QT 7 Apr 10

Ex 17:10-13 (NIV) So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. 11 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 12 When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up — one on one side, one on the other — so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Note: There are two ways one could view this verse. One way is that Moses was only holding up his arms and the staff of God (17:9), and the second way is that the hands lifted up were combined with prayer (17:16). Since verse 16a says, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord…," I will take the view that Moses was also praying. In which case we have a nice picture. We have men fighting, physically, and we have a supporter praying, spiritually and physically (since it was difficult to continue in prayer the whole time). If either failed in the part, the whole venture fails. The only issue remaining, is that "many words" do not impress God. So, in some sort of way, Moses was praying, but he was not repeating redundant words, but words specific to exactly what was happening at the moment. Now that is an interesting way of praying. To look around and pray for exactly what you see happening before you. In that way, the prayer is active and does not consist of a bunch of words. It is real, not flowery. And hopefully, it does not repeat God's name every other word. One would think God knows his own name. I wonder how we would feel if a friend repeated our name to us every sentence of a discussion. Yet, we treat God that way. Why do we do that?