Rock that followed them
1 Corinthians 10:4
10:4 Rock that followed them. On the typological significance of the water-giving Rock, see notes on Exodus 17:5-6 and Numbers 20:7-12. The water they drank was literal water. The Rock that “followed” them, however, was not a literal rock, but the Spirit of Christ Himself. “He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers” (Psalm 78:16). Evidently, when Moses smote the rock, it opened a great spring which became a continually flowing river, along which the children of Israel marched and camped in the wilderness for forty years. It is also worth noting that the Greek word used here for “Rock” is petra, and that this is the same word that Jesus used when he said that “upon this Rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). Christ (not Peter) is the foundation rock upon which the true church is built (I Corinthians 3:11), and He is also the “living water,” the “well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:10,14).