Yahweh Nissi (The Lord is My Banner)

Exodus 17:8-15

⁸Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. ⁹So 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.” ¹⁰So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. ¹¹Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. ¹²But 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. ¹³And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. ¹⁴Then 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.” ¹⁵And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner, ¹⁶saying, “A hand upon the throne of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

Having seen God’s provision for both food and water, the Children of Israel now face an entirely new challenge. Will their God help them as they deal with enemy attack? Of course He will.

The Amalekites were a people who lived partly by attacking other population groups and plundering their wealth. They were the descendants of Esau (of Esau and Jacob fame) who generally opposed Israel throughout her history. King David fought the Amalekites during his reign several hundred years later. It would appear Amalek had a reputation for this marauding lifestyle and so it was only natural that they would see Israel as a likely target. We are also introduced in this story to Joshua.

Joshua appears here for the first time in the narrative, thus the first time in the Bible. He apparently had spent time during the days on the march from Egypt helping instruct the Israelites in martial skills and strategy, which would now see their first testing in actual combat. He was surely much younger than the eighty-year-old Moses since later he became Moses’ successor. In 33:11 Moses referred to Joshua as his “young assistant,” which suggests that he was a right-hand man to Moses in various ways, though at this point the ability to lead the people in battle appeared paramount.

Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2, p. 394). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Joshua had to pull together an army with a single day’s notice, and part of the criteria he used for selecting fighters may well have been simply identifying those who had a sword. Israel had certainly not had the time to raise up an actual army but they did have the power of God to win the day for them. The use of Moses’ staff continues to demonstrate the power of God among the people. By this time Moses expected his readers to realize that he would never use the staff unless commissioned by God to do so. In this relatively brief account of Israel’s first warfare, many potentially supportive details are omitted, and one of them surely is the fact that God was behind the call to battle and the determination to use the divine staff as a symbol of God’s presence with the people during the battle. Hur is introduced here for the first time. Josephus identifies him as the husband of Miriam. Whether this is nothing more than a speculation on Josephus’s part or the preservation of a valid tradition cannot be discerned from the available evidence.

Once again, the battle belongs to the Lord. While most of us will not be engaged in actual battle today, we have numerous situations that simply must be turned over to the Lord. At the end of the story, Moses calls God Yahweh Nissi which means God is my Banner. As long as His banner is held over my life, He will prevail. When I lower my hands into the situation and use my own resources, the battle is lost. It seems like a simple analogy, but it plays out fairly consistently for those of us who are willing to walk with God in control. Not surprisingly, Jesus also always held up the Father as His banner and the source of His power. He spends more hours in prayer than we could possibly imagine and in that relationship we find our example for genuine living.

Gracious Lord, when I want to throw up my hands in frustration over my circumstances, teach to instead lift up my hands in prayer and surrender. Help me to count on You rather than on myself. In Your Son’s name I pray. Amen.