Many of the Psalms refer to God as “my Rock”. Psalm 28:1 for example says:
“To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.” (Psalm 28:1 ESV)
So what does it mean to call God my “Rock”?
J. Alec Motyer provides a very helpful answer in his commentary “Psalms By The Day”. He says:
“‘Rock’ carries with the obvious symbolic significance of stability, permanence, etc., but also, always in the Bible, the life giving, smitten rock of Exodus 17:6”.
Exodus 17 of course, tells the story of the long, exhausting march from the (dry!) oasis at Rephidim to the foothills of Mount Sinai. The people were running on fumes – literally – having run out of water the day before. They were walking by faith. What if there was no water at Sinai? What if we are merely moving the location of our own graves?
But God said to walk, so they walked.
And then, at the absolute limit of their endurance, when they couldn’t possibly go any further, God told them to stop and he pointed to a particular ‘rock’ and he told Moses to strike it with his staff. And when he did, a stream of life-giving water burst forth from that rock, making a river of salvation for the people of God in the wilderness.
That’s what it means to call God “my Rock”. It means my Savior. My refresher. My restorer. My deliverer.
You could almost say that “Rock” is the Old Testament name for Jesus. The Apostle Paul comes pretty close to saying that in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4:
“For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10:1–4 ESV)
To speak of the Lord as my “Rock” is to refer to “the life giving, smitten rock of Exodus 17:6”, who is Jesus, who gives us life, refreshment and renewal in a dry and barren world – thanks be to God!
Paul Carter
To listen to the most recent episodes of Pastor Paul’s Into The Word devotional podcast on the TGC Canada website see here. You can also find it on iTunes. To access the entire library of available episodes see here.