And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi.- Exo_17:15.
On leaving the seashore the march had turned eastwards towards the great mass of mountains known generally as Sinai. The route is described as inexpressibly grand. On each side of the narrow pass rise peaks and precipices of every form and colour. Grey, red, brown, green, chalk-white, and raven-black are the hues of those entrance-gates of the most august temple of the world. Here, even before Abraham left Haran, the Egyptian Government had worked mines of copper and turquoise by convict labour.
Up to this point the sufferings of the pilgrim-host, though trying, had not been insupportable; but on leaving Dophkah and entering the Wady Feiran, the whole camp, man and beast, became severely pressed. The oases which had varied the monotony of the desert failed them; the granite walls on either hand reflected an intolerable glare and heat, and the failure of the supply of water threatened to drive the whole camp to frenzy. At Marah the water had been unpalatable; here there was no water at all. The brook which at times waters the valley was dry, as it often becomes still; and perhaps the presence of vegetation along the empty watercourse made the disappointment more tantalizing. The word Rephidim signifies “resting-places,” and every one had been buoyed up during the stiff experiences of the last two days with the happy expectations which that name suggested. Obviously, therefore, the contrast between hope and reality was the more exasperating.
If you essay to lead men, you will sooner or later come to a Rephidim. We are distinctly told that it was according to the commandment of the Lord that the children of Israel journeyed “by stages” (Exo_17:1, R.V., marg.) from the wilderness of Sin, and pitched in Rephidim. The character of the worker is as dear to God as the work he is doing; and no pains must be spared by the Divine Artificer to complete the design to which He has set His hand. Do not be surprised then, Christian worker, if you find yourself in Rephidim.1 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]
1. Angrily the people turned upon Moses, not murmuring only, but even threatening his life. In answer to his prayer Moses is directed to take the elders of Israel, and go before the people: “Behold,” said the Lord, “I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb.” Here, as in the case of the manna, there was a special manifestation of the glory of God. All the people were gathered to see this great sight; nearer stood the elders of Israel. In front of these was the rock, high and massive-its rugged sides stretching up until its fretted heights stood out against the sky. Over all, dazzling and awful, was the glory of the Lord. Then Moses drew near and lifting the rod he smote the rock, and from it leapt the stream. As the Psalmist sings, “the waters ran down like rivers”-cool, delicious, abundant, it fell with happy music. And eagerly rushed the fevered children, and the thirsty men and women, and found new life in it; and from every side the flocks and herds gathered to share in the gracious supply.
Looking back upon that scene St. Paul cries-“that Rock was Christ.” Good tidings for us pilgrims, going homeward. We are sometimes where Israel was-in the desert, parched, wearied, with faith weak, and ready to murmur, longing for a draught of the river of life, as David longed to drink of the crystal spring by Bethlehem. For us “there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God.” The scene seems to rise before John the seer as if this was but the pattern of that which in its fullest glory and complete significance must be seen in the mount. “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”2 [Note: M. G. Pearse.]
2. Israel had hitherto been the sheep of God: now they must become His warriors. At the Red Sea it was said to them, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord … the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (Exo_14:13). But it is not so now. Just as the function of every true miracle is to lead to a state of faith in which miracles are not required; just as a mother reaches her hand to a tottering infant, that presently the boy may go alone; so the Lord fought for Israel, that Israel might learn to fight for the Lord. The herd of slaves who came out of Egypt could not be trusted to stand fast in battle; and what a defeat would have done with them we may judge by their outcries at the very sight of Pharaoh. But now they had experience of Divine succour, and had drawn the inspiring breath of freedom. And so it was reasonable to expect that some chosen men of them at least would be able to endure the shock of battle. And if so, it was a matter of the last importance to develop and render conscious the national spirit, a spirit so noble in its unselfish readiness to die, and in its scorn of such material ills as anguish and mutilation compared with baseness and dishonour, that the re-kindling of it in seasons of peril and conflict was more than half a compensation for the horrors of a battle-field.
3. The Amalekites were what we should call a nomad Bedouin tribe, who are spoken of as having their home in the desert south of Palestine: in the “Negeb,” or “South,” of Judah (Num_13:29; Num_14:25; Num_14:43; Num_14:45), about Kadesh (Gen_14:7), and in the same neighbourhood (1Sa_15:7; 1Sa_27:8; 1Sa_30:1). They correspond in fact very much to the Azazimeh tribe who now inhabit a large part of the elevated limestone plateau, called the Tih, between the mountains of the Sinaitic Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea. Their appearance here in the Sinaitic Peninsula is not a substantial difficulty: as Dillmann remarks, “a branch of them may have been settled in or about the oasis in Wady Feiran; or they may in May or June have led their flocks up into the cooler and fresher pastures in the mountains, or they may even have made a raid against Israel from their homes on the Tih.” Whichever supposition is the correct one, it was natural enough that the nomads, who lived on the scanty products of this region, should do their utmost to expel the intruders.
4. Few methods of winning a battle can have seemed more useless at first sight than the method adopted by Moses. Everything depended on the result of this first engagement. The undisciplined multitude had already begun to murmur because of the hardships of the way; a defeat would be certain to discourage them; therefore it might well have been expected that, however much he might have entrusted the actual fighting to the younger Joshua, Moses would stand in the thick of his men to cheer them on by his presence and example to a victory on which depended, under God, all their hopes and all their great mission to the world. And yet it was in this supreme moment that Moses chose to retire, with two other leaders, to the top of the hill high above the battle, waiting with the rod of God in his hand. It might have been argued that this was not only inconsistent with his position as leader but absolutely useless, since, whatever he might do on the top of the mountain, the battle would be decided by force of arms in the plain below; and it might with some plausibility have been added that, since the Amalekites were on their own ground, in their own country, the prayers for success which they were doubtless offering had at least a good right to be heard. Nevertheless, the fact remains-“And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”
5. When the conflict is over, Moses builds a memorial of thanksgiving to God, and piles together great stones-which, perhaps, still stand in some of the unexplored valleys of that weird desert land-to teach Israel the laws of conflict and the conditions of victory. These laws and conditions are implied in the name which he gave to the altar that he built-Jehovah-nissi, “the Lord is my Banner.” Now, then, what do these stones, with their significant name, teach us, as they taught the ancient Israelites?
(1) Let us realize for whose cause we fight.-The banner was the symbol of the cause for which an army fought, or the cognizance of the king or commander whom it followed. So Moses, by that name given to the altar, would impress upon the minds of the cowardly mob that he had brought out of Egypt-and who now had looked into an enemy's eyes for the first time-the elevating and bracing thought that they were God's soldiers, and that the warfare which they waged was not for themselves, nor for the conquest of the country for their own sake, nor for mere outward liberty, but that they were fighting that the will of God might prevail, and that He might be the King now of one land-a mere corner of the earth-and thereby might come to be the King of all the earth. That rude altar said to Israel: “Remember, when you go into the battle, that the battle is the Lord's, and that the standard under which you war is the God for whose cause you contend-none else and none less than Jehovah Himself. You are consecrated soldiers, set apart to fight for God.”
(2) Let us remember whose commands we follow.-The banner in ancient warfare, even more than in modern, waved in front of the host, and determined the movements of the army. And so, by the stones that he piled and the name that he gave them, Moses taught Israel and us that they and we are under the command of God, and that it is the movements of His staff that are to be followed. Absolute obedience is the first duty of the Christian soldier, and absolute obedience means the entire suppression of one's own will, the holding of the equilibrium until He puts His finger on the side that He desires to dip and lets the other rise. They alone understand their place as Christ's servants and soldiers who have learned to hush their own will until they know their Captain's. In order to be blessed, to be strong, to be victorious, the indispensable condition is that our inmost desire shall be, “Not my will, but thine be done.”
(3) Let us recognize by whose power we conquer.-The banner suggests to English people a false idea. It suggests the notion of a flag, or some bit of flexible drapery which fluttered and flapped in the wind; but the banner of old-world armies was a rigid pole, with some solid ornament of bright metal on the top, so as to catch the light. The banner-staff spoken of in the text links itself with the preceding incident. Moses stood on the mountain top with the rod in his hand. Now that rod was exactly a miniature banner, and when he lifted it victory came to Israel, and when it fell victory deserted their arms. So by the altar's name he would say, Do not suppose that it was Moses that won the battle, or that it was the rod that Moses carried in his hand that brought you strength. The true Victor was Jehovah, and it was He who was Moses' Banner. It was by Him that the lifted rod brought victory; as for Moses, he had nothing to do with it; and the people had to look higher than the hill-top where he sat.
“The Lord is my Banner”-no Moses, no outward symbol, no man or thing, but only He Himself. Therefore in all our duties, and in all our difficulties, and in all our conflicts, and for all our conquests, we are to look away from creatures, self, externals, and to look only to God. We are all too apt to trust in rods instead of in Him, in Moses instead of in Moses' Lord.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
God, who in Israel's bondage and bewailing
Heard them and granted them their heart's desire,
Clave them the deep with power and with prevailing,
Gloomed in the cloud and glowed into the fire,
Fed them with manna, furnished with a fountain,
Followed with waves the rising of the rod,
Drew them and drave, till Moses on the mountain
Died of the kisses of the lips of God.2 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]
