Portal:Bible/Featured article/June, 2008

Amalek, according to the genealogy in Genesis 36:12; 1 Chronicles 1:36, was a son of Esau's son Eliphaz and of the concubine Timna, a Horite and sister of Lotan. Gen. 36:16 refers to him as the "chief of Amalek" thus his name can be understood to be a title derived from that of the Edomite clan or territory over which he ruled. Indeed an extra-Biblical tradition recorded by Nachmanides relates that the Amalekites were not descended from the grandson of Esau but from a man named Amalek after whom this grandson was later named. Such an eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites is also mentioned in Old Arabian poetry. In the Pentateuch, the Amalekites were nomads who attacked the Hebrews at Rephidim in the desert of Sinai during their exodus from Egypt: "smiting the hindmost, all that were feeble behind," (1 Samuel 15:2). 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 Sam. 15:8-9) against the Lord's command. Saul and the tribal leaders also hesitated to kill the king Agag, so Samuel executed the Amalekite king himself. David waged a sacred war of extermination against the Amalekites, who may have subsequently disappeared from history. Long after, in the time of Hezekiah, five hundred Simeonites annihilated the last remnant "of the Amalekites that had escaped" on Mount Seir, and settled in their place (1 Chr. 4:42-43). (more...)