Bemidbar 20:1-5 records that the people came to the desert of Tzyn, Miryam died, there was no water and the people complained. Moshe supplied the people with water by hitting a rock, 20:11, but again in 21:5 the people complained that there was no water. Afterwards, 21:16-18 records that the people came to some well, and this was such a momentous event that they composed a song about the well. It is obvious that in a desert, the water supply will be a crucial issue, but the complaints here for water are surprising. Why at this point did the people complain for water?
The people complained about water when they left Egypt, Shemot 15:22, and 17:1, but presumably the water supply problem had been solved since we do read of any complains about water from then until Bemidbar 20.. Furthermore, it is generally assumed that chapters 20 and 21 in the book of Bemidbar are recording events at the end of the people's 40th year in the desert, and if so, why in the 40th year did the water supply problem reemerge? If the people had water for 39 years, what happened in the 40th year?
Bekhor Shor notes that the water crisis in chapter 20 is very similar to the water crisis in Shemot 17:1-7 since in both cases the people asked for water and they got water by Moshe hitting a rock. This similarity led Bekhor Shor (on 20:8) to claim that these narratives are describing the same incident, just like the sending of the spies is recorded twice, Bemidbar 13 and Devarim 1. In one place some of the details of the incident are recorded, and the remaining details are recorded in the second instance.
Bekhor Shor quotes two proofs for his position. One, Shemot 17:7 records that the place where the incident occurred is called Massa and Meriva and Bemidbar 20:13 also refers to the Waters of Meriva. Furthermore, Devarim 33:8 records “whom you tested at Massa, who you quarreled with by the Waters of Meriva.” This is a poetic text using parallelism and Bekhor Shor argues that the place names Massa and the Waters of Meriva are referring to the same incident. A second proof is that Bemidbar 20:1 records that the people came to the desert of Tzyn while Shemot 17:1 refers to the desert Syn, whose similarity also leads Bekhor Shor to argue that the both chapters refers to the same incident.
Milgrom (1990, p. 449) adds another proof for the Bekhor Shor's approach. Devarim 9:22 records three places where the people sinned, Tav’era, Massa, and Kivrot ha-Taava. The 1st and 3rd places are from Bemidbar 11, so Milgrom argues that Massa, which is only mentioned in Shemot 17, must also be from Bemidbar.
If this approach is correct, then we must determine when the actual incident occurred. Was it when the people left Egypt or in the 40th year? If the complaint was when the people left Egypt, then we have an answer to our question since then there was no new complaint about water in chapter 20, as the Torah is only recording the incident that occurred when the people left Egypt.
I doubt that Shemot 17 and Bemidbar 20 describe the same event. First, the names of the desert while close are not identical. Secondly, the parallelism in Devarim 33:8 could be because the incidents were similar without them being the same incident. It could be that the names Meriva and the Waters of Meriva are almost identical since the complaints were similar, and not that the names are referring to the same incident. Third, Milgrom’s proof is not convincing since according to his argument, Massa should have been listed last because it occurred after Kivrot ha-Taava. In fact, one could argue that Devarim 9:22 proves that there were two separate incidents. In Devarim 9:22, Moshe was warning the people not to sin by recounting their errors in the past but he would not mention the Waters of Meriva since that was his sin. If Massa was the same story as the Waters of Meriva, then Moshe would not have referred to Massa.
Finally, if really there was only one complaint for water, why should it be recorded twice? The second telling of the story is not presented as a reference to the past but as a new episode, and there are small differences between the episodes. If the incident happened when the people left Egypt, then Moshe would have been punished even before the people had been told they would not enter the land of Israel. On the other hand, if one argues that the incident only happened after 40 years, why should the complaint have been recorded when the people left Egypt?
The traditional answer (Ta’anit 9a and Rashi on 20:2) for the sudden water crises in chapter 20 is that it was due to the death of Miryam, which was recorded in 20:1. The idea is that for all the years in the desert the people had water from a traveling well which was due to the merit of Miryam and when Miryam died the well disappeared. This answers the question why the sudden complaint for water, and explains the conjunction between the record of Miryam’s death in 20:1 with the lack of water in 20:2.
Yet, there is no mention at all in the Torah of this traveling well. When did it begin? In Shemot 17, Moshe had to hit a rock to supply water to the people, so it must have begun afterwards, but when (see Ramban on 20:8)? Also, if the well disappeared in the 40th year, what did the people do for water for the rest of the year? The Ramban (on 20:8) explains the rabbinic position that after the death of Miryam, the people got water from Moshe hitting the rock for the remaining period in the desert. Why then did they complain for water in 21:5? Netziv (on 20:8 and 21:5) explains that the people complained since the water from the rocks in the 40th year was of a lower quality than what they had received from the well. This seems ad hoc, how would we know that the water from the rock was a lower quality? Furthermore, the text never indicates that Moshe continued to hit the rock to supply water, as 20:11 seems to record a temporary measure. Finally, if the well disappeared, then the people would have had a legitimate need for water so why was Moshe angry with the people, 20:10, and considered their request a quarrel with G-d, 20:13? As for the mentioning of the death of Miryam in 20:1, Ibn Ezra (on 20:2) explains that this was in conjunction with the ensuing punishments of Moshe and Aharon that they also would die in the desert.
Moskovitz (1988, p. 229) offers a different answer to the water crises in chapters 20 and 21. He suggests that these two complaints for water were symptomatic of the perennial water problem the people had in the desert. According to this the people really complained on numerous occasions in the 40 years for water, but only these incidents were recorded. This seems unlikely. Why should the Torah have recorded the two cases here (plus the two cases in Shemot 15 and 17) and left out the other cases? Also, as the food problem was solved permanently by the mahn, why should the water problem be left without a permanent solution requiring periodic stopgap measure? Furthermore, how was the water problem solved on these other occasions? By the well? By Moshe hitting the rocks? Finally, if it was solved on other occasions, then again why now was there a shortage of water?
I believe that the mahn provided all the liquid requirements of the people. One proof of this idea is that 21:5 records that the people complained, “For there is no food and no water. And our throats loathe the despicable food.” The people are not satisfied with the mahn and request both food and water. Yet they only complain about the mahn, there is no complaint about their water source. It must be that the mahn was the source both for food and water providing them with their solid and liquid nutritional needs. Furthermore, by this complaint Moshe did not provide them with water because they did not need water since they had the mahn. A second possible proof that the mahn also provided their liquid needs can be seen in Bemidbar 11:8, which records that if one made a cake from the mahn then it tasted as a cake baked with oil. This means that cake would have a moist taste, which implies some amount of liquids within the solids.
This idea can explain why the people complained for water in Shemot 17:1. In Shemot 16, the people had just received the mahn, but they wanted regular water in addition to the mahn. This complaint was unjustified, and that is why Moshe was angry with them in Shemot 17:2. They got water that one time but then they had to adjust to getting their liquid needs from the mahn.
One could also maintain that even if there was a well that traveled with the people, then still the mahn was an additional source of water. The well would have provided tasty water, while the mahn supplied the liquid nourishment that was necessary. Also, if not everybody could get water from the well, then still the people would be able to get water from the mahn.
Yet, if the mahn provided all the liquid needs of the people, why did the people complain in Bemidbar 20:2-5 for water? The answer is due to the travels in the desert after the sin of the spies. From Bemidbar 33:34-36, we see that before the people came to the desert of Tzyn in 20:1, they had camped in Etzyon Gever, which is assumed to be Eilat and two stops before that they camped at Yotvata. While we cannot identify exactly where Yotvata is today, Devarim 10:7 describes it as a “land of streams of water.” This means that in these places, the people had additional sources of water besides the mahn. (Devarim 8:15 “that they went in a desert without water” means the first stage of their travels in the desert, before they reached these areas.)
Thus, after the sin of the spies, the people had settled down for almost 38 years and had become comfortable. Now, in the 40th year of the people's stay in the desert, the people marched north to the desert of Tzyn, which is probably the Arava desert. The phrases “this wilderness” and “this evil place” in 20:4,5 are in reference to the Arava desert, which is a harsh desert.
We can know postulate that there were two problems that caused the complaints of 20:3-5. One, the simplest, is that in the desert of Tzyn the people had no natural water, as they said in the end of 20:5, "there is no water to drink." However, before coming to the desert of Tzyn, they had become accustomed to natural water, and hence they thought they might die if they only had the mahn. Two, 20:3 refers to "our brothers" who died many years earlier, which suggests that the people complaining, at a minimum in this verse, was the generation who left Egypt. This generation knew that they were not going to make into the land of Israel, and hence they were upset since they saw no reason why they had to leave a place they had been for 38 years just to end up dying in a harsh desert. From their point of view, they could have died, and then the new generation would start to march towards the land of Israel.
In response to the complaints, G-d temporarily gave the people regular water, 20:11, possibly because this was the first complaint of the new generation or a recognition that the people had become used to regular water.
From the desert of Tzyn the people could have traveled through Edom, but Edom refused to let them pass so they have to detour around Edom, 20:14. This detour meant marching south back to the Red Sea, 21:4, (area near Eilat, see also Devarim 2:8) which returned the people to their additional water sources. However, the people had to continue marching turning east and north to go around Edom to the desert of Moav (21:11, Devarim 2:8,9) which meant leaving any sources of water, and they complained again. It is true that Devarim 2:29 records that Moshe said that Edom sold the people water, but this was for money, probably not in great quantities and most likely after the complaints in Bemidbar 21:4,5. Edom initially met the people with force (20:20,21), and only after the Jewish people passed by would Edom have sold them water. The fact that the people bought water from Edom indicates that they were not happy with getting their liquid needs from the mahn. Shortly after passing around Edom and Moav, the people reached the well referred to in 21:16, and they sang a song because they were very happy since they again had water in great quantities without having to purchase it. Possibly from that point on, the people always had access to water supplies, and then the song signals the end of the water problem in the desert, but even if not, they still had the mahn to give them their liquid needs.
Bibliography
Milgrom, Jacob, 1990, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.
Moskovitz, Yehiel Tzvi, 1988, Commentary on the book of Bemidbar, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.
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