Explanation: Water and war are the subjects of Exodus 17. Israel moved in stages from the wilderness of Sin; but when they arrived at Rephidim they had no water. The people quarreled with Moses and accused him of bringing them out of Egypt to kill them with thirst. When Moses asked the LORD what to do since the people were almost ready to stone him, the LORD told him to take some of the elders and go on before them and meet him at the rock of Horeb. The LORD told him to strike the rock with his staff and water would come out. Moses did so, and the water flowed out. But because of the faithless attitude of the people, Moses changed the name of the place to Massah and Meribah -- "Temptation and Quarreling" (1-7). About two months after they left Egypt (around the end of May or in early June), while the Israelites were in Rephidim, the Amalekites attacked them. Amalek was the "first of the nations" to make war against Israel (Numbers 24:20). The Amalekites may have been concerned about their security, or they may have been defending their pastures, or they may have been after the water that Moses produced, or they may have been interested merely in plunder (especially, when we take into account the fact that they attacked the feeble and weary in the rear ranks, as noted in Deuteronomy 25:18). Multiple motives, of course, are quite possible. Some commentators take the Amalekites to be descendants of Cush (Genesis 14:7); however, many commentators take them to be relatives of Israel, being the descendants of Esau's son Eliphaz -- Genesis 36:12,16 and 1 Chronicles 1:36 (8). The day after the attack, Moses put Joshua in charge of conducting the battle against Amalek while he stood on the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur and lifted the staff of God against Amalek. Moses' hands grew weary, and he raised and lowered them several times, which allowed Amalek to prevail when his hands were lowered. So Aaron and Hur sat him on a rock and held his hands up until the sun went down; and Joshua overwhelmed Amalek (9-13). The LORD told Moses to write this as a memorial and tell it to Joshua, because he was going to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar to the LORD there, calling it "Jehovahnissi," ("The LORD Is My Banner"), and declaring that the LORD had sworn that he would have war with Amalek from generation to generation. The final destruction of Amalek came, perhaps, around 715 B.C. (1 Chronicles 4:39-43), when the tribe of Simeon defeated the remnant of the Amalekites during the reign of Hezekiah, who reigned from 715 B.C. to 686 B.C. (14-16).

     ¹⁴ Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." ¹⁵ And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The LORD Is My Banner, ¹⁶ saying, "A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

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