Moses Prayer for drinking water for his people, The Twelve springs caused to gush forth, Children of Isra’il getting tired of the best food and desiring to have some meaner stuff, Their infidelity due to their transgression.

Al-Baqarah Verses 60 - 61

وَإِذِ اسْتَسْقَىٰ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ فَقُلْنَا اضْرِبْ بِعَصَاكَ الْحَجَرَ فَانْفَجَرَتْ مِنْهُ اثْنَتَا عَشْرَةَ عَيْنًا قَدْ عَلِمَ كُلُّ أُنَاسٍ مَشْرَبَهُمْ كُلُوا وَاشْرَبُوا مِنْ رِزْقِ اللَّهِ وَلَا تَعْثَوْا فِي الْأَرْضِ مُفْسِدِينَ

“And remember when Moses sought water for his people; said We, “Strike thou the rock with thy staff!”. Then gushed out therefrom twelve springs; each people knew their, (respective) drinking place; “Eat ye and drink ye of God’s provision, and commit ye not evil in the earth acting mischievously!” (2:60).

وَإِذْ قُلْتُمْ يَا مُوسَىٰ لَنْ نَصْبِرَ عَلَىٰ طَعَامٍ وَاحِدٍ فَادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ يُخْرِجْ لَنَا مِمَّا تُنْبِتُ الْأَرْضُ مِنْ بَقْلِهَا وَقِثَّائِهَا وَفُومِهَا وَعَدَسِهَا وَبَصَلِهَا قَالَ أَتَسْتَبْدِلُونَ الَّذِي هُوَ أَدْنَىٰ بِالَّذِي هُوَ خَيْرٌ اهْبِطُوا مِصْرًا فَإِنَّ لَكُمْ مَا سَأَلْتُمْ وَضُرِبَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ الذِّلَّةُ وَالْمَسْكَنَةُ وَبَاءُوا بِغَضَبٍ مِنَ اللَّهِ ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا يَكْفُرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ وَيَقْتُلُونَ النَّبِيِّينَ بِغَيْرِ الْحَقِّ ذَٰلِكَ بِمَا عَصَوْا وَكَانُوا يَعْتَدُونَ

“And (remember ye) when ye said, “O’ Moses! never can we (always) endure one kind of food, so pray thou unto thy Lord for us, to produce for us of what the earth groweth, its herbs, and cucumbers, its garlic, lentils, and onions!” Said he, “Seek ye to exchange that which is inferior for that which is superior? Go ye down to (settle into) some town and there ye shall have what ye ask for!”; And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them, and they drew unto themselves the Wrath from God; This because they used to reject the signs of God and slay his apostles unjustly; this because they disobeyed and were wont to transgress” (2:61).

Commentary

Verse 60

To supply water to the Isra’ilites in the wilderness. Moses was commanded by God to strike the rock with his staff and Moses did it and there sprung twelve springs corresponding to the number of the tribes of the Isra’ilites. Each of the tribes wanted to have a separate spring for their own use. So each tribe had a separate spring from the same rock. This incident is referred to in Exod. 17/1-6. Only there is no mention of the number twelve of the springs that gushed forth from the rock.

1. And all the congregation of the children of Isra’il journeyed from the wilderness of sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink.

2. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the LORD?

3. And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?

4. And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.

5. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Isra’il, and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.

6. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Isra’il.

Here again the Ahmadi commentator in his eagerness to secularize the history of the lives of the Prophets of God endeavours to interpret word ‘Izhub’ to mean to walk into the mountains. The purpose of the interpretation gets quite obvious with the misinterpretation not reconciling itself with the number twelve of springs and the meaning of the word ‘Fanfajarat’ which means gushed forth and not found. Besides the event is mentioned as a recollection of the miraculous supply of the water to the Isra’ilites whereas the finding of any springs which already flew there can in no sense be a miracle worth mentioning by the All-Wise Providence.

To discredit the event of it being a miracle the Ahmadi commentator resorts to quote Ex. 15/27 which refers to some other occasion when the brackish water was turned sweet for the Isra’ilites (B.H.).

The concluding words of this verse meaning ‘act ye not in the earth making mischief therein’ - clearly indicate how Islam abhors mischief making and how at each step the religion stresses for peace.

Verse 61

Here the account of the Isra’ilites pressing Moses for the change in their food, given in Number 11/5-10.

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the Garlick.

But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

And the manna was as coriander seed and the colour thereof as the colour of odellium.

And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.

And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night the manna fell upon it.

Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased.

It will be of interest if the whole of the chapter II of the Numbers in the Old Testament is read by the reader as to how the Isra’ilites demanded the change and how they were dealt with by God.

According to commentators ‘Misr’ literally means a city and not necessarily Egypt.

‘Yaqtulunan - Nabieena’ meaning they killed the apostles of God. It was not that they only struck the apostles with their hands or killed them by their swords, but they also used to hear the accounts of the sufferings and the murder of the apostles at the hands of their men and kept quietly passing over the events, so they were accused of the murder of those holy men - as they themselves having slain them. Math. 23/35.

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

And some apostles had been actually killed by these people which fact is borne out by God denouncing them for their hypocritical assertion that:

“And say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets” Math. 23/30

The Holy Prophet warns against thinking lightly of the slightest sin, for one sin leads encouraging towards the other and ultimately the sinner getting naturalized in the wrong ways being dejected against the hopelessness of being pardoned, freely commits the greatest sins. Sin causes severance of the grace of God and the severance of God’s grace from an individual, lets him loose and takes him further astray from the right path and ultimately, he altogether misses it and he is lost in utter perversities and depravities. This is what happened to the Isra’ilites who first started neglecting the commands given to them, and they were gradually degenerated and were lost in moral bankruptcy which ultimately drew them to slay even the apostles of God.

This is what happened in Islam also in perfect resemblances with the history of the life of the people of Moses. The Muslims first neglected the commands of the Holy Prophet about his Ahl Al-Bayt and started ignoring their actual position and depriving them of their legitimate rights and ultimately, they became the murderers of the Holy Imams in the family of the Holy Prophet.

Is it not a natural and logical inference drawn from this verse that those who hear the accounts of the sufferings of the holy Imams and their merciless slaughter and quietly pass over the heinous conduct of their people without expressing their personal hatred against the offenders, and do not disassociate from them, will be held responsible as themselves having slain the holy Imams? Will not those who heard the shedding of the righteous blood of the holy Ahl Al-Bayt particularly of the Holy Imam Husayn and his godly band at Karbala, and kept quiet passing over the heart - rending massacre, be asked along with the assassins of the holy ones to account for the heinous acts?