The Battle of the Tired Arms

At Rephidim the ground was still muddy where the water had gushed out of the rock, and children were still stamping in the puddles, when the Amalekites came.

They were a fierce desert people who did not fight fair. They crept up on the back of the line, where the weary and the slow were trailing along, and attacked them there.

Moses sent for a young man named Joshua. (Joshua's name means "The LORD rescues." God was fond of that name, and he would use it again.)

"Choose some men and go out and fight the Amalekites," Moses said. "Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand."

In the morning Joshua led his men down into the valley, hearts thumping. Moses climbed the hill with his brother Aaron and a man named Hur.

Moses lifted the staff of God high over his head with both hands.

Down in the valley, Israel began to win. "Push!" Joshua shouted. "Push them back!"

But arms get tired. Try holding yours straight up while somebody counts to a hundred. Now try it all morning.

Slowly Moses' arms sank, and the Amalekites began to win. Up went the hands, and Israel surged forward. Down went the hands, and Israel stumbled back. The winning came from God. Moses' lifted hands were a kind of prayer, and everyone in the valley could see who Israel was counting on.

Moses' arms began to shake. "I can't," he gasped. "I can't keep them up."

Aaron and Hur rolled a big stone over, and Moses sat down on it. (In stories, leaders stand on hilltops looking grand. This one sat on a rock with two friends hanging on to his elbows.)

Aaron took one arm. Hur took the other. They held them steady while the sun crawled across the sky.

"Your arms weigh more than a sack of grain!" Hur grunted.

"Just don't let go," said Aaron.

They didn't, and Moses' hands stayed up until sunset. By then Joshua's army had beaten the Amalekites with the sword, and many of them were killed.

Then God said to Moses, "Write this in a book so it will be remembered, and make sure Joshua hears it: I will wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

Moses built an altar on that hill and named it The LORD Is My Banner. (A banner is a flag on a tall pole that soldiers rally around. God's staff had been lifted up like one all day.) "Hands were raised to the LORD's throne," Moses said. "The LORD will fight against Amalek for generations and generations."

But Moses' arms had lasted one day, and only with two friends holding them up.

After Moses, other leaders prayed for God's people, and every one of them grew tired, and every one of them died. The people kept waiting for someone whose arms would never fall.

At last, on another hill outside Jerusalem, a man held out his arms from morning into the afternoon. There was a man on each side of him, but nobody was holding him up. Soldiers had nailed his hands to a wooden cross, and there he died, to defeat the worst enemies of all, sin and death.

On the third day he rose, and his arms never tire now. He is alive, praying for God's people. An angel had told Mary and Joseph what to call him: Joshua's name, the one that means "The LORD rescues." We say it Jesus.