Joshua Fights the Amalekites

Joshua Fights the Amalekites is the battle at Rephidim in which Joshua commands Israel’s fighters, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur support the effort from a nearby hill. Israel wins, and the victory becomes both a written memorial and a declaration of continuing conflict with Amalek.

The Battle at Rephidim

Amalek came to fight Israel at Rephidim. Moses instructed Joshua to choose men and lead them into battle, while Moses would stand on the hill with the rod of God. Joshua carried out the order; Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up the hill.

The narrative links the battle’s changing fortunes to Moses’ raised hands: Israel prevailed while he held them up, and Amalek prevailed when he lowered them. When Moses grew tired, a stone was set beneath him, and Aaron and Hur each supported one of his hands. They kept his hands steady until sunset, while Joshua fought below and defeated Amalek and its people by the sword.

Memorial and Continuing Conflict

After the victory, the LORD commanded Moses to write an account as a memorial and to repeat it to Joshua. The order makes the battle more than a single military success: it is to remain part of Israel’s remembered history.

Moses built an altar and named it Adonai-nissi. He declared that the LORD would wage war against Amalek from generation to generation, giving the encounter an enduring, religiously framed consequence.

Later References to Amalek

The battle’s memory is echoed in later accounts of Israel’s conflicts. In the narrative of the war against Midian, Israel’s leaders connect Balaam with the earlier breach of faith at Peor, while the account also records that Balaam was killed in the campaign. In Moses’ later recollection of the wars east of the Jordan, the defeat of Sihon and Og is recounted separately; those victories concern other peoples and are not presented as the Rephidim battle.

The command that Amalek’s remembrance be blotted out stands in pointed contrast to the instruction to preserve the Rephidim victory in writing and repeat it to Joshua. The account thus makes memory itself part of the battle’s aftermath: Israel is to remember its victory, while Amalek is marked for erasure.