Why Strike the Rock?

Why did Moses strike the rock? He was a man of faith, whose life had been characterized by trust in God (see, for example, the description of Moses in (Heb 11:24-29). So why did he fall into unbelief and disobedience here? Why did he strike the rock when God explicitly told him to speak to it? Let me suggest an answer: it had worked before.

Almost forty years earlier, Moses had confronted a similar…