Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 361 · December 27
Aaron and Hur
“But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed 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.”
Friend,
Your arms came down some time in the spring, and nobody noticed, because you kept showing up and doing what needed doing. That is the ordinary way it happens.
Look at how this story works before you look for its lesson. Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. Joshua led the fighting below, while Moses stood on the top of the hill "with the rod of God in mine hand," just as he had said he would, with Aaron and Hur beside him. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel won, and whenever he let it down, Amalek won. Then comes the plain sentence: "But Moses' hands were heavy." What happened next was practical, and a little undignified: "they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon." They sat him down. Then the two men took an arm each, "the one on the one side, and the other on the other side," and stood there while the daylight went.
Nobody prayed the tiredness away, and nobody scolded Moses for having heavy arms. Nothing in the passage suggests that a better man would have managed alone. Look also at who this happens to. Moses is the one holding everybody else up, and he finishes the day sitting on a rock with his arms held up by other people. Afterwards he builds an altar and names it Jehovahnissi, which means the LORD is my banner. The victory belonged to God all along.
Read the last clause twice before you go: "and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." The record says his hands were steady, even though two other men were holding them, and the text sees no problem with that. Whatever is held up in you this month by somebody standing on either side of you will be counted as yours. The help also has an end built into it, "until the going down of the sun," because it only has to last as long as the battle does. So let someone take an arm. The Lord who is your banner has sent them.
Yours on the same road,
a fellow learner
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 361 is Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8:15).