Note: This reflection is the third in a four part series of reflections I’m writing for my final in an exegesis and preaching course in seminary. As such, these reflections may have more of the cadence of a homily than my usual material does. The text we used for study was Exodus. This third reflection is based on Exodus 17:8-16.
In this text, we encounter an Israel under attack from a foreign enemy. They have been liberated from Egyptian oppression, and they are wandering through the wilderness. God is slowly guiding them to Canaan, the Promised Land. As they draw nearer to Mt. Sinai, they are attacked by the Amalekites. This is, on a surface reading, a text of war. Much has been made, and rightly so, of the moral and spiritual dilemma of what it means when God’s people go to war. This pattern of violence in many ways only grows more prominent when the Israelites begin their entry into Canaan. We are indebted to faithful people throughout the centuries who have interrogated these “texts of terror,” to consider why they are in Scripture, what they say, and perhaps more importantly what they do not say. For us as Orthodox Christians, the written Biblical canon is a witness to the Living Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is through his presence as the Incarnate Word in the power of the Holy Spirit that we interpret the written word. We are not bound to affirm or accept the literal meaning of every word in the Bible as edifying, but we are called to wrestle with other meanings that the Spirit brings to us when we gather as the Body of Christ. With this encouragement in mind, let us accept God’s invitation through the Holy Prophet Isaiah, “’Come, let us reason together,’ says the LORD.” Let us reason and wrestle together, and see what we may discover.
The Church Fathers and Mothers used many methods to receive the Word of God from the Scriptures. Two of these methods are allegory and typology. Taking these together, perhaps we can discern something valuable for our time in this text. Typology asks the question, “Where is Jesus pointed to in this text?” One clear example is the way Moses stands to resist the Amalekites through prayer for God’s people. He stands on a mountain, a high hill. He raises his arms to Heaven. Almost in the shape of a cross. In this same way, Christ raised his arms to Heaven in his life-giving passion, interceding with his prayer and his own life-blood that his people, all of God’s children, would be given the strength to overcome the spiritual and systemic forces of death and evil that reigned in their midst. In reading Scripture typologically, we must be careful not to minimize the spiritual value of the original action, even as we acknowledge that it points for us, as does the whole canon, to the person and work of Christ. Prior to God becoming incarnate, Moses prayed faithfully on behalf of God’s people, and led them to be unified as a people. The witness of Moses still echoes forward today, not only in our community but also in the community of our Jewish siblings under God.
Another method used by the Church Fathers and Mothers is allegory. This method can be seen in many of our hymns. Consider the Katavasia of Christmas. “The furnace moist with dew was the image and figure of a wonder past nature. For it burnt not the Children whom it had received, even as the fire of the Godhead consumed not the Virgin’s womb into which it had descended.” This is also in some ways a typology, an event in the Old Testament which can be seen to point to Christ. All typologies are allegories, but allegory encompasses more than just the presence of Christ indicated in Scripture. Here, we see the womb of the Mother of God as she carried Christ being compared to the three holy youths in the Book of Daniel who were not burned by the fiery furnace. Here, the furnace is compared to the fire of Christ’s full divinity, which shone forth even in his humanity but did not consume the Theotokos. We see that this tells us something about the mercy and humility of Christ, and the faithfulness of the Virgin to God’s request, something we could not see were we to only read the Book of Daniel literally.
In Exodus, we see another example of allegory. The people of God are being attacked by an enemy force. Moses does send warriors to fight in self-defense. Another text in Deuteronomy suggests that the Amalekite assault happened at a time when Israel was vulnerable and weary from traveling. However, Moses does not trust primarily in Israelite military might. Instead, he goes up on the mountain and prays in a very embodied and fervent way, trusting that the true spiritual source of victory is not human vigor, but the power and deliverance of God.
If we are to understand this text for our own times, we should look closely at the posture of Moses in this event. Allegory with texts such as these can easily be misapplied, making the Amalekites to be whoever it is convenient for us to hate. We should never apply this kind of thinking to another people group, to other human beings whom God loves. The spiritual nature of Moses’ solution suggests that a spiritual interpretation is necessary. That is to say, we should be concerned not so much with enemies around us, but spiritual and systemic enemies. We must conquer the Amalekite within.
This text, read in a spiritual allegory, suggests that conflict in our lives is not to be overcome by human force, power, or violence, but by standing firm in our integrity and trusting God to bring about a good outcome. It also suggests that in any conflict involving interpersonal relationships, we are to avoid essentializing any human enemy or group of enemies as the problem, but to try and see the injustice or evil itself as the thing to be resisted in creative ways. While we may find ourselves entrenched in conflict with our neighbor, sometimes with vast power differentials, we must find ways to resist the harm they cause without seeking their destruction. We must root out the sources of evil. Broken systems that take the life of the oppressed and the humanity of the oppressor. Human greed, desire for power, fear of scarcity, and an inability to see the image of God in one another, to see Christ in one another. Amalek is all around us. And we are all God’s beloved children. For all of us to truly live as equals in dignity, honor, life and love under God, we must defeat the spirit of Amalek that lives on in our societies and in our hearts.
In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus shows a way to do this. The Temple was full of people who truly wanted to love, serve and worship God. But greed and the status quo of a few powerful people had blocked access to the life giving rites that all of God’s people wanted to participate in. Jesus could have led an army of his followers into the Temple and destroyed those people who were charging unjust rates for sacrifices. On the other hand, he could have also simply gone along with it, maybe preach a sermon encouraging the moneychangers to lower their rates. But Christ did neither of these things. Instead, he organized an act of creative resistance, one which destroyed the status quo without destroying the human beings who capitulated to it. He drove out the moneychangers, proclaiming and reiterating the forgotten truth, that the Temple was to be “a house of prayer for all people,” regardless of wealth, class, origin, or status. Jesus resisted evil without seeking the death of those caught up in its power.
We are not Christ. And not every situation has a clear path to this holy mode of resistance. We will try. Sometimes we will succeed, and sometimes we will fail. Sometimes we will emerge triumphant over the spiritual forces that keep us in bondage, and sometimes we will only cause harm to one another. In all cases, however, we are called to trust that God will give resolution and victory to those who resist in faithful ways. We are to hope for an end to evil itself, and ways of being that are contrary to the flourishing of God’s children and to hope that God will provide ways of renewal which involve human engagement but do not require its success in order to work. We are to enact creative and prayerful resistance against evil to focus our energies on supporting one another in resistance to evil rather than against the persons of those we see as our enemies. May we be led by the example and witness of Moses, the example and witness of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his grace and power may we conquer the Amalekite within.
*In general, Orthodox hymns and their arrangements are not copyrighted and are usually public domain because they’re so old, but cf. for a source Ode 8 of the Katavasia of Nativity, http://www.saintjonah.org/services/nativity.htm
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