Battle of Refidim
| Battle of Rephidim | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 John Everett Millais, Victory O Lord! (1871) | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Israelite Army | Amalekites | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Moses | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Estimated at 6,000 | Estimated at 5,000-7,000 | ||||||
The Battle of Refidim (or Rephidim), as described in the Bible, was a battle between the Jews and Amaleks, which occurred in Rephidim while the Jewish people were moving towards the Promised Land. The description of this battle can be found in the Book of Exodus.
Battle according to the Bible
According to Exodus 17:8-13, following the Jews' escape from Egypt they camped in Rephidim. There a conflict arose with the Amalek tribe and Joshua led the Jewish forces to battle. Moses, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, watched from above. While Moses held his hands up, Israel held the military advantage. Whenever he put his hands down, according to the Biblical account, they began to lose control of the fighting. When Moses became tired, his companions sat him on a stone and supported his hands. The battle lasted until the evening, ending in victory for the Israelites.
Yahweh announced the extermination of the Amaleks and called on Israel to defeat them, stating that Israel would experience peace with their enemies (Exodus 17:14, Deuteronomy 25:19). This was the first of several conflicts in the Bible over several hundred years between the Amaleks and Jews.[1]
Research
According to some researchers, Rephidim was the only oasis in the region. It was situated in the mountains where nomads brought cattle to drink. When the Israelites traveled into Canaan, they discovered the Amalekites, who inhabited the northern Sinai Peninsula and the Negev.
The Bible states that shortly before the conflict broke out the Israelites suffered from water scarcity. Moses purportedly struck a rock and released its water. This account does not have a uniform scientific interpretation. According to Alfred Tschirschnitza, the staff of Moses was a dowsing rod. Werner Keller proposed that the impact of the staff could split a shell of limestone, through which water dripped, based on the memoirs of the British Governor of Sinai, Claude Scudamore Jarvis, who supervised water exploration in the region in the 1930s.
According to William Petri, Amalekites tried to prevent the Israelites from reaching the oasis. Petri's assumptions are based on climate research, which, since the days of Moses, remained almost unchanged. Therefore, he concludes that the number of nomads living here for millennia also remained at a similar level and hovered around five to seven thousand people. Taking into account the biblical description of the battle, and the description that its final outcome was not decided until the evening, the number of combatants on both sides are assumed to have been close. It is understood that the Israelites had around six thousand people. The clash resulted in the intruders accessing the oasis.
Nineteenth-century Bible scholar and commentator Alexander Łopuchin, interpreted Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 25: 17-18) to mean that the Amalekites first laid siege, robbing exhausted travelers that lagged behind the oasis, and then attacked an entire tribe of Israelites. Moses urged the faithful to fight, and placed his people under the leadership of Joshua. The words, "that will hold up the rod of God," could be an expression of his beliefs about impending victory in the coming battle, since they fought under the banner of God. In accordance with Jewish tradition, during the clashes Moses was accompanied by his closest relatives, Chur and Aaron. The battle ended in victory for the Israelites.
The Book of Exodus mentions the curse-punishment thrown at enemies of the chosen people, the Israelites. The Amalekites were to be erased from history. Curses with similar overtones are also recorded in the Book of Jeremiah (Jer 2.3). After the success of the Israeli military, it erected an altar - Yahweh-Nissi (Heb. יְהוָה נִסִּי) - denoting "The Lord is my banner." The name refers to the sticks held by Moses.
John Van Seters argues that, according to traditional interpretation, a show of hands by Moses was regarded as a sign of prayer; this is significant because the text does not directly mention prayer. Van Seters believed that Moses' gesture, like Joshuai's - elevating the javelin (Joshua 8,18-26) - should be understood as the practice of magic, and secondarily as religious. Hans-Christoph Schmitt disputes this view, pointing out that such restrictions would be unlikely. In his opinion, parallels should be sought in 1 Samuel 7,2-13, where Israel is victorious thanks to the constant prayer of Samuel.
Bibliography
- Fritz V., The Emergence of Israel in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries B.C.E.. Atlanta 2011. ISBN 978-1-58983-262-6.
- The Oxford Bible Commentary, oprac. J. Barton, J. Muddiman, New York 2001. ISBN 978-0-19-875500-5.