1 And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.Though the Israelites' whining started early and continued often, it's hard to see why Moses considers their desire for water an affront to God.
2 Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the LORD?
3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?
4 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.
5 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.
6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?
8 Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9 And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.
10 So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12 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.
13 And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
15 And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi:
16 For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
Actually, the whining is effective, as God helps Moses un-smite the river and get water from a stone.
Amalek (where is he from, planet Twilo?) happens along, and he starts mixing it up with the Israelites. Bad decision.
Moe calls on a couple of new characters to help him with the battle: Joshua and Hur.
Why would he need
Oddly, God decides to flashy-thing everyone's memory of ol' Amalek while also asking for a book, an altar, and a chat between Moses and Joshua to commemorate the battle.
He wants the war with Amalek's descendants to continue ad infinitum. What do the jingoistic bumper stickers say, "Forget to remember to forget Amalek"?
Finally, why isn't a battle between anyone and the ones who've got God on their side anything but an instant rout, like when the Ark of the Covenant killed all those Nazis (video).
1 comment:
Verse 1 is from the stations list again.
Meribah means "strife" and Massah means "temptation"/"proof". The "getting a drink" narrative here is basically just a folk story that attempts to explain these place names, by working backwards from them; the narrative is slotted in to the "Israelites wander through the desert" story, but originally was unconnected with it.
Massah/Meribah was probably an ordinary rock-spring; how these arise is understood by modern geology, but ancient cultures didn't know and invented myths instead on a place-by-place basis.
Massah's been visited before - in chapter 15 - where, "co-incidentally", its connected with a "getting a drink" story that results in a place getting its name. In fact, Numbers 20:2-13 is also a remarkably similar story - they've just come from the wilderness of Sin, there is no water, Moses strikes a rock, water spouts out, and the place is then named Meribah.
They are really different versions of the same story; in a couple of chapters, I'll explain why there is so many chapters between the version in Numbers 20 and the version in Exodus 17. The Jahwist version is mainly chapter 15 and the Elohist version is mainly chapter 17; they seem to have got mixed together a little.
The Priestly Source version (which is copied from the other two) is the one in Numbers - the people there are described as challenging the authority of Moses AND Aaron - Aaron is absent from the other stories, but the Priestly Source doesn't like the idea that contact can be made with Yahweh without having to go through an Aaronid priest, so here Aaron is added - and Yahweh speaks through a "tabernacle" (a cypher for the Jerusalem temple), rather than directly.
Note also that in the Numbers version Moses isn't required to strike the rock, and is criticised by Yahweh when he does strike it; Aaron, in typical Priestly Source style, remains innocent, by not striking the rock with Moses.
The Amalek story is out of place - it really belongs near the end of Numbers (in other words, one of the early scribes that made the copy of the bible that all later copies are based on, accidentally got the documents they were copying from mixed up - it happens); Joshua suddenly appears, but is introduced for the first time in a later chapter; the Amalekites are described everywhere else as being at the southern border of Canaan, not anywhere near Sinai as they are here. It would make more sense if the Amalek episode was placed near Kedesh, where the other Amalek episodes are placed. Anyway, this is the Elohist version of the Amalek story - note the very supernatural powers of Moses.
Who are the Amalekites? its a good question, scholars aren't really very certain about an answer, although the Amalekites seem to have been an ally of Edom (the country east of southern Canaan). They also seem to have been thieves and raiders - a bit like the vikings; not so much war, as cops+robbers. They may not even be any particular nation, but instead just a term describing raiders in general.
The Israelites seem to have had particular trouble with the Amalekites during the times of the Books of Samuel (according to the Books of Samuel); co-incidentally, or not, the dates of the Books of Samuel are also the time the Jahwist and Elohist would have lived - the Jahwist/Elohist concluded that the Amalekites must have always been enemies of the Israelites, and since the Exodus Israelites would have had to pass the area just south of Canaan to get to Canaan, the Jahwist/Elohist concludes that these Israelites must have fought the Amalekites.
Its like finding a body in the woods with a giant shotgun wound in it - at first glance you conclude that it was killed by a gun, even though you never saw the event, and even if what really happened was that it was poisoned, hung for a few days, and then after being really dead, was shot for amusement.
The altar: this snippet of narrative is an attempt at Yahweh-ising a preexisting sanctuary, probably at Kedesh (since the preceding Amalek narrative probably was originally in Numbers).
"Jehovanissi" is the translation of "yhwhnissi" = "Yahweh is my banner".
There's a bit of the text missing in the King James version; rather than just ".. For he said, 'The LORD hath sworn that the LORD will be at war against ..'.." the majority of Hebrew manuscripts now discovered have verse 16 stating "For he said, 'For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against ..'.." . In Hebrew this is spelt in very similar way to "For he said, 'For hands were lifted upon the banner of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against ..'..", which would be make more sense as an explanation.
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