The Lord My Banner – Jehovah Nissi

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “banner”? Maybe a party? Someone’s birthday or graduation, perhaps? Or maybe a storefront advertising their “largest sale of the year”? When we think of those images, it can be hard to understand what it could mean for the Lord, the God of all the universe, to be our banner. How could we possibly reduce God to an advertisement or a piece of decoration? We can’t. So we know that understanding of this name of God can’t be the right one.

When we keep the Lord in focus, and allow Him to go before us, He provides what we need and brings us together as His people to accomplish His work in the world.

The Lord My Banner, Jehovah Nissi, appears just one time in the Bible in Exodus 17:15, and we can look to that chapter to give us a clue about what this name means. Just before Moses spoke this name, the Israelites faced a severe attack. Moses had led them out of captivity in Egypt, but now they were wandering around in the wilderness, in one of the most vulnerable positions of their lives. The reason they were wandering was because they did not trust the work God was doing, and felt that they knew what was better for themselves. And even though they had Moses to help them hear from God and to remind them of what the Lord had in store for them, they did not want to listen to him most of the time. So it’s in these circumstances that a people called the Amalekites attacked. As both groups fought, Moses stood on top of a hill holding up his staff (the same one he had used to part the Red Sea) as a reminder of the presence and power of God. As long as his arms were up, the Israelites were winning. But when his arms sank down, the Israelites started to lose. So Aaron and Hur helped prop Moses’s arms up, and the Israelites finally defeated the Amalekites. Upon their victory, Moses built an altar for “The Lord My Banner,” Jehovah Nissi.

So we should think of “banner” in this context like a flag, or like a standard an army might carry in battle. These kinds of banners bring unity to the people who walk under them, and they are a symbol of strength and provision. In this story, when Moses held the symbol of their provision aloft, the Israelites worked as one, but as soon as it started to fall, they faced discouragement and began to be overcome. This demonstrates to us that when we keep the Lord in focus, and allow Him to go before us, He provides what we need and brings us together as His people to accomplish His work in the world.

One other place in Scripture where we can see the imagery of a banner is in Song of Solomon 2:4. In that verse, several translations translate the original Hebrew as “his banner over me is love” (2:4, NASB). And that’s a perfect reminder of what we learn in 1 John 4:8, that “God is love.” For all of us, life is hard, and we have to fight to stay the course. So we should never forget the presence of Jehovah Nissi. Love Himself is going before us. He will strengthen us for the battles we face every day, and as long as we are following Him, we know no challenge can overcome us. That is so much better than the best “Happy Birthday” banner anyone could ever give us.