20:1-13 After thirty-eight years' tedious abode in the wilderness, the armies of Israel advanced towards Canaan again. There was no water for the congregation. We live in a wanting world, and wherever we are, must expect to meet with something to put us out. It is a great mercy to have plenty of water, a mercy which, if we found the want of, we should more own the worth of. Hereupon they murmured against Moses and Aaron. They spake the same absurd and brutish language their fathers had done. It made their crime the worse, that they had smarted so long for the discontent and distrusts of their fathers, yet they venture in the same steps. Moses must again, in God's name, command water out of a rock for them; God is as able as ever to supply his people with what is needful for them. But Moses and Aaron acted wrong. They took much of the glory of this work of wonder to themselves; Must we fetch water? As if it were done by some power or worthiness of their own. They were to speak to the rock, but they smote it. Therefore it is charged upon them, that they did not sanctify God, that is, they did not give to him alone that glory of this miracle which was due unto his name. And being provoked by the people, Moses spake unadvisedly with his lips. The same pride of man would still usurp the office of the appointed Mediator; and become to ourselves wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Such a state of sinful independence, such a rebellion of the soul against its Saviour, the voice of God condemns in every page of the gospel.Take the rod - That with which the miracles in Egypt had been performed (Exodus 7:8 ff; Exodus 7:19 ff; Exodus 8:5 ff, etc.), and which had been used on a similar occasion at Rephidim (Exodus 17:5 following). This rod, as the memorial of so many divine interpositions, was naturally laid up in the tabernacle, and is accordingly Numbers 20:9 described now as taken by Moses "from before the Lord." 8. Take the rod—which had been deposited in the tabernacle (Nu 17:10), the wonder-working rod by which so many miracles had been performed, sometimes called "the rod of God" (Ex 4:20), sometimes Moses' (Nu 20:11) or Aaron's rod (Ex 7:12). i.e. Out of the tabernacle.

And Moses took the rod from before the Lord..... Which was laid up somewhere in the sanctuary, as well as the rod of Aaron, Numbers 17:7,

as he commanded him; being always faithful and obedient to him that appointed him.

And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.