Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Mazmur 106:33

1) Rashi explains that Moses's error was that whereas G'd had told him to speak to the rock he hit the rock instead. 2) Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explains that Moses' error caused the rock not to yield water until Moses struck it for a second time, and that Moses had forgotten G'd's precise instructions when he struck the rock the first time due to the vociferous quarrelling by the congregation. 3) G'd's anger was caused by Moses hitting the rock a second time. Had Moses remained content to strike the rock once, G'd would have accepted this as a form of addressing a rock as one does not expect a rock to listen to words. 4) According to this view G'd's anger was caused by the fact that Moses and Aaron did not sing a song of praise after the water materialised. Such a miracle deserved that it should be acknowledged by not less than a song praising G'd and thanking Him. 5) According to this view Moses sinned by talking down to the Israelites and calling them "rebellious." A man of Moses' stature should not have called the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by a name which belittled them. 6) Maimonides in his treatise שמונה פרקים feels that G'd objected to Moses having "lost his cool" when speaking to the Israelites. When the people observed that Moses was angry at them they concluded that G'd was angry at them also. 7) Rabbeynu Chananel and Nachmanides after him claim that what angered G'd was that Moses portrayed himself and Aaron as producing the water by saying נוציא לכם מים, instead of saying יוציא לכם מים, "He will make water come forth for you." The formula used by Moses created the impression amongst the people that Moses and Aaron produced the water by means of their own devices and know-how. This is why G'd said to them: "because you have not believed Me to make them sanctify Me." 8) Rabbi Moshe Hacohen, quoted by Ibn Ezra also feeels that G'd's anger had to do with Moses' wording of the question: המן הסלע הזה נוציא, "do you expect us to produce water from this rock?" Whereas we know that there are miracles which are produced by G'd's word and others by a combination of G'd's word and an action, Moses misled the people into thinking that G'd could not produce water from this particular rock. He proves his point by quoting Psalms 106,33: "because they rebelled against Him and he spoke rashly." 9) Rabbi Joseph Albo in his ספר העקרים criticises Moses and Aaron for not having proceeded immediately to produce water for their people something he claims they were capable of; by allowing them to become frightened they undermined the people's faith in G'd. 10) The Baal Maaseh Hashem explains that there had been an argument between Moses and the Israelites. The Israelites demanded that Moses produce the water from a different place where they had dug a hole and that Moses was unwilling to speak to the rock which the Israelites had dug out. As a result Moses became angry and threw his staff, not in order to hit the rock but merely as an angry gesture. It so happened that the staff hit the rock G'd had intended to produce the water from.

יען לא האמנתם בי, “because you did not believe in Me, etc.” Nachmanides writes that Moses’ and Aaron’s sins were not spelled out in detail by the Torah. Rashi says the sin was that whereas Hashem had instructed them to speak to the rock, but they had struck it instead. The difficulty with Rashi’s commentary is that seeing that G’d had told Moses to take his staff along, Moses had clearly assumed that the reason for taking the staff along was to hit the rock, similar to the manner in which he had used the staff repeatedly to bring on the plagues upon the Egyptians. Surely, if G’d had only wanted Moses to speak to the rock to what purpose did He tell him to take along his staff? When G’d, in Egypt, had told Moses to take along the staff that had turned into a snake at the burning bush, it was from then on to serve as an instrument with which to bring on the plagues. Furthermore, how would Moses speaking to the rock instead of striking it enhance the quality of the miacle? We have several instances when G’d told Moses to stretch out his staff (in order to bring on a plague) and it is assumed that Moses was to use the staff to strike with, not just to gesture with. Besides, speaking to the rock was meant to inform the rock that this man who was standing before the rock addressed the rock in the name of its Creator Who had given him an order to extract water from it. Moses and Aaron fulfilled this part of the task as we know from when the Torah writes that they made the entire community assemble in front of the rock (verse 10) Furthermore, as far as the rock was concerned what is the difference in the quality of the miracle whether it responds to words or to physical impact with Moses’ staff? Why is the sin of Moses and Aaron described as a מעילה, a term usually reserved for someone who makes unauthorized private use of something belonging to the Temple treasury? Some say that Moses’ sin consisted in his expressing himself unclearly, due to his anger, so that when he said: ”can we extract water from the rock,?” at least some of the people thought that he had included G’d in this question, leaving doubt that even G’d could perform such a miracle. As a result G’d accused them of not sanctifying His name when having had an opportunity to do so. According to the commentators this is what the psalmist had in mind when he said in Psalms 106,33, כי המרו את רוחו ויבטא בשפתיו, “for they had provoked his spirit so that he spoke rashly.” From these words of the psalmist we see that Moses did not sin by hitting the rock but by not phrasing his words carefully enough. Other commentators see the sin not so much in what preceded the miracle of the water but in the failure of the people as well as Moses, who should have led the people singing a song of thanks to G’d for having provided such a miracle. This is the meaning of the words לא קדשתם אותי, “you have not sanctified Me.” Still other commentators see the sin in Moses and Aaron asking: “how can we produce water from this rock,?” i.e. the one the people had chosen, seeing it was not the one G’d had chosen. Moses had been afraid to deviate from the precise instructions he had, thereby missing an opportunity to demonstrate that G’d can provide water from any rock if He so chooses. Maimonides feels that the real sin of Moses was that he lost his composure and addressed people who were thirsty as “rebellious”. A man of Moses’ stature could not permit himself to so lose his composure that he publicly called his people by an insulting term. Such conduct amounted to a public desecration of the Holy name of Hashem, seeing that Moses was the man whose body language, mode of speech, not to mention his actions, etc., all the people were to use as a model for their own behaviour. The people had been hoping that by modeling themselves on their leader they would succeed in life on earth as well as in the hereafter. How could a display of anger possibly contribute to the esteem in which they held this man of G’d? Such displays of anger are presumed to be the sudden manifestation of some negative character trait within the person, something he had been able to conceal up until such time as he lost his “cool.” According to our tradition, the Israelites of that generation were extremely wise, and on a par with prophets, so that they would minutely examine and analyze each word Moses spoke, how he spoke it, how he conducted himself, etc., and draw far reaching conclusions from this. They therefore would mistakenly conclude that unless Moses had been aware that G’d Himself had been angry with the people for having demanded water he would not have allowed himself to reprimand them in the manner in which he did. Moses’ behaviour therefore contributed to the people being mistakenly made to feel that G’d had been angry with them when this had not been the case at all. He had therefore “shortchanged” G’d, another way of describing the sin of מעילה, fraudulent use of someone else’s property. Moses’ technical error had been to interpret the words: “take the staff and assemble the people,” as an instruction to use the staff to strike with. According to Maimonides there is not a single word in the paragraph that could lead us to believe that G’d had been angry with the people. Nachmanides challenges Maimonides’ explanation by pointing out that when punishing Moses and Aaron G’d had said specifically both in Numbers 20,24 and again in Numbers 27,14 that both Moses and Aaron had been guilty of מריתם פי, ”you rebelled against My word.” There was therefore more to Moses’ sin than presenting the people with an image that did not correspond to the facts. G’d also accused them of not having had sufficient faith in Him,לא האמנתם בי, which shows that their punishment had nothing to do with their having allowed themselves to become angry and to display their anger. If the anger had been the major misdemeanour, surely the Torah would have mentioned this directly. Moreover, when in Numbers 31,14 Moses displayed anger at the officers of the punitive campaign against Midian who had allowed women to survive, we do not hear that Moses was punished for that display of anger. Moses’ anger on that occasion had been quite unjustified. Furthermore, the Torah itself on this occasion never accused Moses of having been angry. Addressing the people and describing their conduct as rebellious, does not mean that he had lost his “cool” and was displaying anger. In his parting speech to the nation (Deut. 9,7 and 9,24) he repeatedly reminded the people that they had displayed rebellious tendencies throughout the years he had been their leader, and no one suggested that Moses deserved to be punished for using such language. Besides, we see nowhere that Aaron had displayed anger on this occasion, and yet his punishment is lumped together with that of his brother Moses. Besides, it is psychologically impossible that of all the many occasions when the people had behaved in a rebellious manner ever since the Exodus, this occasion was so severe that it alone should have produced in Moses an unforgivable burst of anger. How many times did the people accuse him of having taken them out of Egypt only to have to face death in the desert when they would not even be buried with dignity? The people had sinned against G’d again and again, and Moses had accused them later that he had been punished on account of their sin as G’d had been angry with him! (Compare Deut. 1,37) From all the above it follows that the people sinned, not Moses. When reading the words of Maimonides we do not find a single word of indictment against the people; he treats the subject as if Moses alone had been at fault in the episode. When Maimonides said that we do not find that G’d had been angry with the people in this episode at all, but that by way of contrast G’d reacted with complete calm saying to Moses: ’take the staff, etc., and provide them with water,’ the reason, as we should know by now, is that whenever the people asked for life’s necessities, even if they did not ask in an appropriate fashion, G’d in His great patience responded positively, instead of chastising them for a relatively minor offence, i.e. the “how” of their request. Usually, G’d reacted only after having supplied the people’s needs, such as naming the location in a manner that recalled the people’s misconduct, examples being מסה ומריבה, קברות התאוה, תבערה. The names were reminders of the people’s sins at that location. On the other hand, when the people voiced totally unjustified complaints, G’d did react with anger. In this instance the phrase וירא כבוד ה' אליהם, “Hashem’s glory manifested itself to them,” is an allusion to G’d’s displeasure, similar wording being associated with a pestilence following as a sign of G’d’s displeasure after the revolt of Korach or the episode with the spies. (Numbers 16,19, 17,7) The most serious difficulty with Maimonides’ interpretation is the specific verse in Psalms 106,32 ויקציפו על מי מריבה וירע למשה בעבורם, “They (the Jewish people) provoked wrath at the waters of Merivah, and Moses suffered on their account.” The psalmist lists that sin of the people as part of the long list enumerated in that chapter. The explanation most likely to meet all the various problems we encounter in the Torah’s description of this episode, is that of Rabbeinu Chananel who writes that Moses’ major error was the use of the pronoun “we” when asking המן הסלע הזה נוציא לכם מים, “shall we produce water for you from this rock?” If Moses had said “shall He produce water for you?” he would not have created the impression that the power to produce water resided within him. When announcing the impending fall of the manna from heaven, (Exodus 16,8) Moses had announced the fact by crediting G’d with the phenomenon. When he failed to do so here, the people could have thought that he credited himself with the power to produce this water. [Aaron’s presence throughout, and his failure to remind Moses to speak to the rock although he had heard G’d’s instructions to Moses, made him guilty also. Ed.] A comparison with Exodus 17,5-7 shows that on that occasion G’d had announced that He would personally be on Moses’ side, directly above the rock, while Moses would strike the rock and water would come forth. The fact that on this occasion G’d did not indicate His personal involvement in the miracle, may have misled Moses into using language which could be misinterpreted. On the first occasion when the people still had the cloud of G’d traveling with them, the very position of that cloud indicated the Shechinah’s Presence. There had not been a promise this time that this cloud would, instead of resting above the Tabernacle, move to above the rock that would produce its waters. [This was not surprising, as on the first occasion there had not yet been a Tabernacle for the cloud to rest above. Ed.] In lieu of the cloud that showed that the water emerged as a miracle, this time, if the water had come forth from the rock only as a result of Moses addressing the rock, the miracle would have been manifest. By producing (apparently) the water as a result of striking the rock, Moses had missed an opportunity to sanctify the name of Hashem, a major sin of omission. Perhaps the criticism of Moses and Aaron as having מעלתם בי, “fraudulently abused something that is Mine,” refers to the fact that they made personal use of something that is G’d’s, seeing that the people now credited their water supply to Moses instead of to Hashem. The accusation מריתם פי, “you countermanded My order,” may have referred to the fact that neither Moses nor Aaron spoke to the rock as they had been told to do. Alternately, the meaning could be that G’d meant “seeing I did not tell you to speak the line: ‘shall we produce water for you from this rock,’ you in effect substituted your own words for Mine, an act of insubordination.” The meaning of the accusation לא האמנתם בי, “you did not have faith in Me,” is in the causative mode, i.e. your conduct is directly responsible for the fact that the people have less faith in Me.” It is also possible that the additional word להקדישני is meant to define the sin more narrowly not in the sense of the people losing some of their faith in Hashem, but in Moses and Aaron not having strengthened the people’s faith in Hashem, something which would have resulted from their carrying out their orders properly. According to the approach of our sages the fact that Moses had to strike the rock twice instead of only once, as on the previous occasion, resulted in a diminution of the people’s faith in Hashem.

Wherein they scraped. Because the word הקצו is of the form (Tehillim 106:33): “המרו את רוחו (They rebelled against His spirit),” and [since] the intention here is the scraping and not the border [i.e., edge], therefore, Rashi says it refers to that which they scraped within the border of the eruption all around. If it said, “אשר קצעו (which they scraped),” we would not know where that scraping is.