Exodus 17, Massah and Meribah

God has provided the Israelites with manna and quail. They continue their journey eastward into the Sinai desert.

Exodus 17:1-3, Thirsty

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

    

So they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." 

Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?"

    

But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?"

At a place in the desert called Rephidim, there is no water. Once again the people complain, in the same way that they complained earlier: "Egypt was better! You brought us out here to kill us!"

What does it mean to "put YHWH to the test"?  Fretheim argues that (in modern terms) this is using YHWH as a "vending machine", demanding that He put out gifts upon request.

Exodus 17:4-7, Massah and Meribah

Then Moses cried out to the LORD, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me."

    

The LORD answered Moses, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.  I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb.  Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink." 

So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

     

And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

Once again, God will provide a solution.  But Moses is weary of the grumbling. Moses "strikes" the rock with his staff, just as he, earlier, struck the Nile. This time there is a good result.

The Hebrew massah (מַסָּה) means "a test" or "a trial". The Hebrew word "meribah" (מְרִיבָה) is a noun meaning "provocation", "strife", "quarreling."

Exodus 17:8-13, Battle with the Amalekites

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands."

    

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 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.

    

So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

And now there is a battle with the Amalekites. This is the first battle in the wilderness. To emphasize that it is really God acting through the Israelites, we see that whenever Moses holds up his hands (to worship? to ask for help?) the Israelites are successful but when he tires and drops his hands, they begin to lose.  Aaron and Hur comes to Moses's aid and help him hold up his hands. Fretheim suggests that the easiest interpretation of the necessity of Moses to hold up his hand is that this gives the army below a visible sign that YHWH, through Moses, is in charge -- that the staff of Moses represents the hand of YHWH.

This is the first mention of Joshua. Here he leads the army against the Amalekites. He will reappear in as an assistant to Moses in chapters 24 and 32 of Exodus.

Exodus 17:14-16, Amalekites draw God's wrath

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

    

Moses built an altar and called it The LORD is my Banner. He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation."

The symbolism, in the hands lifted up to the throne, is an important one and is to be memorialized. The Amalekites (like the Philistines later) will be a  perpetual enemy of Israel.

The Amalekites are descendants of Esau (Genesis 36:15-16.) In 1 Samuel 15:7-9, King Saul attacks the Amelekites but spares Agag, their king. (He will get in trouble for that later.) In the book of Esther (Esther 3:1), the evil nobleman Haman will be identified as an Amalekite, a descendant of Agag.   

As Alter points out, verse 14 gives an early example of human writing. Written symbols, placed on papyrus or sheepskin, would've been rare during the time of Abraham and there is no mention of writing in the Old Testament, prior to this event.

Some Hebrew vocabulary

Our Hebrew word for the day is sepher,

סֵפֶר

a noun meaning "book", "letter", or "scroll." It appears here in verse 14, translated "scroll". Previously in the Torah, it appears once in Genesis 5:1 as the author discussed the lineage of Adam.

Some Random Thoughts

The writing in the Torah often leaves some gaps, some mysteries, that make it hard for us (or at least me) to understand. Who is upset with whom here? The people grumble to Moses and Moses grumbles to God and God then provides a quick solution in which Moses strikes the rock. But in another account of this incident (Numbers 20:1-13) Moses is chastised for losing his temper.

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First published March 20, 2023; updated March 19, 2026