Jehovah RopheSample

Israel’s sickness was revealed as the sin sickness of idolatry (Exodus 15:26). God’s merciful provision of water for the people came packaged with a warning: 

“And He said, ‘If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God…I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer” (Exodus 15:26).

The diseases of the Egyptians referred to the ten plagues that God had placed on Egypt when they refused to recognize Israel’s God and denied His command that they release His people from bondage. 

Israel’s crisis of water at Marah was in turn diagnosed as a crisis of trust in God, and the test revealed that their hearts could quickly return to the bondage of another nation and other gods. 

Later, when Israel was faced with another crisis (this time involving food), they gave voice to this desire to return to Egypt, crying out, “Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full” (Exodus 16:3). 

Israel had been miraculously taken out of Egypt, but it would take some time before Egypt could be taken out of the hearts of Israel.