In 1 Cor 10:4, the apostle Paul wrote that
the Israelites "did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of
that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." Jewish
scholar, Raphael Patai, recounts a Jewish tradition (one which Paul is clearly
dependent upon) about this movable rock which would later be recorded in works
such as Sukkah 3.11 ff.
A rather peculiar
fantastic legend, recorded in a large number of sources, the earliest of which
are Tannaitic, finds its possible to connect the desert wanderings of the
Children of Israel with the supposed treasures hidden in the sea. While
sojourning in the desert, the Children of Israel were supplied with water by
the so-called "Miriam's Well," which was a miraculous source:
The well
that was with the Children of Israel in the desert was like a rock full of
sieves, from which water rose and gushed forth, like from the mouth of a ewer.
It went up with them to the mountains, and went down with them to the valleys,
wherever Israel halted, it halted opposite them, in front of the door of the
Tabernacle. The princes of Israel would surround it with their staffs in hand,
and would chant to it the song, "Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it"
(Num. 21:17), whereupon the water would gush forth and rise like a column, and
each one of them would draw it with his staff to his tribe and his family, as
it is written, "The well which the princes digged, which the nobles of the
people delved, with the scepter, and with their staves. And from the wilderness
to Mattanah, and from Mattanah to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to Bamoth, and
from Bamoth to the valley . . . " (ibid. vv. 18-20). And it surrounded the
whole camp of God, and watered the face of the wilderness, and became great
rivers, as it is written "and steams overflowed" (Ps. 78:20). And
they were sitting in light boats [Hebrew isq'faoth], and went one to the
other, as it is written, "they ran, a river in the dry places" (Ps.
105:41) . . . and they turned into a big river, and flowed into the Great Sea,
and brought from there all the treasures of the world.
The
legend makes the "Well of Miriam" supply water to great navigable
rivers flowing into the sea, and envisages the Children of Israel enjoying the
hidden treasures of the sea while still wandering in the desert! (Raphael
Patai, The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times
[Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998], 128-29)
