The name of the place was called Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of Bnei-Yisrael, and because they tested Adonai saying, “Is Adonai among us, or not?”
He said, “If now I have found grace in Your eyes, my Lord, let my Lord please go within our midst, even though this is a stiff-necked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own inheritance.”
Her leaders give judgment for a bribe. Her priests give direction for a price. Her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on Adonai by saying: “Is not Adonai in our midst? No calamity will come upon us!”
none of the people who saw My glory and My miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet tested Me these ten times and did not obey My Voice—
“Aaron will be gathered to his people. He will not enter the land, which I have given to Bnei-Yisrael, because you rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.
For in the wilderness of Zin during the strife of the community, you both rebelled against My Word instead of honoring Me as holy at the waters before their eyes.” (These were the waters of Meribah at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.)
Then My anger will flare against them on that day, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them. So they will be devoured, and many evils and troubles will come on them. They will say on that day, ‘Isn’t it because our God is not among us that these evils have come on us?’
So Phinehas son of Eleazar the kohen said to the children of Reuben, the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh, “Today we know that Adonai is in the midst of us, because you have not committed this treachery against Adonai. Now you have delivered Bnei-Yisrael from the hand of Adonai.”