Whereas the Israelites had feared the possibility of having to battle the Egyptians (14:10) they now did engage in battle with the Amalekites.
"The primary function of this section in its present location is the demonstration of yet another proof and benefit of Yahweh's Presence with Israel. The occasion for the demonstration this time is an attack from the outside instead of an internal complaint. The result, however, is once again an undeniable supernatural intervention of Yahweh. . . . Yahweh is present, when the need arises, to fight alongside and even on behalf of his people."279
17:8-13 Moses used "Amalek"to represent the Amalekites as he often used "Israel"for the Israelites (v. 8). The Amalekites were a tribe of Semites. They had descended from one of Esau's grandsons (Gen. 36:12) and had settled in the part of Sinai the Israelites now occupied. They also inhabited an area in southern Canaan (cf. Gen. 14:7). They evidently opposed Israel in battle because they felt Israel was a threat to their security.
This is the first biblical reference to Joshua (v. 9). Moses selected him to lead Israel's warriors. Moses' staff was the means God used to accomplish miracles for Israel and to identify those miracles as coming from Himself (cf. v. 5, et al.).
Hur was the son of Caleb (v. 10; 1 Chron. 2:19; not the Caleb of later fame in Numbers and Joshua) and possibly the grandfather of Bezalel, the architect of the tabernacle (31:2, et al.). Josephus said he was the husband of Miriam.280He was an important man in Israel (cf. 24:14).
Moses' actions on this occasion seem a bit confusing in the text (vv. 11-13).
"Moses went to the top of the hill that he might see the battle from thence. He took Aaron and Hur with him, not as adjutants to convey his orders to Joshua and the army engaged, but to support him in his own part in connection with the conflict. This was to hold up his hand with the staff of God in it. To understand the meaning of this sign, it must be borne in mind that, although ver. 11 merely speaks of the raising and dropping of the hand (in the singular), yet, according to ver. 12, both hands were supported by Aaron and Hur, who stood one on either side, so that Moses did not hold up his hands alternately, but grasped the staff with both his hands, and held it up with the two."281
"Moses lifted his hands, in symbol of the power of Yahweh upon the fighting men of Israel, surely, but in some miraculous way Moses' upraised hands became also conductors of that power."282
Moses' actions indicate that he was engaging in intercessory prayer.
"The lifting up of the hands has been regarded almost with unvarying unanimity by Targumists, Rabbins, Fathers, Reformers, and nearly all the more modern commentators, as the sign or attitude of prayer. . . . The lifting up of the staff secured to the warriors the strength needed to obtain the victory, from the fact that by means of the staff Moses brought down this strength from above, i.e., from the Almighty God in heaven; not indeed by a merely spiritless and unthinking elevation of the staff, but by the power of his prayer, which was embodied in the lifting up of his hands with the staff, and was so far strengthened thereby, that God had chosen and already employed this staff as the medium of the saving manifestation of His almighty power. There is no other way in which we can explain the effect produced upon the battle by the raising and dropping . . . of the staff in his hands. . . . God had not promised him miraculous help for the conflict with the Amalekites, and for this reason he lifted up his hands with the staff in prayer to God, that he might thereby secure the assistance of Jehovah for His struggling people. At length he became exhausted, and with the falling of his hands and the staff he held, the flow of divine power ceased, so that it was necessary to support his arms, that they might be kept firmly directed upwards . . . until the enemy was entirely subdued."283
"The significance of this is that Israel's strength lay only in a continuous appeal to the Lord's power and a continuous remembrance of what He had already done for them . . ."284
"Why do you fail in your Christian life? Because you have ceased to pray! Why does that young Christian prevail? Ah, in the first place, he prays for himself; but also, there are those in distant places, mothers, sisters, grandparents, who would think that they sinned, if they ceased to pray for him, and they will not fail to lift up their hands for him until the going down of the sun of their lives!"285
This battle was more important than may appear on the surface.
"As the heathen world was now commencing its conflict with the people of God in the persons of the Amalekites, and the prototype of the heathen world, with its hostility to God, was opposing the nation of the Lord, that had been redeemed from the bondage of Egypt and was on its way to Canaan, to contest its entrance into the promised inheritance; so the battle which Israel fought with this foe possessed a typical significance in relation to all the future history of Israel. It could not conquer by the sword alone, but could only gain the victory by the power of God, coming down from on high, and obtained through prayer and those means of grace with which it had been entrusted."286
What was the significance of this battle for Israel? Israel learned that God would give them victory over their enemies as they trusted and obeyed Him.
"Jehovah used the attack of Amalek on Israel, at the very beginning of their national history, to demonstrate to His chosen people the potency of intercession. The event reveals a mighty means of strength and victory which God has graciously afforded His people of all ages."287
17:14-16 This is the first of five instances in the Pentateuch where we read that Moses wrote down something at the Lord's command (cf. 24:4, 7; 34:27; Num. 33:1-2; Deut. 31:9, 24).288
God promised the eventual destruction of the Amalekites to strengthen Joshua's faith in God's help against all Israel's enemies (v. 14). Later God commanded him to exterminate the Amalekites after he had conquered Canaan (Deut. 25:19). The Bible mentions the Amalekites for the last time in 1 Chronicles 4:43 when a remnant of them perished in Hezekiah's day. Some commentators have identified Haman, called an Agagite in the Book of Esther, with the Amalekites.289Agag was evidently an Amalekite name or title (cf. 1 Sam. 15:32-33). There is serious question, however, that Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites, as some of the better commentaries on Esther point out.
The altar commemorated God's victory and self-revelation as the One who would provide victory for Israel against her enemies (v. 15). The banner was a flag that the victor could raise over his defeated foe.
"The sight of Moses so blessing Israel and judging Amalek would symbolize Yahweh, by whom all blessing and all cursing were believed to be empowered; thus the altar was named not Moses is my standard,' or The staff of Elohim is my standard,' but Yahwehis my standard.'"290
God set Himself against the Amalekites because they set themselves against His people and His purposes through them (v. 16).291
"The battle between Yahweh and Amalek will continue across the generations because the Amalekites have raised a hand against Yahweh's throne, that is, they have challenged his sovereignty by attacking his people."292
"In Amalek the heathen world commenced that conflict with the people of God, which, while it aims at their destruction, can only be terminated by the complete annihilation of the ungodly powers of the world. . . . Whereas he [Moses] had performed all the miracles in Egypt and on the journey by stretching out his staff, on this occasion he directed his servant Joshua to choose men for the war, and to fight the battle with the sword. He himself went with Aaron and Hur to the summit of a hill to hold up the staff of God in his hands, that he might procure success to the warriors through the spiritual weapons of prayer."293
"I am convinced beyond any doubt that virtually all advances for Christ come because of believers who understand and practice prayer."294
In all the crises the Israelites had faced since they left Egypt, God was teaching them to look to Him. They should do so for deliverance from their enemies (at the Red Sea), for health and healing (at Marah), and for food and guidance (in the wilderness of Sin). They should also do so for water and refreshment (at Massah-Meribah) and for victory over their enemies (at Rephidim). He was teaching them how dependent they were on Him and that they should turn to Him in any and every need (cf. John 15:5).
Once again the Lord provided for His people, continued to provide for them, and proved His presence again to Israel and to Israel's enemies.295
"The present narrative in Exodus 17 appears to have been shaped by its relationship to the events recorded in Numbers 21:1-3, the destruction of Arad. The two narratives are conspicuously similar. Here in Exodus 17, the people murmured over lack of water and Moses gave them water from the rock (vv. 1-7). They were attacked by the Amalekites but went on to defeat them miraculously while Moses held up his hands (in prayer?). So also in the narrative in Numbers 21, after an account of Israel's murmuring and of getting water from the rock (20:1-13), Israel was attacked but miraculously went on to defeat the Canaanites because of Israel's vow, which the narrative gives in the form of a prayer (21:1-3).
"The parallels between the two narratives suggest an intentional identification of the Amalekites in the Exodus narratives and the Canaanites in Numbers 21:1-3."296
AManna and quail (Exod. 16:4-34)
B40 years (Exod. 16:35)
CWater from the rock (Exod. 17:1-7)
DJoshua, the next leader (Exod. 17:8-13)
EBattle with the Amalekites (Exod. 17:14-16)
Sinai
A'Manna and quail (Num. 11:4-34)
B'40 years (Num. 14:21-22)
C'Water from the rock (Num. 20:1-12)
D'Eleazar, the next priest (Num. 20:23-29)
E'Battle with the Canaanites (Num. 21:1-16)297
