Water From A Rock “and the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses and said ‘give us water that we may drink”. Exodus 17:3. “ And the Lord said to Moses… ‘and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink…” Exodus 17:6.
In the Sinai water accumulates in limestone rock. Weathered limestone is always covered with a smooth hard crust, which is easily cracked by a hard enough blow. The apertures in the soft stone underneath often release powerful streams of water. This technique was well known to the natives of the Sinai. Quail and Manna “So it was that quail came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground.” (Exodus 16:14) “And the house of Israel called its name Manna. And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” (Exodus 16:31).
Five hundred years ago an eyewitness account of manna was written by Breitenbach, Dean of Mainz. He said that it “falls about day break, like dew…hangs in beads on grass stones and twigs. It is sweet like honey and sticks to the teeth.” In the early 1900’s Botanical experts from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem set out for the Sinai Peninsula to clear up the disputed question of manna once and for all. They brought back the first photographs of manna and firmly established the truth of the Biblical story. The Tamarisk trees indigenous to the Sinai are host to a little insect, which exude a peculiar resinous secretion. This secretion is about the same shape and size as a coriander seed. When it falls to the ground it is white in color, but turns to a yellowish brown in a short time. The people from the Hebrew University also said that the taste was like honey. To date the Bedouins of the Sinai gather this manna as early as possible in the morning before the ants come to life. In a good year they can collect four pounds per head. In their yearly immigration from the Coast of West Africa to Spain, quails and other birds fly across the Red Sea. Exhausted by their long flight, they stop on the flat shore to muster strength for the next stage of their journey over the high, mountains to the Mediterranean. Even today the Bedouins in this area catch the exhausted quails by hand in spring and in autumn. The Dating Of The Exodus. One of the several issues about Israel’s relationship with Egypt is when the Exodus into Palestine occurred. There is even an official ‘generally accepted date’ for the entrance into Canaan of about 1230 – 1220 B.C. The Scriptures, on the other hand, teach in three different texts (I Kings 6:1, Judges 11:26, Acts 13:19,20) that the Exodus occurred in the 1400s B.C. With the entrance into Canaan 40 years later. While the debate will rage on, there is no longer any reason to accept the 1200 date. Assumptions have been made that the city “Rameses” in Exodus 1:11 was named after Rameses the Great, that there was no building projects in the Nile Delta before 1300, and that there was no great civilization in Canaan from the 19th to the 13th centuries. However, the name Rameses is common in Egyptian history. Rameses the Great is Rameses II, Nothing is known about Rameses I. Also, the name might not refer to a city but an area. In Genesis 47:11, the name Rameses describes the Nile Delta area where Jacob and his sons settled. Some scholars now suggest that the re-interpretation of the data requires moving the date of the Middle Bronze age. If this is done it would show that several uncovered cities of Canaan were destroyed by the Israelites. Evidence has come from recent digs that the last phase of the MB period needs more time than originally thought, so that it’s end is closer to 1400 B.C. than 1500 B.C. This re-alignment would bring together two events previously thought to be separated by the centuries. The fall of Canaan’s MB II cities and the conquest. Another change may be warranted in the traditional view of Egyptian history. The chronology of the whole ancient world is based on the order and dates of the Egyptian kings, which was generally thought to have been fixed. However, Velikovsky and Courville assert that 600 extra years in the chronology throws off dates for events all around the Near East. Courville has shown that the lists of Egyptian kings should not be understood to be completely consecutive. He argues that some ‘kings’ listed were not Pharaohs but high officials. Historians had assumed that each dynasty follows after the one before it. Instead, many dynasties list sub-rulers who lives at the same time as the preceding dynasty. Working out this new chronology places the Exodus about 1450 B.C. and would make the other periods of Israelite history fall in line with the Egyptian kings mentioned. The evidence is not definitive but there is not longer any reason to demand a late date Exodus. (Norman Geisler. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.) | 
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