1 And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.
2 Therefore the people got upset with Moses, and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said unto them, “Why are you upset with me? Wherefore do you tempt the Lord?”
3 And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, “What is this that you have done, to bring us up out of Egypt, only to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?”
4 And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, “What shall I do unto this people; They are almost ready to stone me.”
5 And the Lord said unto Moses, “Go on before the people, and take with you of the elders of Israel; and the rod with which you struck the river, take in your hand, and go.
6 Behold, I will stand before you there upon the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”
8 Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9 And Moses said unto Joshua, “Take some men, and go out to fight with Amalek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.”
10 So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
13 And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
14 And the Lord said unto Moses, “Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”
15 And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it “The LORD is my banner”[b].
16 For he said, “Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
[15b] Yahweh-Nissi, or Adonai-Nissi means, “The LORD is my banner”, or, “The LORD gives us Victory”.
h.מה תנסון TO WHY DO YE TRY [THE LORD] by saying, “Will He be able to give us water in an arid land?”
h.עוד מעט YET A LITTLE means, if I wait but a little more they will stone me.
h.עבר לפני העם PASS BEFORE THE PEOPLE and see whether they will stone you! (Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 23) Why have you uttered a slander against My children?
h.וקח אתך מזקני ישראל AND TAKE WITH THEE OF THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL as witnesses — that they may see that it is by your agency that the water will come forth from the rock and that people may not say that there had been springs there from time immemorial (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:5:2).
h.ומטך אשר הכית בו את היאר AND THY STAFF, WHEREWITH THOU SMOTEST THE RIVER — What is the force of the words “wherewith thou smotest the river” — they are apparently superfluous? But these are added because the Israelites had said of the staff that it was intended only for punishment: by it Pharaoh and the Egyptians had been stricken with many plagues in Egypt and at the Red Sea. On this account it is stated here: take the staff wherewith thou smotest the river — they shall see now that it is also intended for good (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:5:3).
h.והכית בצור AND THOU SHALT SMITE THE ROCK — It does not say here “thou shalt smite על הצור”, upon the surface of the rock, but בצור, right into the rock — from this it follows that the rod must have been composed of a kind of hard material the name of which is sapphire, and the rock was split by it (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:6:2).
h.ויבא עמלק THEN CAME AMALEK — Scripture places this section immediately after this preceding verse (they said, “Is the Lord among us or not?”) to imply, “I am ever among you and ready at hand for every thing you may need, and yet you say, “Is the Lord among us or not?” By your lives, I swear that the hound (Amalek) shall come and bite you, and you will cry for Me and then you will know where I am!” A parable: it may be compared to a man who carried his son upon his shoulder, and went out on a journey. The son saw an article and said, “Father, pick up that thing and give it to me”. He gave it to him, and so a second time and so also a third time. They met a certain man to whom the son said, “Have you seen my father anywhere?” Whereupon his father said to him, “Don’t you know where I am?” — He, therefore, cast him off from himself and a hound came and bit him (Midrash Tanchuma, Yitro 3).
h.בחר לנו CHOOSE OUT MEN FOR US — for me and for you: he (Moses) placed him (Joshua) on the same level with himself. They (the Rabbis) derived from here the teaching: let thy disciple’s honour be as dear to thee as thy own. And whence may we derive the next statement in thee well-known passage: and thy colleague’s honour as dear to thee as the reverence due to thy teacher? Because it is said, (Numbers 12:11) “And Aaron spake to Moses, “I beseech thee, my lord” — but surely Aaron was older than his brother and yet by addressing him as “my lord” he treated his colleague (Moses) as his teacher! “And the reverence due to thy teacher as the reverence due to God” — whence may this be derived? Because it is said, (Numbers 11:28) “[And he (Joshua) said (to his teacher, Moses)] “My lord, Moses, כלאם”, destroy them (כַּלֵּם) from out of the world! they who rebel against thee deserve to be destroyed just the same as though they had rebelled against the Holy One, blessed be He (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:9:1).
h.וצא הלחם GO OUT, FIGHT — go out from the cloud and fight against him (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:9:3),
h.מחר TO-MORROW, at the time of the battle, I will take my stand.
h.בחר לנו אנשים CHOOSE US MEN — brave men, and men who fear sin (אנשים does not mean merely men — males, but men fit for war and at the same time God-fearing) — choose these so that their merit may stand them in good stead (cf. (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:9:2). Another explanation: בחר לנו אנשים Choose us men who know how to make witchcraft of none effect; he said this because the sons of Amalek were wizards (cf. Rashi on v. 12)
h.AND MOSES AND AARON AND HUR — From this we may infer as regards a public fast that three men must pass before the Holy Ark (i. e. must officiate at prayer) — we may infer this because they (the Israelites) were then engaged in fasting (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:12:5).
h.חור HUR was the son of Miriam and her husband was Caleb (Sotah 11b).
h.כאשר ירים משה ידו WHEN MOSES LIFTED UP HIS HAND — But could Moses’ hands win the battle etc.? See the whole passage as it is given in the Treatise Rosh Hashanah 29a.
h.וידי משה כבדים BUT MOSES HANDS BECAME HEAVY — Because he had shown himself remiss in the duty that was his, of waging war himself against Amalek, and had appointed another in his stead, his hands became heavy (cf. (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:12:1).
h.ויקחו AND THEY TOOK — Aaron and Hur took —
h.אבן וישימו תחתיו A STONE AND THEY PUT IT UNDER HIM [AND HE SAT THEREON] — but he did not seat himself upon a cushion or a pillow, for he said, “Israel is in tribulation; I will be in tribulation together with them”. (Taanit 11a).
h.ויהי ידיו אמונה (lit., and he was, his hands faithfulness) — and Moses was in the condition that his hands were in faithfulness — spread forth to heaven in a confident and firm prayer.
h.עד בא השמש UNTIL THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN — Because the Amalekites had calculated the hours by astrology, as to which hour they would prove victorious, Moses held back the sun against them and brought the hours into confusion (Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 28).
h.ויחלש יהושע AND JOSHUA DISCOMFITED [AMALEK] (more lit., he weakened Amalek) — he cut off the heads of his mighty men and left only the weak amongst them, and he did not kill all of them (leaving the weak men alive: thus Amalek was made weak, and powerless for further mischief). From this we may learn that they acted according to the expressed pronouncement of the Shechina (otherwise they would, in the stress of battle, not have so discriminated) (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:13:2).
h.כתב זאת זכרון WRITE THIS FOR A MEMORIAL, that Amalek came to wage war against Israel before any other nation.
h.ושים באזני יהושע AND PUT INTO THE EARS OF JOSHUA, who will bring Israel into the Holy Land, that he must command Israel to pay him his recompense. Here it was intimated to Moses (by the mere statement that Joshua should in some future time carry out the injunction to destroy Amalek) that Joshua would bring Israel into the Holy Land (cf. (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:14:1).
h.כי מחה אמחה BECAUSE I WOULD UTTERLY BLOT OUT [THE REMEMBRANCE OF AMALEK] — the reason why I admonish you thus is because (כי) I desire to blot it out.
h.ויקרא שמו AND HE CALLED HIS (or its) NAME — the name of the altar,
h.ה׳ נסי (lit., the Lord is my banner or my miracle) — The Holy One, blessed be He, here performed a miracle for us. It does not mean that the altar was named ה׳, “the Lord, my banner”, but the reason for so calling it was that anyone mentioning the altar’s name would thereby remember the miracle which the Omni-present had performed, since he would be saying: the Lord, He is our Miracle (cf. Rashi on Genesis 33:20).
h.ויאמר AND HE SAID — i. e. Moses said.
h.כי יד על כס יה BECAUSE THE HAND IS UPON THE THRONE OF JAH — the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, is raised to swear by His throne that He will have war and enmity against Amalek to all eternity. And what is the force of כס — why does it not say as usual כסא? And the Divine Name, also, is divided into half (יה is only the half of the Tetragrammaton)! The Holy One, blessed be He, swears that His Name will not be perfect nor His throne perfect until the name of Amalek be entirely blotted out. But when his name is blotted out then will His (God’s) Name be perfect and His throne perfect, as it is said, (Psalms 9:7) “The enemy is come to an end, he whose swords were for ever” — and this refers to Amalek of whom it is written, (Amos 1:11; the paragraph is a prophecy against Edom — Esau — the father of Amalek) “he kept his wrath for ever”. The verse in the Psalm continues: “and thou didst uproot enemies, their very memorial is perished”, What does it say immediately after this? (Psalms 9:8) “But the Lord (the Divine Name as given here is the Tetragrammaton) shall now remain for ever” — you see that the Name will be perfect (after Amalek is entirely rooted out as is mentioned in v. 7); “He establishes his throne (כסאו not כס) in righteousness” — so you see that His throne will then be perfect (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 11).