We’ve already encountered some complaining by the Israelites, and in Exodus 17 we see some more. We also learn a little bit about Joshua in this chapter, although he is overshadowed by Moses and the unique battle method when Israel defeated Amalek.When Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed. When his hands were down, Amalek gained the upper hand. It might seem silly to you that Moses’ arms could possibly get tired when all he had to do was keep them up, but we do have physical limitations. If you would like to demonstrate this to yourself, hold your hands up in the air and see how long you can go before needing a rest.
Moses got help from Aaron and Hur. They got a stone for him to sit on and held up his arms. This enabled the Israelites to be victorious.
Joshua will be an even more significant Bible character later. For now we know him, rightly so, as a faithful and dependable man.
In Exodus 18 we get an illustration of delegating authority. Moses’ father-in-law Jethro assessed the situation and told Moses he was trying to do too much. Less difficult decisions could be left to capable appointed men and the hard decisions then could be brought before Moses. Leaders sometimes feel obligated to have their hand in everything and because of this can “wear themselves thin.”
In the New Testament the apostles had the wherewithal to appoint men over the daily ministration of widows so they would not be distracted from their chief function of preaching the gospel (see Acts 6:1-7).
You might want to notice Exodus 18:21 and the characteristics that were fitting for those men who would be appointed to help relieve Moses’ burden. They were to be…
1. Able.
2. Such as fear God.
3. Hating covetousness.
Those qualities are still good for people in leadership positions whether those positions are spiritual or secular. It is good that they be capable of what they will be asked, that they truly fear God and that they hate covetousness. Without those ingredients corruption or at least incompetence is begging to be the result.
Sometimes in the Bible we come across things that might not make sense to us. For some, Exodus 19:10-13 might be one of those places. It might seem strange to us that God would punish with death anybody who touched the mountain. Whether that seems strange to you or not there are two things to consider: First, the people were to be obedient to God. Second, God here impresses in a very visible way that He is holy and therefore conduct toward God is not some trivial thing.
Both of those facts are worth our remembering today. If God calls us to do something that seems strange to us we do well to heed Him anyway, trusting that He knows better than we do. Some might say that this is “blind obedience” but such is not the case.
Our trust in God in those few instances when we do not fully understand why He acts the way He does is based on the overwhelming evidence we have that God is righteous, just and good. We are not obeying out of ignorance, we are obeying because what we know of the character of God is abundant proof that we can trust Him even when we don’t fully understand. Such is not “blind faith.”
