The Lord will fight for you (14:14). The lesson the people had to learn was that their deliverance was from God alone. The description of the Lord as fighting (the ordinary word for engaging in battle and warfare) marks the beginning of the theme of the ‘Divine Warrior’ which figures largely in chapter 15. Throughout the ancient world war was considered to be a sacred undertaking in which the honour of the deity of a nation was at stake, and this view is also found in Scripture. Note the description of ‘the Book of the Wars of the Lord’ (Num. 21:14), and the later, but often repeated, title ‘the Lord of hosts’ or ‘the Lord Almighty’ as it is rendered in the NIV (first found in 1 Sam. 1:3). The origin of this divine designation is spelled out in 1 Samuel 17:45: “the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies…