Exodus 17King James Version
No water at Rephidim. The people quarrel with Moses and are ready to stone him. God tells him to strike the rock at Horeb, and water gushes out. Then Amalek comes to fight Israel. As long as Moses holds up his hands, Israel prevails. When his hands grow heavy, Aaron and Hur sit him on a stone and hold his hands up until sunset.
Israel camps at Rephidim with no water. The congregation contends with Moses and tests God: is the LORD among us or not? Moses cries to God that the people are about to stone him. God tells Moses to strike the rock at Horeb; water flows. Moses names the place Massah and Meribah, testing and striving. Then Amalek attacks. Joshua leads Israel in battle while Moses holds his arms aloft on the hill; when his arms drop Israel retreats, when they are raised Israel prevails. Aaron and Hur support his arms until sunset. Israel wins. God vows to blot out Amalek's memory.
The battle against Amalek is won not by the fighting force alone but by sustained, supported intercession from the hill above the battlefield.
v12: "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" -- even the leader needs people to hold his arms up.
Rephidim, probably in the western Sinai highlands. Amalek is a nomadic tribal confederation that controlled desert trade routes. An attack on a slow-moving column of former slaves with women, children, and livestock is opportunistic. The hill gives Moses a position where all can see him. The visibility matters: Joshua's troops on the plain watch the arms.
Moses confronts both the people's thirst and their potential violence; Joshua commands on the field, his first appearance in scripture; Aaron holds one arm, Hur the other; Amalek attacks from the rear, targeting the weak and weary at the back of the column.
The Amalek attack on Israel's rear is described in Deuteronomy 25 as striking those who were faint and weary, not a fair fight. The raised-arms victory becomes the basis for intercessory prayer theology across both Testaments. Hur disappears after this chapter; tradition later identifies him as Miriam's son.
For when you are exhausted in the middle of something that requires you to keep going and you need people physically present who will sit with you and hold you up. Aaron and Hur do not fight. They make sure Moses can.
1And 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.
2Wherefore 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?
3And 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?
4And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.
5And 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.
6Behold, 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.
7And 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?
8Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9And 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.
10So 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.
11And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12But 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.
13And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
14And 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.
15And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi:
16For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.