Amalek

Illustration from Phillip Medhurst Collection depicting Joshua fighting Amalek (Exodus 17).

Amalek (/ˈæməlɛk/; Hebrew: עֲמָלֵק, ʿĂmālēq, Arabic: عماليق ʿAmālīq) is described in the Hebrew Bible as the enemy nation of the Israelites. The name "Amalek" can refer to the descendants of Amalek, the grandson of Esau, or anyone who lived in their territories in Canaan.

Etymology

In some rabbinical interpretations, Amalek is etymologised as am lak, 'a people who lick (blood)', but most scholars regard the origin to be unknown.

Amalekites in the Hebrew Bible

"Amalekites" redirects here. For Amalekites in the Book of Mormon, see Amalekites (Book of Mormon).

According to the Bible, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz (himself the son of Esau, ancestor of the Edomites and the brother of Israel) and Eliphaz's concubine Timna. Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan. Amalek is described as the "chief of Amalek" among the "chiefs of the sons of Esau", from which it is surmised that he ruled a clan or territory named after him.

The Amalekites (/ˈæməlɛkaɪts/) were claimed to be Amalek's descendants through the genealogy of Esau. In the oracle of Balaam, Amalek was called the "first of the nations". One modern scholar believes this attests to Amalek's high antiquity, while traditional commentator Rashi states: "He came before all of them to make war with Israel". First-century Roman-Jewish scholar and historian Flavius Josephus refers to Amalek as a "bastard" (νόθος) in a derogatory sense.

Battle with the Amalekites, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1860), representing Exodus 17:8–16.

According to the Bible, the Amalekites inhabited the Negev. They appear to have lived a nomadic or seminomadic lifestyle along the fringes of southern Canaan's agricultural zone. This is probably based on the association of this tribal group with the steppe region of ancient Israel and the area of Kadesh (Genesis 14:7). It has been suggested by Moshe Kochavi that the ‘ir Amaleq, (city of Amalek) referred to at 1 Samuel 15:5 may be identified with the site at Khirbet eI-Meshash (Tel Masos) on the periphery of the Wadi Beer-sheba, some 12 kilometres east of the city of Beer Sheva itself. An earlier hypothesis held that the Tel Masos site was an Israelite settlement mentioned in the Bible as Hormah. It has been further argued that if the identification of the settlements at Tel Masos with the Amalekites is correct, then behind the biblical narrative of Saul's campaigns against this central Amalekite station of the southern network of metal transportation and trade, there may have been a strategic desire to wrest control of copper production, a metal of key importance in the early Israelite period and, it is argued, in its early theology and ritual.

As a people, the Amalekites were identified as a recurrent enemy of the Israelites. This role appears in several stories:

• In Exodus 17:8–16, Amalek makes war against Israel in the wilderness. Joshua is ordered by Moses to lead Israel in battle, and Moses watches from a hillside. When Moses' hand is raised, Israel prevails, but when it is lowered, Israel falters. So he keeps his hand raised through the entire battle, even having assistants hold him up, so that the battle will go to Israel.
• In Deuteronomy 25:17–19, The Israelites are specifically commanded to "blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven" once they have taken possession of the promised land in retribution for "what Amalek did to [them] on the way as [they] were coming out of Egypt." Earlier, in Deuteronomy 7:1–16 and Deuteronomy 25:16–18, they are commanded to utterly destroy all the inhabitants of the idolatrous cities in the promised land and their livestock; scripture purports that King Saul ultimately loses favor with Yahweh for failing to kill King Agag and the best livestock of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 in defiance of these commandments.
• In Numbers 14:45, the Amalekites and Canaanites kill a group of Israelites that tried to enter Israel without Moses's permission.
• In Judges 3:13, Amalek, and their Moabite and Ammonite allies, defeat Israel so that the Moabites could oppress them. Judges 10:11–13 confirms Amalek as being one of the many oppressors of Israel.
• In Judges 6:1–6, Amalek, and their Midianite allies, destroy Israelite farms "as far as Gaza", inducing a famine. They also help the Midianites wage wars against Israel, according to Judges 6:32–34 and Judges 7:11–13.
• In 1 Samuel 15:1–9, Samuel identifies Amalek as the enemy of Israelites, saying "Thus says the Lord of hosts: I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt." God then commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites, by killing man, woman, infant and suckling. This massacre is believed to be a retelling of the raids in 1 Samuel 14:48 although it additionally specifies that it occurred in the "city of Amalek", which was believed to be the "principal place of arms" or the "metropolis" of Amalek. In 1 Samuel 15:33, Samuel identifies king Agag of Amalek as an enemy and killer, saying "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women."
• In 1 Samuel 27:8–9, David and his men conducts raids against the Amalekites and their Geshurite and Gezirite allies. He killed every man and woman but took sheep, cattle, donkey, camels and clothing. These Amalekites were theorized to be refugees who fled from Saul or a separate Amalekite faction that dwelt to the south of Israel. Gili Kluger believes these narratives were anti-Saul propaganda, designed to make him appear weak compared to David, since no losses are attributed to David.
• According to 1 Samuel 30:1–2, the Amalekites invaded the Negev and Ziklag in the Judean/Philistine border area towards the end of the reign of King Saul, burning Ziklag and taking its citizens away into captivity. David led a successful mission against the Amalekites to recover "all that the Amalekites had carried away".
• In 2 Samuel 1:5–10, an Amalekite tells David that he found Saul leaning on his spear after the battle of Gilboa. The Amalekite claims he euthanized Saul, at Saul's request, and removed his crown. David gives orders to his men to kill the Amalekite for killing the anointed king, believing him to be guilty by admission.
• In 1 Chronicles 4:43, the Simeonites kill the remaining survivors of Amalek and live in their settlements.
• In Psalm 83:7, Amalek joins Israel's other historic enemies in annihilating Israel. Their attempts are thwarted by God. Although most scholars believe the passage refers to a real historical event, they are unsure which event it should be identified with. One likely answer is that it occurred during the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the 9th to 7th centuries BC.

Interpretation

Judaism

In the Misheh Torah, Rambam derives three commandments, two positive and one negative, related to Amalek:

#	Type	Commandment	Source
59	Negative	Not to forget the wicked deeds which Amalek perpetrated against us	"Do not forget" (Deut. 25:19)
188	Positive	To exterminate the seed of Amalek	"You shall blot out the memory of Amalek" (Deut. 25:19)
189	Positive	To constantly remember what Amalek did to us	"Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deut. 25:17)

The commandment to kill Amalekites is not practised by contemporary Jews, based on the argument that Sennacherib deported and mixed the nations, so it is no longer possible to determine who is an Amalekite. For example, Rabbi Hayim Palaggi stated:

We can rely on the maxim that in ancient times, Sennacherib confused the lineage of many nations.

In addition, many rabbinic authorities ruled that the commandment only applies to a Jewish king or an organized community, and cannot be performed by an individual. According to Haggahot Maimuniyyot, the commandment applies only in the future messianic era and not in present times; this limitation is widely supported by medieval authorities.

Maimonides explains that the commandment to destroy the nation of Amalek requires the Jewish people to peacefully request that they accept upon themselves the Seven Laws of Noah and pay a tax to the Jewish kingdom. Only if they refuse must they be physically killed. In addition, the Amalekites, as a physical nation, have been extinct since the time of Hezekiah's reign, according to the Hebrew Bible.

A few authorities have ruled that the command never entailed humans killing Amalekites. R' Samson Raphael Hirsch said that the command was to destroy "the remembrance of Amalek" rather than actual Amalekites; the Sfat Emet said that the command was to fully hate Amalek rather than performing any action; and the Chofetz Chaim said that God would perform the elimination of Amalek, and Jews are commanded only to remember what Amalek did to them.

Christianity

Theologian Charles Ellicott explains that the Amalekites were subject to cherem in the Book of Samuel for the purposes of incapacitation, due to their 'accursed' nature and the threat they posed to the commonwealth of surrounding nations. Matthew Henry considers the cherem to be defensive warfare since the Amalekites were invaders. John Gill describes the cherem as the law of retaliation being carried out.

According to Christian Hofreiter, almost all Christian authorities and theologians have historically interpreted the herem passages literally. He states that "there is practically no historical evidence that anyone in the Great Church" viewed them as being purely an allegory. In particular, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin have defended a literal reading of these passages at length. Origen of Alexandria is sometimes cited as having viewed the herem passages allegorically; Hofreiter argues that although Origen viewed a spiritual interpretation as having primary importance to Christians, he did not deny that the herem passages described historical events.

Christian apologists like Paul Copan, however, take a middle approach, where they interpret the herem passages within the context of ancient Near Eastern warfare. They observe that the passages contain phrases and merisms such as "utterly destroy", "young and old" and "man and woman", which denote totality. Other contemporary Near Eastern accounts of warfare use similar language, even for campaigns where many survivors remained and the victims were combatants, which were unlikely to consist of women and children. Since the latter was a common and realistic occurrence, even within the Bible, Copan argues that the herem passages were idioms for total war, with the aim of debellatio. Reasons for adopting these graphic idioms include producing propaganda that glorifies bravado.

Modern academia

Some commentators have discussed the ethics of the commandment to exterminate all the Amalekites, especially including the command to kill children, and the presumption of collective punishment. It has also been described as genocidal, according to genocide scholars like Norman Naimark.

Kluger believes that the extermination verses can be explained by the Israelites seeing the Amalekites as their "unwelcome brother" and the "rejected son", possessing all the negative qualities that the Israelites inherently saw within themselves, which Kluger sees as a form of self-hatred. She also observes that the Hebrew Bible is surprisingly neutral when describing the Amalekites and that the texts do not provide an adequate explanation on why they were singled out for complete annihilation, compared to the Egyptians and Canaanites for example.

Rabbis generally agree that Amalekites no longer exist, however some Israeli politicians and extremists have compared Palestinians to Amalek or stated that the Palestinians are the Amalekites. Conversely, some ultra-Orthodox groups consider Zionists to be Amalekites due to Zionist antisemitism.

Historicity

Although Egyptian and Assyrian monumental inscriptions and records of the period survive which list various tribes and peoples of the area, no reference has ever been found to Amalek or the Amalekites. Therefore, the archaeologist and historian Hugo Winckler suggested in 1895 that there were never any such people and the Biblical stories concerning them are entirely mythological and ahistorical. While considerable knowledge about nomadic Arabs has been recovered through archeological research, no specific artifacts or sites have been linked to Amalek with any certainty. However, it is possible that some of the fortified settlements in the Negev highlands and even Tel Masos (near Beer-sheba) have Amalekite connections.

It has been argued that archaeological evidence from Tell el-Qudeirat and Horvat Haluqim in the Negev dated to the late 11th to early 10th century BC could corroborate the biblical narrative of warfare against the Amalekites by kings Saul and David.

Alternative theories of origins

Gustave Doré, The Death of Agag. "Agag" may have been the hereditary name of the Amalekite kings. The one depicted was killed by Samuel (1 Samuel 15).

In Genesis 14:7, the "field of the Amalekites" is mentioned, though the person Amalek had not yet been born.

Some commentators explain this as a reference to the territory which was later on inhabited by the Amalekites. C. Knight elaborates this concept by making a comparison: one might say "Caesar went into France", though Gaul only later became known as France.

Alternatively, during the Islamic Golden Age, certain Arabic writings claimed that the Amalekites existed long before Abraham. Some Muslim historians claimed that the Amalekites who fought Joshua were descendants of the inhabitants of North Africa. Ibn-Arabshâh purported that Amalek was a descendant of Ham, son of Noah. It is, however, possible that the name Amalek may have been given to two different nations. The Arabians mention Imlik, Amalik, or Ameleka among the aborigines of Arabia, the remains of which were mingled with the descendants of Qahtan (Joktan) and Adnan and became Mostarabs or Mocarabes, that is, Arabians mixed with foreigners.

By the 19th century, there was strong support by Western theologians for the idea that the nation of Amalek could have flourished before the time of Abraham. Matthew George Easton advocated that the Amalekites were not descendants of Amalek by taking a literal approach to Genesis 14:7. However, the modern biblical scholar Gerald L. Mattingly uses textual analysis to glean that the use of Amalekite in Genesis 14:7 is actually an anachronism, and in the early 19th century, Richard Watson enumerated several speculative reasons for having a "more ancient Amalek" than Abraham.

In the exegesis of Numbers 24:20 concerning Balaam's utterance: "Amalek was the first one of the nations, but his end afterward will be even his perishing", Richard Watson attempts to associate this passage to the "first one of the nations" that developed post-Flood. According to Samuel Cox, the Amalekites were the "first" in their hostility toward the Israelites.

Jewish traditions

"Davidster" (Star of David) by Dick Stins is a Holocaust memorial in The Hague. The text at the side (in Dutch and Hebrew) is from Deuteronomy 25:17, 19 – "Remember what Amalek has done to you ... do not forget."

According to a midrash, Amalek's mother Timna was a princess who had tried to convert to Judaism but had been rejected by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. She replied she would rather be a handmaiden to the dregs of this nation than be the mistress of another Nation; to punish the Patriarchs for the affront they had made her, she was made the mother of Amalek, whose descendants would cause Israel much distress.

According to the Midrash, the Amalekites were sorcerers who could transform themselves to resemble animals, in order to avoid capture. Thus, in 1 Samuel 15:3, it was considered necessary to destroy the livestock in order to destroy Amalek. They were also fair-skinned compared to other Canaanites.

In Judaism, the Amalekites came to represent the archetypal enemy of the Jews. In Jewish folklore, the Amalekites are considered to be the symbol of evil.

Nur Masalha, Elliot Horowitz, and Josef Stern suggest that Amalekites have come to represent an "eternally irreconcilable enemy" that wants to murder Jews, that Jews in post-biblical times sometimes associate contemporary enemies with Haman or Amalekites, and that some Jews believe that pre-emptive violence is acceptable against such enemies. Groups identified with Amalek include the Romans, Nazis, Stalinists, ISIS, Zionists and bellicose Iranian leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. More metaphorically, to some Hasidic rabbis (particularly the Baal Shem Tov), Amalek represents atheism or the cynical rejection of God, which is believed to justify unethical hedonism. This is sometimes known as the "Amalekite doctrine".

During the Purim festival, the Book of Esther is read in the commemoration of the saving of the Jewish people from Haman who plotted to kill all Jews in Persian Empire. It is customary for the audience to make noise and shout whenever "Haman" is mentioned, in order to desecrate his name, based on Exodus 17:14. It is also customary to recite Deuteronomy 25:17–18 (see below) on the Shabbat before Purim. This was because Haman was considered to be an Amalekite although this label is more likely to be symbolic rather than literal. Today, it is sometimes used by religious Jews for violent antisemites, nihilism and Jewish doubt in God.

Arab-Israeli conflict

Arabs are genealogically not related to Amalekites and prior to the Arab-Israeli conflict some Jews associated Amalek with the Roman Empire and medieval Christians. However, many Israelis associate Arab with Amalekites and accuse Arabs of exhibiting "behavior" that is "typical" of Amalek. Yasser Arafat was called by 200 rabbis as "the Amalek and Hitler of our generation." Many in the Gush Emunim movement see Arabs as the "Amalek of today". One line of reasoning is that Palestinians are Amalekites, because Amalek is any nation that prevents Jews from settling in the Land of Israel.

During the 2014 Gaza war, a leading yeshiva, identified Palestinians as both Amalekites and the ancient Philistines.

During the 2023 Gaza conflict, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israelis were "committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world" and added: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember", referencing the Hebrew Bible. Noah Lanard of Mother Jones describes these verses as among the most violent in the Bible. Amalek was "the foe that God ordered the ancient Israelites to genocide", and scholars have criticized this rhetoric and described the verse as an instance of 'divinely mandated genocide.'

See also

• Agag, ancestor of Haman
• Battle of Refidim
• Eglon (king)
• Herem (war or property)
• The Bible and violence
• Judaism and violence

References

Books

• Cox, Samuel (1884). Balaam: An Exposition and a Study. London: K. Paul, Trench, & Company. p. 125.
• Easton, Matthew George (1894). Illustrated Bible Dictionary (2nd ed.). London: T. Nelson.
• Feldman, Louis H (2004). Remember Amalek!: Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus. Hebrew Union College Press. ISBN 0878204636.
• Mattingly, Gerald L. (2000). "Amalek, Amalekites". Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, Astrid B. Beck ed.). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 9780802824004.
• Knight, Charles (1833). Penny Cyclopaedia, Volumes 1-2. Great Britain.
• Kugler, Gili (2021). "Metaphysical Hatred and Sacred Genocide: The Questionable Role of Amalek in Biblical Literature". Journal of Genocide Research. 23: 1–16. doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1827781. S2CID 228959516.
• Mills, Watson E. (1997). "Amalek/Amalekites". In Roger Bullard (ed.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (3rd and corr. print. ed.). Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780865543737.
• Sagi, Avi (1994). The Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with the Moral Problem, Harvard Theological Review Vol.87, No.3, p. 323-46.
• Watson, Richard (1832). A Biblical and theological dictionary. London: John Mason.

External links

• Israeli PM invokes the Amalek in the context of the war on Gaza.
• Wipe Out Amalek, Today? chabad.org
• Amalek, Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
• Remember Amalek: A lesson in Divine Providence
• Remembering Amalek Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
• Latznu: Popular Culture and the Disciples of Amalek
• Antiquities of the Jews - by Josephus Flavius
• The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-6: Amalek
• A Kabbalistic view of Amalek
• Amalec - Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Between Rephidim and Jerusalem - Amalek symbolism in relations between Israelis and Palestinians
• Contemporary Amalek - Hirhurim - a blog post by Rabbi Gil Student explaining Rav Soloveitchik's controversial view that the Nazis were considered Amalekites
• "Amalek" (Passages 1999) A discussion with R. Eliezer Breitowitz & Dr. Elliott Malamet