Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The LORD Is My Banner, saying, “A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
Comment: There are two sides to most stories! God was leading His people through ‘the wilderness’ on the way to Canaan where they were going to fight many battles and wrench the land from them. It is unreasonable to say that God is totally against war. It is not surprising that the Amalekites were very disturbed when they saw this mass of people, admittedly not as an army, but nevertheless a threateningly huge number. Were the Amalekites depending on plundering the Israelis and saw them as easy pickings to get wealth and ‘goodies’. Did Moses, under the directions of God, make an attempt to appease them by sending a delegation with assurances of their peaceful plan to just pass through? We don’t know but there are at least three things for us to consider and learn i). Not everyone sees the same situation in the same way. ii) God doesn’t tolerate persistent, destructive opposition. iii) Dependence on God and obedience to Him, even if it is exhausting, is the answer to the situation! I presume that the elders went up to the top of the hill because God had ‘told’ Moses to do something similar to what he had done in creating the path through the Red Sea. This reminds me to pray, but even more to be consciously dependent on God in every situation.
Prayer: Help me to learn well the lessons which You teach me, my Father God.
As I read it! 