Comentario sobre Exodo 17:2

מה תנסון TO WHY DO YE TRY [THE LORD] by saying, “Will He be able to give us water in an arid land?”

מה תריבון עמדי?; do you not know that I do not act arbitrarily but only carry out G’d’s orders?

ויוב העם עם משה, The people quarrelled with Moses, etc. The quarrel consisted of the people demanding that Moses supply them with water; seeing that it was clear that Moses was not in a position to supply them with water, the request was only the preamble to a quarrel. If the people had really wanted to ask Moses for water they would have asked him to cry out to G'd just as their successors did forty years later in Numbers 21,7 when G'd had sent poisonous snakes against them. In this instance they did not even ask Moses to pray after he had told them not to try G'd by quarrelling with him. Alternatively, they demanded water much as a creditor demands repayment of a debt from his friend. It is somewhat strange that they used the plural תנו when demanding that Moses give them water; after all they spoke only to Moses. We may therefore assume that they included G'd in their demand. This would also explain why Moses accused them of including G'd as someone whom they "tried." When Moses mentioned G'd last, i.e."why do you quarrel with me and with G'd?," he meant that they knew very well that G'd was able to supply anything He wanted; their sin was in doubting whether G'd was in their midst.

וירב העם, “the people quarreled.” Ibn Ezra points out that the Torah writes “the people,” as opposed to “all the people” in contrast to the previous occasion when they did not have any more food. (16,2) At that time there were two groups of people, one which did not have any more water to drink, and one which had taken along water from Alush The group that had no drinking water quarreled with Moses, whereas the second group, although they did have water in their vessels, wanted to test G’d to see if He could and would supply water for the people. This is why the Torah, instead of using the familiar term וילונו, “they complained,” (with a measure of justification) now uses the term וירב, “they quarreled,” i.e. without justification. Moses therefore answered them by saying: “why do you pick a quarrel with me, and why do you put the Lord to a test?”

V. 2. וירב ist nicht תלונה, wie V. 3 וילך, das, wie wir aus der Bedeutung des לון gefunden, das Abhilfe suchen gegen ein fühlbar werdendes Ungemach bedeutet, sondern ist zunächst das Geltendmachen einer vermeintlichen oder wirklichen Rechtsforderung, wie bei dem Streit um die Brunnen, Bereschit 26, 20. Sie machen daher hier noch keine Vorwürfe, weisen nicht auf das Bedürfnis hin, sondern fordern als einen berechtigten Anspruch Wasser. Zu einem Lagerplatz gehört Wasser: תנו לנו וגו׳. — Wenn das ן in תריבון und תנסון die Person hervorhebt, so liegt die Entgegnung wohl darin: ihr wisst doch, dass ich euch nicht hierher geführt, sondern Gott, und ihr habt doch genug von Gott bereits erfahren, um ruhig zu vertrauen, Gott werde euch auch hier nicht verdursten lassen. Unter gewöhnlichen Umständen wäre eure Forderung eine gerechte.

תנו לנו מים, “give us water!” although Aaron had not been mentioned in this paragraph at all, the people used the plural mode when addressing Moses, although there had been no need to mention him at all.

'מה תנסון את ה?; if you really quarrel with me, this is equivalent to your quarrelling and testing the One whose agent I am. You are only endangering your own lives if you quarrel with G’d! If He becomes angry He will consider that He has to destroy you, seeing that He had demonstrated His power to you in deeds. We find Moses repeating this thought in Psalms 95,9 אשר נסוני אבותיכם בחנוני גן ראו פעלי, “when your fathers put Me to the test, tried Me, though they had seen My deeds.” [when someone who had never had a manifestation of G’d’s power “tests” Him, this is far less serious than when the Jewish people who had ample proof of G’d’s power would do the same. Ed]

מה תריבון מה תנסון, “Why do you quarrel? Why do you try the Lord?” Both of these words are spelled without the letter ו. [not in our versions of the Torah scrolls or the printed versions. Minchas shay quotes our author as the source of the above, without commenting. Ed.]