for a moment that we are watching a film of these two events on a split screen. On one side are the thirsty Israelites complaining to Moses that he could care less that they are dying. On the other side are the Israelites complaining to Jesus that he could care less that they are dying. In both instances, the word of God had been issued, that he would take them to the place to which they were journeying:
Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, ‘I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.’” (Exod 3:16–17)
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” (Mark 4:35)
Both sets of accusations against God rest entirely on one or both of the two options: God is not there, or God does not care. The reality, of course, is that murmuring is unbelief. The word of God is sure, and in both cases the word of God had been delivered. The illusion that God was asleep, or aloof, or sinister is just that—an illusion. Jesus is not sleeping because he couldn’t care less, but because he is convinced that God cares intimately; therefore he can sleep. The disciples wanted the peace of Rome, not the peace of Christ. They wanted escape from the storm, not perseverance through it. They wanted the fragile vessel kept out of harm’s way, which is to say that they did not want God to receive glory for doing what would otherwise be impossible. Murmuring is unbelief. Christ was asleep because he knew God cared, and that God was sovereign. When Israel thirsted, Christ had not withheld water from them because he is a scoundrel; rather, he withheld water to teach them to trust him. The suffering was for the perfecting of faith, but they would have none of it.
Look. We are told that the Rock is Christ. God is before his people. He is struck per his own ordination, and the people of God drink freely from his riven side. And all this in response, not to their worship of him, but their quarreling and rebellion. There is no charge that can be brought against God, other than that of him being merciful and gracious.
Glorious things of Thee are Spoken
(John Newton, 1779)
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God.
God, whose word cannot be broken,
formed thee for his own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
thou may’st smile at all thy foes.
See, the streams of living waters,
springing from eternal love,
well supply thy sons and daughters
and all fear of want remove.
Who can faint while such a river
ever flows their thirst to assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the giver,
never fails from age to age.
4. Augustine, The Anti-Pelagian Writings, 175.
5. Law, The Gospel in Exodus, 98.
6. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, 107.
Chapter 5
But 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. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. (Exod 17:12–13)
There is something addictive about the work of ancestry recovery. Rarely is the myriad of narratives that was woven together to make us who we are talked about in detail. One are two generations back is often the limit of our capacity to name our ancestors. Imagine if it you were to find out that a notable person had been discovered in your ancestry. Imagine if it were someone you’d never heard of, but someone with a story that others have remembered. It is the most natural thing in the world to begin to read about this person, even to hunt down photographs and crane one’s neck at different angles in front of the mirror to see if we can find the resemblance.
Moses is an ancestor of all true believers. God used him to preach about himself to those who are able to hear the sermon. In this Exodus passage, Moses is positioned by God into a crucible of sorts. It is in this strange posture that God will proclaim down the corridor of time the message that, in order to experience the victory of God, we must live in dependency on God.
Immediately after the event at the Rock of Horeb, the Scriptures take us to a battle between the Amalekites and the Israelites. The battle takes place in Rephidim, the region in which Israel was already camped, where God brought water from the rock.
Remembering how God had used his staff to repeatedly broker great outcomes, Moses tells Joshua to choose 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.