The Command to Remember Amalek and to Destroy His Descendants
Left them neither root nor branch to continue their Clan as a Nation
And this will also be the case for many Gentile clans at Armageddon
August 18, 2013
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
AMALEKITES – They roamed primarily in the territory from the southern part of the Gaza Strip to Beersheba to Kadesh Barnea to the small seasonal River of Egypt and along the northern coastline of the Egyptian Sinai.
Exodus 17:8,13-16 – Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. [13] And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. [14] And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. [15] And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi: [16] For he said, Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
Zechariah 14:12 – And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
Malachi 4:1-3 – For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. [2] But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. [3] And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.
The rest of this Article consists of material from different sources.
Amalek was the grandson of Esau, the patriarch Jacob’s twin brother. He was the son of Eliphaz and his concubine, Timna (Gen.36:12). The Amalekites were distinguished in the holy Scripture by two villainous characteristics: cruelty and cowardice. What makes the Amalekites particularly interesting is that these two characteristics are always glaringly present when an Amalekite is involved in any Biblical story. In every story in which an Amalekite is privileged to participate, the reader witnesses this extraordinarily evil people not only committing cruel acts, but at the same time committing those acts in an unashamedly cowardly manner. They were warriors, yes, but they were not noble warriors. They never fought a fair fight.
In Exodus 17:8-16, we are told that the Amalekites “came and fought with Israel”, and that the Lord was so furious with the Amalekites that He swore to “have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” In the dim light of the few facts presented in these nine verses from Exodus, God’s particularly intense indignation against the Amalekites for their assault on Israel seems puzzling in its severity, especially when we consider His merciful nature. However, we are made privy to the real crime which provoked God’s fierce wrath when Moses, in his last sermon to Israel 40 years later, enjoined Israel to carry out God’s wrath against Amalek and reminded them of the cause for it. In Deuteronomy 25:17-19, Moses illuminates Exodus’ simple report that the Amalekites attacked Israel with the additional fact that they did not attack the army of Israel. Rather, said the man of God, Amalek “smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.” So, the whole truth is that while the account in Exodus is accurate in saying that the Amalekites attacked Israel, the Exodus information is incomplete. For, exhibiting their two constant and outstanding characteristics, the Amalekites actually attacked only those who were too weak to keep pace in the desert with their stronger brothers. They attacked the stragglers, those in Israel who were too ill, too weak, or too young to protect themselves, perhaps even women and children. Until Joshua led the counter-attack, there must have been a terrible slaughter of innocent, feeble souls (Ex.17). This was the famous battle which Israel won because Aaron and Hur helped Moses hold up his rod when his arms grew tired.
As an indication of God’s great care and concern for the weak ones among His people, He organized Israel’s future travels in the desert so that they marched by tribes. This insured that the weaker ones would always be in the main body, moving along with their tribe, instead of trudging along in the rear, unprotected by the stronger Israelites (Num.2).
After Joshua conquered Canaan and divided it among the tribes, Israel’s King Saul was sent by God on a mission to annihilate an Amalekite city in that promised land (1Sam.15). God would tolerate not one of this wretched race on His chosen soil. However, the timid King Saul bowed to the wishes of those in his army who wanted the Amalekite spoil for themselves, and, contrary to God’s clear command, he allowed the best of the sheep and cattle to be spared. God was so angered by this act of rebellion that He rejected Saul as king in Israel. There were other errors as well as this one which led to Saul’s rejection, but this singular failure to execute God’s great wrath on this people whom God despised was a terrible transgression, worthy of the severest punishment. As a trophy of war, Saul had also taken captive Agag, the king of the Amalekites, but the Almighty was not after trophies; He wanted peace for His people. And He knew that so long as there remained one Amalekite alive, no humble and righteous person in Israel would be safe. Samuel the prophet arrived at Saul’s camp and obediently hacked “Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal”, but immediately before doing so, Samuel reminded Agag that he had been (true to the cruel and cowardly nature of his breed) a murderer of innocent children. An “Agagite”, by the way, became a synonym for an Amalekite, the title being derived from the name of this and possibly other Amalekite kings.
Begin Excerpt from YNet News
Rabbi Shteinman: Yair Lapid
August 18, 2013
AMALEKITES – They roamed primarily in the territory from the southern part of the Gaza Strip to Beersheba to Kadesh Barnea to the small seasonal River of Egypt and along the northern coastline of the Egyptian Sinai.
‘Amalek’ – Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, leader of haredi public, instructs pupils to think about Lapid, Piron when saying prayer against enemies of Israel
Kobi Nachshoni
Finance Minister Yair Lapid has long been known as an enemy of the haredi public, but now, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, a prominent leader in the haredi world, says that Lapid is Amalek, the archetypical enemy of Israel from biblical times. This Saturday, when the parasha of Amalek is read, Shteinman instructed his disciples to have Lapid on their minds as they utter the words telling of the great enemy of the Israelites.
Twice a year, synagogues read the three verses that command to remember Amalek and destroy his descendants; once as part of the Ki Teitzei parasha, which will be read this Saturday, and once as a separate reading that in itself fulfilled the mitvah of memorial
The next Hebrew year, 5774, is a leap year and longer than usual, which means there will be 13 months between this reading and the next; certain interpretations in the halacha claim that the second reading must also be done as a mitzvah, to continue the tradition of reading the important Amalek verse every 12 months.
Like any ‘enemy of Israel’
Towards the upcoming Shabbat, in which synagogues will read the Ki Teitzei parasha will be read, Rabbi Shteinman has instructed his pupils to keep the finance minister in mind while reading the parasha, in order to illustrate the historic Amalek.
Sources close to Shteinman also said that he tells pupils to think of Lapid and of Education Minister Shai Piron when saying Birkat haMinim, which is said three times every day other than Shabat, and that is read with the purpose of destroying the enemies of Israel: “And let the arrogant government be speedily uprooted in our days. Let the noẓerim and the minim be destroyed in a moment. And let them be blotted out of the Book of Life and not be inscribed together with the righteous.”
Begin Excerpt Quotes from Wikipedia
Amalek is a figure in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Book of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz and of the concubine Timna. Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan. Amalek was the grandson of Esau (Gen. 36:12; 1 Chr. 1:36) who was the chief of an Edomite tribe (Gen. 36:16).
At Genesis 36:16, Amalek is described as the “chief of Amalek”, and thus his name can be construed to refer to a clan or a territory over which he ruled. Josephus calls him a ‘bastard’ (νόθος), though in a derogative sense. A late extra-Biblical tradition, recorded by Nachmanides, maintains that the Amalekites were not descended from the grandson of Esau but from a man named Amalek, from whom the grandson took his name. An eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites is also mentioned in Old Arabian poetry..
Amalekites
The Amalekites were a people mentioned a number of times in the book of Genesis, and considered to be Amalek’s descendents. In the chant of Balaam at Numbers, 24:20, Amalek was called the ‘first of the nations’, attesting to high antiquity.
According to Muslim historians such as Ibn Khaldun and Ali ibn al-Athir, Amalek was a name given to the Amorites and the Canaanites.[
The name is often interpreted as “dweller in the valley”, and occasionally as “war-like,” “people of prey”, “cave-men In some rabbinical interpretations, Amalek is etymologised as a people am, who lick blood, but most specialists regard the origin to be unknown In Arabic.
Gustave Dore, 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 the Pentateuch, the Amalekites are nomads who attacked the Hebrews at Rephidim (Exodus 17:8-10) in the desert of Sinai during their exodus from Egypt: “smiting the hindmost, all that were feeble behind,” (Deuteronomy 25:18 HE). The Tanakh recognizes the Amalekites as indigenous tribesmen, “the first of the nations” (Numbers 24:20). In the southern lowlands too, perhaps the dry grazing lands that are now the Negev, there were aboriginal Amalekites who were daunting adversaries of the Hebrews in the earliest times. “They dwelt in the land of the south…from Havilah until thou comest to Shur” (Numbers 13:29; 1 Samuel 15:7). At times said to be allied with the Moabites (Judg. 3:13) and the Midianites (Judges 6:3). One may consider the hypothesis that each of their kings bore the hereditary name of Agag (Num. 24:7; 1 Sam. 15:8). They also attacked the Israelites at Hormah (Num. 14:45). Saul and his army destroyed most of the people, and earned Samuel’s wrath for leaving some of the people and livestock alive (1 Samuel 15:8-9) against God’s command. Saul and the tribal leaders also hesitated to kill Agag, so Samuel himself executed the Amalekite king (1 Samuel 15:33).
Agag’s death might be expected to have been the end of the Amalekites; however, they reappear in later periods described in the Bible (see below). Even Samuel says to Agag: “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women.”
War against the Amalekites
As the Jewish Encyclopedia put it, “David waged a sacred war of extermination against the Amalekites,”[10] who may have subsequently disappeared from history. Long after, in the time of Hezekiah, five hundred Simeonites annihilated the remnant “of the Amalekites that had escaped” on Mount Seir, and settled in their place (1 Chr. 4:42–43).
The Biblical relationship between the Hebrew and Amalekite tribes was that the Amalekite tribes without provocation pounced on the Hebrews when they were weak. The Amalekites became associated with ruthlessness and trickery and tyranny, even more so than Pharaoh or the Philistines, and required a ruthless response:
“8 Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek.
Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 10 So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. 13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.
“14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 15 And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord is my banner, 16 saying, “A hand upon the throne of the Lord Jacob! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17)
This enmity is repeated in Numbers 24, in Balaam’s fourth and final oracle:
“20 Then he looked on Amalek and took up his discourse and said, Amalek was the first among the nations, but its end is utter destruction.
And again in the law, in Deuteronomy 25:
“17 “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. 19 Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.”
The fighting is mentioned again in Judges 3:13, in the Judgeship of Ehud, and again under Gideon, as the Amalekites allied with the Midianites (Judges 6:3, 6:33, 7:12). This enmity is also the background of the command of the Lord to Saul:
“2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (1 Sam. 15:2-3).
Saul’s failure to obey this command cost him his kingship. Note the commentary on this total destruction later by Samuel, when Saul summons him from the dead through prophetic vision literary tool:
“16 And Samuel said, ‘Why then do you ask me, since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? 17 The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David. 18 Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day.” (1 Sam 28)
Flavius Josephus also commented on this event:
“He betook himself to slay the women and the children, and thought he did not act therein either barbarously or inhumanly; first, because they were enemies whom he thus treated, and, in the next place, because it was done by the command of God, whom it was dangerous not to obey” (Flavius Josephus, Antiquites Judicae, Book VI, Chapter 7).
The destruction of animals and booty, however, was not universal at Saul’s time. This was evidently a command for a particular battle. His contemporary David handled the matter differently a few years later.
“8 Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. 9And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish.”
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