Комментарий к Шмот 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.