some men to go into the valley and engage Amalek, while he will place himself on the hill, overlooking the valley, staff in hand.
The Amalekites were relatives of the Israelites. This makes the attack so much more than an ambush from local infidels. We are told in Genesis 36 that Amalek is a grandson of Esau. These descendants of Esau travel out of Canaan and attack Israel without provocation. Many assume that the idea behind their offensive would be to try to gain the upper hand on this legendary people by attacking Israel before they make their way to Canaan and displace them. God will not forget this attack, as is clear in the closing verses of Exodus 17, but also in the remembrance of it in Deuteronomy. The attack, according to God, was a direct assault against the Creator. They didn’t fear God, we are told. Family traditions die hard. For this reason, Israel was being prepared to move into the land and destroy the remnant of this and other wicked people groups.
When Moses begins to grow weary, the two men who are with him, Aaron and Hur, place a rock under their leader so that he can perch himself atop it, while the men each position themselves on either side of the old man, in order to hold up his arms; for when his arms were in the air, Israel prevailed in battle, and when his arms would drop, Amalek would prevail.
No doubt, there are times when people might be tempted to think of events like this as dubious accountings. This is not the case. Why might someone think of this scene as being riddled with superstition? Because the reader is supposed to believe that when an old man held a magic stick in the air, one army would prevail over another. It can sound childish and uncivilized. The truth is that we are not dealing with magic. We are dealing with a God whose actions are not only powerful but didactic. He is not simply proving himself, but he is teaching all generations about himself.
What is the teaching in this battle? What is the promise we conflate with the power? Can it be that the gospel is being preached to believers, generations after this event, in the details of the account?
Firstly, we would be amiss to not recognize that this is the second time in this chapter that someone has perched themselves atop a rock. Only a few verses prior, as we saw in the last chapter, God told Moses that he would place himself atop the Rock just prior to Moses’ striking it. This was done so that the message being proclaimed down the hall of time would reverberate loud and clear. Paul tells us that the message was that Jesus was the Rock. For those who believe that the Son is co-eternal with the Father, this not only makes perfect sense, but it helps us to see the gospel cohesion in all of Scripture.
Now, just six short verses later, Moses is placed atop a rock. To have been given such gospel insight into the similar event at Horeb by Paul, and to then miss the gospel symbolism taking place in this battle with Amalek, would be tragic.
Is there a consistent Biblical description of how God uses the concept of the rock, and if it were to be applied in this passage, would the motif retain consistency? Clearly, the intent of this book is to show that this is the case, but, to begin with, see what David says, per the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Ps 18:2)
This is a warrior, speaking of God as a rock, and by that he means success in battle. Incontrovertibly, David’s warrior terminology extends far beyond literal war, even in his own day, although it does include literal war; however, in the New Covenant, the warrior analogies are applied literally to the truer and only still-standing enemies: spiritual strongholds. New Covenant believers can sing the imprecatory Psalms, but they must sing them against lust and greed . . . not Assyrians nor Persians. David, being a true believer in the Old Covenant, employs a mix of the literal and the spiritual.
The epitome of a successful battle would not only be the efficient conquering of one’s enemies, but also the successful protection of one’s own peoples. The latter is being sung about in the above-cited Psalm. On all sides, David says that God has been a Fortress, a Deliverer, a Refuge, a Shield, a Savior, and a Stronghold. He references God as being all these things in one word which he repeats: Rock.
Now, we see Moses, the leader of the people of God, stationed upon the rock, and a direct relationship emerging between this and the victory over their enemies. But this is not the only thing taking place. They are not only being kept safe and delivered from their own deaths, but they are winning the battle as well:
For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?—the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great. You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip. I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed. (Ps 18:31–37)
The only Rock that exists, is God, says David. He then goes on to describe, in the very same chapter, how God is not only a Rock who saves his people from their enemies, but he is a Rock who crushes the enemies of his people. Those who love to sneak and set traps, David says further on in Solomonic fashion, will be devoured by them. Such is the case with Amalek. Moses is seated on the Rock, and the battle is being won for the people of God. Moses is stayed on the Rock, and the Rock is undoubtedly the Rock of Salvation.
But the Rock upon which Moses sits is only part of the gospel message. There are other pieces built into it. Moses is seated on the Rock, but his arms are held up by other men from the camp. His arms are held up; his staff is in his hand; and Moses is growing weary.
The man of God, in this Exodus passage, is a mighty leader. He is a Bible hero unparalleled. But what is the message in this passage? The victory is not only related to the man of God being established on the Rock, but it is required of him that he remain in a posture of surrender and dependency. To fail to do so is to lose the battle. Aaron and Hur are not commissioned to cheer him on. They are commissioned to hold his arms up. What curious irony. The leader of the people exists in a perpetual state of surrender, that by doing so they might be victorious in battle. The only way this makes sense is to place it all under the rubric of gospel logic. Every person who surrenders to Christ is truly victorious:
Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:3b)
After the event at Horeb, Moses renamed the place, and he gave it two names. One name meant quarreling and one name meant testing. The quarreling commemoration was made because the people fought with one another and with Moses. Even down to this day, it is remembered of them that they complained and argued. The other name was given because the people tested God. Moses even says in what manner they did such a thing:
And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exod 17:7)
What they had done to test the Lord was to question whether or not he was still among them. And so, Moses stands with his hands raised in surrender to the Lord, and Israel wins. Imagine the shock and fear that must have raced through him when he made the connection between their success of the troops and the position of his hands. Moses is showing us what it looks like not only to be a godly leader, but to be a godly believer. It is to live in dependency on the Rock, both beneath us and above us.
It would have been the simplest thing in the world to deny that it is possible that his own arms being raised was the key to the success against Amalek. The simplest thing would be to confess a wave of self-centeredness and a brief encounter with the world of Messiah complexes. Moses could have slapped himself in the face a few times and asked Aaron to pinch him. What was he thinking? There is no way that a guy raising his arms in the air—or
