Israel in Training
Israel in Training
Image by Luc Mahler from Pixabay
Joshua
Then the Amalekites came and fought against Israel at Rephidim. So Moses told Joshua, “Choose some men for us to go fight against the Amalekites. Tomorrow, I’ll stand on top of the hill holding the staff of God.”
Image by Luc Mahler from Pixabay
After providing the Israelites with food and water, Yahweh began preparing them for self-rule. To live as a free nation, they had to learn to defend and govern themselves. Yahweh created humanity to rule the earth, so he expects his people to wield appropriate authority.1 The time had come for the Israelites to act on their faith.
The Amalekites came against the Israelites unprovoked. None of the former slaves had military experience, but Moses knew the people would have to fight. So he commanded Joshua to assemble an army to defend the camp. Joshua, introduced here for the first time, served as Moses’s assistant.2 In his youth, he was no warrior. Yet Moses entrusted command of the army to him. Moses would play a different role.
Trusting God isn’t a passive act. It requires obedient action in situations where we can’t succeed on our own. The untrained rabble of Israelites had no chance of defeating the battle-tested Amalekites by their own strength. They could win only by trusting in the strength of their God.
Battling the Amalekites
Joshua did just as Moses said by fighting against the Amalekites. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of the hill. As long as Moses kept his arm raised, the Israelites proved stronger. But whenever he rested his arm, the Amalekites proved stronger.
When Moses’s arms grew tired, Aaron and Hur took a stone and set it under Moses for him to sit on. Then they supported his arms, one on each side, so his arms remained steady until sunset. So Joshua routed Amalek and its people.
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Joshua obeyed Moses, chose an army, and went out to fight against the Amalekites. Moses kept his end by climbing to the top of a hill overlooking the battlefield. His brother, Aaron, went with him, as well as another Israelite leader named Hur. When Moses held the staff of God over the battle, the Israelites would dominate. But when his arms grew tired and sank, the Amalekites would dominate.
Though elsewhere in Scripture raised hands indicate a posture of prayer, that’s not the meaning here. Moses lowering his arms wouldn’t make his prayers ineffective. Throughout the Exodus narrative, the staff symbolizes Yahweh’s authority.3 When Moses held up the staff, Yahweh fought in favor of the Israelites. When the staff fell, the battle took its natural course in favor of the stronger army, the Amalekites. The Israelites couldn’t defeat their enemies in their own strength. Victory comes when we call on Yahweh’s authority to control the battle.
At eighty years old, Moses couldn’t hold out for the whole battle. He needed his friends, and Aaron and Hur rose to the occasion. When Moses couldn’t stand any longer, they found a large stone for him to sit on and then stood at his side holding his arms up. They remained there until the battle ended at sunset. Because of the faithfulness of these three men and the obedience of Joshua, the Israelites routed the Amalekites.
Amalek Cursed
Then Yahweh told Moses, “Record this memorial on the scroll and read it to Joshua. I’ll completely wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the sky!”
Moses built an altar and named it Yahweh, My Battle Standard. “Because a hand was raised against Yahweh’s throne, Yahweh will wage war against Amalek from generation to generation.”
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After the Israelites’ victory, Yahweh told Moses he would punish the Amalekites by completely wiping them out. The Amalekites lived in the Negev, south of the Dead Sea, not in the territory the Israelites crossed to reach Rephidim.4 Without cause, they pursued the Israelites and killed those who lagged behind.5 So God commanded Moses to write down the decree and have Joshua, as the new army commander, read it.
In addition to obeying Yahweh’s command, Moses built an altar as a reminder of the decree. He named the altar Yahweh, My Battle Standard. A standard is a flag or banner used as a rallying point. Troops would gather around their battle standard to prepare for battle or to regroup during a battle. “A hand was raised against Yahweh’s throne” means the Amalekites had challenged Yahweh’s power and authority by attacking his people. Because of this, Yahweh would rally his troops against Amalek in every generation.
The Amalekites remained bitter enemies of the Israelites for a long time.6 King Saul lost the throne because of his refusal to destroy the Amalekites.7 Their numbers began to decrease under King David, but the final remnant wasn’t destroyed until the reign of Hezekiah.8
Family Reunion
Jethro, priest of Midian, Moses’s father-in-law, heard about everything God had done for Moses and for his people, Israel, in bringing them out from Egypt.
Now Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, had taken back Zipporah, Moses’s wife, after he sent her away with her two sons. One was named Gershom because Moses said, “I became a foreigner in a foreign land.” The other was named Eliezer because “the God of my father has helped me by delivering me from the pharaoh’s sword.”
Jethro, Moses’s sons, and his wife came to Moses in the wilderness, where he camped at God’s mountain. He sent a message to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons.”
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When Moses left Midian for Egypt, he took his wife and two sons with him.9 But at some point, he sent his family back to his father-in-law, Jethro. Scripture doesn’t record this event, but it likely occurred at one of two points. Moses may have sent them back to protect them after Yahweh almost killed him for failing to circumcise one of his sons.10 Or he may have sent them as the ones who informed Jethro of what happened in Egypt and invited him to visit Moses at Mount Sinai.
When Jethro heard about how God had used Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt, he hurried to meet him. Chronologically, Jethro’s reunion with Moses occurred after 19:1–2, while the Israelites camped at Mount Sinai. It’s placed here because of Jethro’s involvement in the political organization of Israel, pairing it logically with the organization of the military during the battle with the Amalekites. It was Jethro who established the system of judges leading Israel that lasted until the establishment of the monarchy.
Jethro’s Praise
Jethro, priest of Midian, Moses’s father-in-law, heard about everything God had done for Moses and for his people, Israel, in bringing them out from Egypt.
Now Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, had taken back Zipporah, Moses’s wife, after he sent her away with her two sons. One was named Gershom because Moses said, “I became a foreigner in a foreign land.” The other was named Eliezer because “the God of my father has helped me by delivering me from the pharaoh’s sword.”
Jethro, Moses’s sons, and his wife came to Moses in the wilderness, where he camped at God’s mountain. He sent a message to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons.”
Image by Travis Silva from Creation Swap
When Moses heard his father-in-law was coming, he left the camp to meet his family on the road. After the appropriate greetings, Moses took Jethro into his tent and gave him a detailed account of a what happened in Egypt. Moses gave Yahweh all the credit, focusing on the miraculous deliverance both from the power of Egypt and from the hardships of the Sinai Peninsula.
Jethro rejoiced to hear how Yahweh had delivered his son-in-law and his people. He blessed Yahweh and declared him the greatest of the gods because of how he defeated them. Some translations incorrectly insert the Egyptians as the ones Yahweh defeated. But Yahweh didn’t prove his superiority over the gods by defeating humans. Jethro’s statement of faith came from Yahweh’s systematic defeat of the entire Egyptian pantheon.
Yahweh triumphed in the very domains the various Egyptian gods proudly claimed dominion over—sea, sky, land, crops, animals, sickness, health, life, and death.11 He even defeated the mighty sun-god Re by preventing the sun from shining for three days.12 Because he believed Moses’s testimony, Jethro joined those who declared Yahweh’s name throughout the earth.13
Jethro further indicated his dedication to Yahweh by bringing sacrifices from his own flock. The burnt offerings were burned completely. The other offerings were probably used as fellowship offerings, with part of the animal burned as Yahweh’s portion and part eaten as the worshipers’ portion. Jethro invited Aaron and the elders to this communal meal to celebrate Yahweh’s wondrous deeds together.
- Genesis 1:28.
- Exodus 24:13; 33:11.
- Exodus 7:12, 17, 19; 8:5, 16; 9:23; 10:13; 14:16; 17:5–6.
- Genesis 14:7; Numbers 13:29.
- Deuteronomy 25:17–18.
- Judges 3:13; 6:3; 1 Samuel 14:47–48; 30:1; Psalm 83:4–7.
- 1 Samuel 15:1–23.
- 1 Chronicles 4:41–43.
- Exodus 4:20.
- Violating the Covenant.
- See Frogs; Gnats; Livestock Plague; Abscesses; Hail.
- See Darkness.
- Exodus 9:16.