The question arises naturally: Were these two cases――at Rephidim and at Kadesh――the only supplies by miracle during those forty years? One of them occurred during the first year of the forty; the other, during the last: was the whole intervening period barren of all miraculous supply? Or were these two cases put on record rather as specimens than as exhaustive history?――――Yet another question comes up: How long did the supply in each of these two cases continue? Rephidim was adjacent to Sinai, and the hosts of Israel remained before and near that mountain many days. Did the supply from the Rephidim rock hold good during this entire period? Did it follow them along their journey in the wilderness still further? To these questions the first answer is――that the history is silent as to the duration of the supply in either case. Moses might have told us definitely, but he has not.――――Beyond this it only remains to take note of the allusions to this supply, made elsewhere in the Scriptures, and to suggest the probabilities of the case.――――The writer of Ps. 78 sings: “He clave the rock in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers” (vs. 15, 16). In Ps. 114: 8, we read――“Who turned the rock into a standing water; the flint, into a fountain of water.” These words imply a great abundance for the time and seem to assume an ample supply so long as the hosts of Israel remained in those places. They do not necessarily imply that the waters followed them as a river in their journey onward from Rephidim or from Kadesh.――――The allusions in Isa. 43: 19, 20, and 48: 21 are decisive as to the temporary supply but indefinite as to its duration.――――The words of Paul (1 Cor. 10: 4) should be noted. “Our fathers all drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank of that spiritual Rock that _followed_ them and that Rock was Christ).”――――In this passage, drinking of the Rock can be nothing else than drinking _of the waters_ that issued from the rock. The only question of importance exegetically is――whether the words “followed them” refer to the waters or to the presence of Christ as in the pillar of cloud and of fire. The former seems the more obvious and natural reference, and, in so far, favors the view that these waters, furnished miraculously, did follow them to some extent on their journey――perhaps in the way of fresh supplies provided for them in a similar manner. It can not be doubted that the hosts of Israel _had water_ through all their journeyings; they could not have subsisted long without it. The natural supply must have been vastly greater in that age than in this if it sufficed for this great host at all other points of their journey save at Rephidim and at Kadesh. The fact of a constant supply of bread by miracle favors the assumption of water miraculously provided whenever the supply from natural sources failed to meet their necessities.