Israel Thirsts for Water and Blames the Exodus

"And the people thirsted there for water" (Exodus 17:3) - this teaches that thirst struck them. But earlier, "And they came to Marah, and they could not drink the waters of Marah" (Exodus 15:23) - at Marah thirst did not strike them, but here thirst struck them. "And he said, Why is this that you have brought us up out of Egypt?" He said to them: It is the way of the world that a man grows angry in his house, yet he sets his face only against the small one; but here they set their face against the great one. "To kill me and my children and my cattle with thirst." From here Rabbi Josiah used to say: A man's house [that is, his household] is dearer to him than himself. Another interpretation of "to kill me and my children and my cattle": they said, a man's cattle are his very life. For how is it? When a man sets out on the road and his cattle are not with him, he is in distress.