MOSES STRIKING THE ROCK.

In the first month of the fortieth year after the Exodus of the Israelites, they came to the wilderness of Zin, which has often been confounded with the wilderness of Sin, mentioned in the seventeenth chapter of Exodus, though quite a different station, the former being on the confines of the land of Edom, towards the Red Sea. Here Miriam died, at the age of a hundred and thirty-two years, four months before her brother Aaron, and eleven before Moses. On arriving in this desert, the water which had continued to follow the Israelitish camp from the rock in Horeb smitten by the rod of Moses nearly forty years before, ceased its supplies, and the Israelites in consequence began again to suffer the extremities of thirst. As this was a new generation, the water was probably withheld by the Divine will, in order that the descendants might show whether they had greater faith in God than their forefathers, of which they proved the negative by murmuring with equal bitterness and uttering threats of mutiny. Moses was therefore commanded by the Almighty to proceed with Aaron towards the rock nearest at hand. When they reached the place where this second miraculous supply of water was produced, "Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank and their beasts also."* No sooner was the rock smitten than such a copious stream flowed as immediately supplied the whole host of the Israelites and their cattle. The artist has endeavoured to express the distress of the people by the almost frantic eagerness with which they rush to the water. Some are lifting up their hands in astonishment at the miracle, while others appear to have no other thought than that of allaying the agony of a long and desperate thirst.