When Moses came down the mountain and finds the Golden Calf, he burns it and grinds it up and then scatters it into the water supply of the people so that the people of Israel have no choice but to drink it (Exodus 32:20).
In a way he is reversing the miracle of God at Marah, when the bitter water was made sweet (Exodus 15:22-25).
Peter Enns also notes that there may be a connection with Numbers 5:12-31 which "describes an elaborate ceremony whereby a woman suspected of adultery is made to drink a mixture of water and dust from the tabernacle in order to determine her guilt or innocence [...] it may be that the guilty parties [the 3,000 killed by the Levites] are exposed by the drinking ceremony, thus enabling the Levites know whom to kill" (p.575, Exodus (NIVAC))
In the trumpet judgments of Revelation water is made bitter with wormwood - an undoing of the exodus/ a visitation of the plagues on Egypt is thus sent upon apostate Judaism (just as the Lord warned).
ReplyDeleteOr something like that...