Comments on Exodus 17 and 18

There are many things that I could focus on in these chapters, so I am going to pick a direction and go with it for now. The direction I will be going is that of authority and team work. One of the first things we should see in this chapter is that Joshua appears. This is of little importance now, however he will take over the Israelites and Moses position, making his appearance of value. What is he doing in this chapter? He is fighting the Amalekites. There is some importance here as well. This is the first time that God uses people to fight, instead of just wiping out the firstborn or drowning an entire army in the Sea. Some of the reasons for this is unclear to me at this time, but I think in the very least we can extrapolate that God uses people. We are co-laborers with God in His plan, and if we are faithful, He will use us. I am also sure that Joshua, when a slave in Egypt, never thought that God would use him to get rid of an entire nation from the face of the Earth. But that was God’s plan, and Joshua, being faithful, only had to follow God, both day and night, and God revealed the reason that he was created. We could get much more in depth about this, but there are other things I want to get to.

The second observation that we should read in Exodus 17 is how exactly Joshua and Israel were able to win the battle against the Amalekites. It was not because of their fighting skill, or neat battle plans. They were able to win because Moses kept his arms up. What do I mean buy this? Exactly what I wrote. The Exodus story tells us that Moses was overseeing the battle, and when he lifted his arms, Israel began to win, and when he let down his arms, they began to loose. As many of you can guess, Moses starts loosing strength in his arms, and can not keep them up. If he lets them down Israel will lose, so what to do? Well, luckily Aaron and Hur were there, and they held Moses arms up until Israel won the battle. Why does God though, use this ridiculous method of defeating Amalek? Well there are actually many lessons in this story. First is the obvious answer. God wants all Israel to know that it is He who is defeating the Amalekites, and not them. He uses this ridiculous method to ensure that they are focused on Him.

But there is another lesson here for Moses. Although he is the leader of Israel, he is not able to influence this battle by himself for very long. His arms get weary. He is too weak. If he insisted on doing this himself, he would have failed, Israel would have been crushed, and he would have died with them. Part of the reason that God uses such a laughable method of defeating Israel’s enemies was to ensure that Moses is humble as their leader. It is ultimately Moses actions that determine the outcome of the battle- it is his arms that need to be raised. However, he can’t do it by himself. He needs the support, quite literally, of others.

Moses, however doesn’t learn this lesson though. In the next chapter we read that Moses is the sole judge over Israel. There are many people with complaints against each other, and disputes need to be settled. The line is huge. Moses is hearing each case individually. This is not in Scripture, but I suppose that Moses liked hearing every case. He was able to know everything that was going on. He was in complete control. I can only assume this based on what I know of human nature. The other thing that is going on, though, is that Moses is trying to be a good steward of what he was given, at some level at least. I imagine that his thoughts were as follows, ”God made me the leader of this Nation, I can’t let it get screwed up. I have to do all this work to guard what was entrusted to me.” And on some level he is right. We are to be good stewards. But let’s continue reading the story.

Jethro, Moses Father-in-Law, and a priest for quite some time, sees this and tells Moses it is not good. He gives Moses advice to raise up other leaders who can hear the cases, and save the really important ones for himself. He comes up with an administrative scheme to help Moses out. He tells Moses that he will burn out and hurt Israel if this doesn’t happen. Moses listens and then agrees.

We can all see how Moses would burn out. There are too many cases to be heard each day, so his job would have become never ending. How though, would he have hurt Israel? There are two ways, actually. First, people would not have their grievance heard, and so would get upset. Some of these people would take the matter into their own hands, having mob justice. Others may have revolted, or moved into other lands where they would be heard. This all hurts the new nation. But there is another, more pressing way that Moses continued reliance on himself alone would hurt Israel. What would happen once he died if he never trained a replacement? Sure a leader would be chosen, but let’s remember that Moses had all this stuff fall upon him gradually. First he was to go to Egypt, then lead the Exodus, and now preside over the people. There was a learning curve. His replacement would have no such benefits. HE would go from no responsibility to full responsibility instantly. He would most likely do a terrible job, and probably burn out quite quickly.

Jesus himself does similar things with his disciples. He sends them out many times, and has them perform with him in ear shot to train them for the day he left. He tries to give them shared responsibility first, so that when he leaves, they will know what to do. Moses doesn’t see this far ahead though. He is just willing to do what needs to be done by himself so as to not screw the whole thing up, but in the process he is doing more harm than he could know.

Part of the reason that what Moses was doing wasn’t good is because he was trying to hold onto power that wasn’t his. Who gave Moses his authority? God. These were God’s people and problems, and not Moses’. Remember the Amalekites. It was God who decided the fate, working through Moses. Moses needed help then. If he had just relied on himself to save the Israeli army, they would have died. He needed Aaron and Hur. It is the same lesson here. He is relying on only himself, when he needed the aid of others. He needed to humble himself and ask others for help.

Now, these others weren’t any body. They were faithful, and humble, and lovers of doing good, etc. Moses was to give the authority given to him to others like himself. God didn’t give authority over Israel to anybody, and neither was Moses to do that either. This is how he was to steward the nation. He wasn’t to decide everything himself, but rather to train others to do it. He was to shepherd the shepherds, so to speak.

This is the application for us then. We can not do this alone. We need help. We need to realize that what God has given us is still Gods. We are not to make light of it. We are to be good stewards, but at the same time, as authority is given to us, we must be willing to give it to others. Our job should be to train our replacement, in all that we do. If we lead a Bible study, we should be trying to create Bible study leaders, and then give them opportunities to lead. If we are pastors, we need to raise up pastors. If we are laymen, we need to raise up biblically faithful laymen. We need to replicate ourselves so that the kingdom will grow, and so we don’t burn out, and finally so that we realize that we are in fact not that important. We need to come face to face with the fact that we are replaceable, even if God has called us to a task. More than this, we should be trying to become more replaceable daily by giving up what God has given us.

I know that this application seems to fit more people who are in the ministry, but we can extrapolate it out to all of us. We are all not that important. We as humans tend to think ourselves higher than we ought. We are waned consistently in the New Testament and Old Testament alike that we need to curb this urge. This is in fact th first sin of humans, is it not. We were so important that we just had to eat the fruit and be like God. We should always be training our replacement, either in a company or in ministry.

Finally, there is another application for all of us. Like Joshua, we may not know the plans God has for us, but we need to be willing to step into battle and answer the call that he has created us to heed. WE need to know that it is not our own value or expertise that ill win us the day, but God's grace and plan.