the Marah story. The hyperlinking of the tree cast (shalak) into the bitter waters to Joseph cast (shalak) into the pit invite us to compare and contrast these two stories side by side to yield precious insights. The sacrifice motif of Marah invites us to reframe the Joseph story in terms of sacrifice. Joseph’s bitter waters were made sweet! The sacrificial sufferings of this Dreamer to one day reign over the family would turn out for good, blessing the very same family that instigated His death. Overlaying the powerful imagery of bitter waters being made sweet sketch out sacrifice and resurrection upon Joseph’s life’s experiences. Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, architected the events of Joseph’s life of faith to prefigure His own. The hyperlinking of the tree back to Joseph turns our imaginations squinting ahead to another Prince whose kinsmen would cast Him into the earth. Out of Joseph’s bitter life experiences came the resurrection sweetness of being raised up to Pharaoh’s right hand for the preservation of life for God’s people in the midst of a worldwide famine of death. Joseph’s ascension from pit to palace foreshadows our Lord Jesus’ ascension from the grave to heaven’s throne! “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” (Lk 24:26) The Spirit of Christ in the prophets of old “testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1Pe 1:11). The sacrifice at Marah is our first glimpse into these resurrection glories.
The Passover lamb sacrificed for its blood on the doorposts of the home to ward off the destroying angel was also roasted in fire for Israel’s feast. Three days later God promised another sacrifice. Immediately following the dramatic consummation of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, God whispers another exodus. So rather than a missing sacrifice at Marah, we’re shown an unexpected, surprising hint of another exodus crowned by another sacrifice and feast. Just as a tree as a sacrifice strikes us as odd and startles us, considering Joseph being cast into a pit as a sacrifice is surprising too. A much stronger slavery than the taskmasters of Egypt necessitated a much more powerful sacrifice pictured by Joseph and the tree. Just having been saved from the tyranny of Pharaoh, the people’s grumbling and complaining against Moses manifested their need to be delivered from the inner taskmaster of sin. This unique one of kind sacrifice of a Joseph-like tree looks forward to a greater once for all, never to be repeated sacrifice accomplished by Jacob’s greatest Son, the promised Seed to crush the head of humanity’s greatest taskmaster, that old serpent, Satan, the devil. Jesus took the plunge into the bitter waters of our sin and death to immerse us into the sweet healing waters of righteousness and life! Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 