Here in Exodus 17:1-7, we see the grumbling of Israel. You may say it “Again!”, yes they grumbled again. In Previous chapter they were grumbled because of food, and now because of water. But have they faced the same problem in Exodus 15? Yes, and that happened again, the difference is in Exodus 15 they still have water, but it taste bitter, and here in Exodus 17, then don’t have or run out of water. You may think it was silly for Israel to keep grumbling where they have seen how God has provided them so far, and how God has revealed his Power to them, but let’s examine ourselves, how we also is similar to Israel, living in a life with no contentment in God. Apart of all the blessings that God has given us, we still live a life with a desire for something else than God; we grumbled, we are hating each other because of some matters, we cheats on things, basically we live in disobedience.
Interestingly if we look at verse 1 on the following sentence: “ According to the commandment of the LORD ... but there was no water for the people to drink”. Israel did exactly what God commanded; yet there was no water to drink. They were in the will of God but in a difficult time. This is the truth: that It is possible to be completely in the will of God yet also in great problems. So here as i have written on previous bible studies as well, Israel is not guilty because of the lack of water. They are not guilty because they want water for them to drink (they are right to be concerned), but the problem is (verse 2) because they contended with Moses, which indicate they responded to the problem in the flesh. We may see more on Israel’s response on verse 4 where Moses said that they are almost ready to stone Moses. Instead of praying to God like Moses, they contended.
Later in Exodus 32, God describes Israelites as a stiff-necked people, and i think it is right. Why? Can you imagine if we are Israel, where God has shown to us His power by penalise Egypt with the 10 plague; He then shows His miracle by guiding the Israel through the Reed Sea, and now while they are grumbling there is still the pillar of cloud and fire, and manna from heaven provided everyday. After all they see this, and is still now looking at God’s presence by the pillar of cloud and fire that guides where they should go, and feel of God’s providence by giving them manna each day, how can they not believe Him? How can they sing (Exodus 15) and say “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.” and now they say (Exodus 17:7) “Is the LORD among us or not?”. They are indeed a people of lack of trust, and what about us today? are we just like Israelites that lack of trust to Him who has done great things for us? James 3:9-12 says “9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers,[c] these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” Here James basically warn us to tame our tongues, as it tells our nature as a sinner (that we are by nature a hypocrite).
Again, just like in Exodus 16, towards these people that complaints and lack of trust, God shows His mercy, love and grace. He proves himself keeping His covenant to His people to guides them leaving Egypt to meet His goal to worship Him, and therefore test by test and grace by grace He gave to His people. In numbers 20, there is another similar story in a different times of event, where God asked Moses to just tell to the rock and the rock will yield water, but instead Moses struck the rock twice. Later on numbers 20:13 it was written that the LORD prove Himself Holy in this event. It is true, that He proves Himself holy by punishing Moses because of his disobedience, but i think God proves Himself holy for what He did to Israel; and this truth i think is there on Exodus 17 as well. Though it was not mentioned, God’s doing towards Israelites, towards lack of trust people, He showed himself holy - His holy mercy, love and abounding grace. The word “holy” does not just stop at “purity” but it is more than that. (refer to my previous article: “Holy Obedience of the Cross”). This truth for us, should make us standing in awe of Him, with gratitude and thankfulness through our obedience.
Now what happen after this miracle? Just after Israelites once again has experienced of God’s providence, the next verse Israel now meets another problem. Amalekites came and attacked Israel from behind (refer to Deuteronomy 25:17-18). More on that amalekites attacked them when Israel were weary and worn out - maybe because of this exhaustive journey. The problem just wouldn’t stop isn’t it? Problem after problem keeps coming, or to put it more accurate testing after testing. Do we face similarly in our lives? the journey of Israelites to Canaan, is the picture of Christian’s life. It is a training ground for us, to train us to rely on God,and to trust Him in all the thing.
Amalekites were a fierce nomadic tribe that lived in the east of Egypt (from Shur to Havilah) . They were descendants of Esau. According to Gen 36, Amalek is son of Eliphaz and the grandson of Esau. They are enemies of the Israelites, which later on the history we may see lots of tension between the Israelites and Amalekites. Now when we see this happening, we can see there are Joshua and the Israelites who fight against them, and Moses with Aaron and Hur up above praying to God. This is how they face the enemy. What makes Israel won the battle? obviously, God is the key of victory here, because Moses prays to God (Yahweh) and not to the other God. Moses was asking help to God who is later on verse 15-16 he said that God is our banner. But we see here that their victory in God involves their action to act in His plan namely: to pray and to fight the battle, isn’t it? If Moses prays but no one fight the battle, then who will fight the Amalekites? of course, we can say that God can wipe out the Amalekites just like when God wipe out the egyptians when they go through the Reed Sea, but here God is training them more: to obey and not just sit and watch.
God teaches each of us today differently. He knows best about our character, He knows how to shape us better to be more and more like Christ. As we grow more, He will discipline us more, He will train us more, and sometimes he teach us with softness and sometimes He gave us hard discipline. When God teaches His children, He wants us to know His will more. Here, God teaches Israel to act actively according to His plan. Man has to be responsible in God’s sovereign will. Moses knows it is the time for Israelites to fight, and he himself will pray as prayer is their strength. How important is prayer to you? in times of trouble do you seek God? When is the time of trouble to you? Can you see that our daily life is actually a battle (a spiritual battle)? Therefore, as we have to aware about our daily spiritual struggle, we have to keep praying and act (fight).
I would also like to get our attention to Aaron’s and Hur’s role. Their role here is to support Moses in prayer. We know about Aaron - that he is Moses older brother, but who is Hur? Bible does not say it, and many commentaries tries to tell us who is Hur, but why Hur’s name is noted here? This is what makes it interesting (at least to me) that sometimes the Bible may teach us through a simple example: that Hur is just a man that supports Moses in this case. His name is noted because he happen to be a man that supports Moses. Now, Have we ever be in Hur’s role? Did you ever feel that you’re just an ordinary believer and not a multi-talented, important or up-front Christian? Do you feel like your prayers are just commonplace, even though you’ve tried to be a great prayer warrior? This story may encourage us that we as Christian ought to pray for each other, we are not called to be a leading actor, but we are called to act according to His will: to pray according to His will, to pray for His mission - including supporting others and bring others in our prayer. If we are in the church congregation, and we pray for the gospel mission, don’t think that you are just one person, and whether you pray or not, there are thousands of people praying the same thing, and so you question why should i pray, and you think that your prayer is insignificant. That is not the right attitude. Here we can see Hur supports Moses in prayer, and that the whole effort of Israel as the congregation: Joshua who leads the battle, Israelites who fights, Moses leading the prayer, Aaron and Hur who supports Moses - all of them participate in the battle, aren’t they?
Lastly, in verse 14, God asked Moses to write this event as a reminder especially to Joshua. When we see about the character of Joshua, then we can see that God is very personal here. Let us look at what happen in the book of Joshua 1, and there we will see that God told Joshua to be strong and have courage - not just once but three times (plus one from the Israelites). This shows that even Joshua is a leader, he is also an ordinary man that sometimes can be fragile - or who may have fear to meet the enemies or to lead a nation. Joshua might be a leader but he is also a man who has low confidence of himself - and God fixes this by giving him another confidence which is God’s confidence (not self confidence). God here is very personal, and He wants to remind Joshua of what He has done to him and to the nations - that the war has been ended with victory even though Joshua and the israelites who fights but God is the one that makes the victory. He also wants to keep Joshua not to be proud of himself, and therefore God told Joshua to have hope in Him that God will blot out the remembrance of Amalek under the heaven - someday. This gave assurance and hope for Joshua, and also for us today that God will finish our battle. We are now fighting the spiritual battle, we struggles but God someday, He has promised us that we will win the battle because of Him.
And therefore it is like what Moses did in verse 15 - 16 that God is truly our banner (or flag). He is the one that fights against Amalekites. He is the one that will fight against our enemies. God is our banner, meaning that He is our claim, our proclamation, our announcement so that everyone could see. When we admit God as our banner, we admits that He is our standard, we announce to everyone that we worship Him, and we admit (claim) that our God is superior.
~ Paul Hartono
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