The LORD my Banner
Welcome to Peniel CrossRoads, where we embrace Jesus’s heart and together live out the call to biblical unity!
Have you ever had a day when the Holy Spirit began speaking to you from the second you opened your eyes? This happened to me the other day.
It's not unusual for me to wake to a worship song playing in my head, but occasionally, the songs are so profoundly related to what I am facing that I know the Spirit is trying to speak! From the moment my feet hit the floor that day, I began singing “The Battle Belongs to You” by Phil Wickham. Then in my quiet time with the Lord, the thought of God fighting our battles persisted. I began to pray the ABC 's of God's names. (This is a praise practice, consisting of calling out the attributes or names of God in Scripture, starting with the letter ‘A’ and continuing all the way to ‘Z’.) When I got to the letter ‘N’, the name “Jehovah Nissi” came to mind. “Jehovah Nissi?” I thought. “What does that mean again?” I went to my digital Bible to look up “Jehovah Nissi” [or more accurately, “Yahweh Nissi”] and a study of Exodus 17 commenced.
The Israelites had travelled from place to place as the Lord had commanded them, and now they had run out of water. Verse 2 says,
So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?” But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” (verses 2-4)
At this, the LORD gave Moses the command to go to a certain rock and strike it so that water would burst forth in the desert. Moses had to do for the people what they already should have been doing; he cried out to God for their deliverance! God did deliver, and Moses named that place “Testing” (Massah) and “Quarreling” (Meribah – vs. 7) because of how the people had wallowed in their lack, slandered the Lord's goodness and tested His patience with them.
In contrast, the next section (verses 8 to 16) recalls how God gave Moses and Joshua a strategy for defeating the Amalekite people. The Amalekites were distant cousins of the Israelites, and they did not recognize the hand of God on Israel. When Israel sought to move through Rephidim, the Amalekites cut them down by first attacking the weakest ones who were lagging behind. (See Deut. 25:17-18) They earned a reputation before God of not fearing the LORD.
In this battle, as long as Moses lifted up his hands toward the throne of God--symbolizing he was calling on the LORD and relying on His deliverance--the Israelites happened to win. But as soon as Moses’s hands started to fall, the Israelites began to lose the battle. So Aaron and Hur held up Moses's hands so that all of Israel would recognize that their leader was crying out before the Lord's Throne. After Israel’s victory, Moses built an altar there and called it “The LORD is my Banner”—Yahweh Nissi. He said, “Because hands were lifted up against the throne of Yahweh, the LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.” The LORD does not forget the weak ones!
Am I like the Israelites in the first passage, when they refused to call out to God and instead started quarreling and accusing Moses of being a poor leader? (Worse, they accused God of not being powerful or compassionate enough. The Name “Yahweh” represents the relational, compassionate God!) Or am I like Moses in the second passage, who continually lifted his hands--even with the help of others--to the throne of Yahweh to ask for help in winning an impossible battle?
I think there is a reason why these two passages are back-to-back. When we look at them in contrast, we see how we are not to be and how we are to be. We are not to allow our own fears and sense of lack or insufficient resources to lead to our quarreling and accusing God of not doing his job! Rather, we are to continue to keep our gaze fixed on him, knowing that as we lift up our eyes to His Throne, as we “lift” our hearts and hands in prayer and dependency upon Him, we will see that He WILL come through for us!
“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His [faithful] love endures forever.”
Psalm 136:1
O Lord my God, You ARE my Banner—You go before us to fight our battles, and You protect Your own Name and cause! Help us to remember Your faithfulness and Your power in every situation when we have called out to You. Help us to rely fully upon Your goodness and gracious ‘hesed’ Love toward us! Please remind us that we need to cry out together for Your faithful love in every circumstance…In Jesus’s Mighty Name we pray, Amen.