Some thoughts on Amalek
Perhaps something very strange is working itself out through Jewish history.
It is somewhat bizarre when a 3,000-year-old reference to a biblical tribe suddenly becomes part of the global discourse. Nonetheless, not very long ago, it happened.
South Africa recently sought to rescue Hamas and advance the terrorist organization’s genocidal goals by hauling Israel to the so-called International Court of Justice on charges of genocide. Before the kangaroo court, the South Africans cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s quotation from the Hebrew Bible in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre: “Remember what Amalek did to you.” This, the South Africans claimed rather tendentiously, proved that Israel planned to commit genocide against the Palestinians.
We will put aside the sheer irony of this, given that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who appears to have nothing better to spend his time on, recently led a crowd in the “river to the sea” chant of which genocidal racists the world over are so fond.
Digressing from this world-historical hypocrisy, it should be noted that the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office quickly shot back, stating, “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reference to Amalek was not an incitement to genocide of Palestinians, but a description of the utterly evil actions perpetrated by the genocidal terrorists of Hamas on October 7th and the need to confront them.”
Nobody outside of Jewish and antisemitic circles likely had the slightest idea who or what “Amalek” might be. In fact, a great many Jews and antisemites probably didn’t either. Nonetheless, Amalek is an interesting concept and must be taken all the more seriously given our current crisis.
According to the biblical narrative, Amalek was the first tribe to attack the Israelites while they wandered in the Sinai after escaping Egyptian bondage. Amalek’s assault was notably brutal. The tribe deliberately launched a sneak attack on the Israelites’ rear that targeted women, children, and the weak. As a result, Amalek is damned by God to be destroyed by Israel.
Jewish tradition, however, built Amalek into something much larger. Over the centuries, Amalek came to be seen as something like a metaphysical force. It is a satanic entity that, through its descendants, periodically attacks the Jewish people. Moreover, Amalek will continue its bloody work until, one day, it is finally punished for its crimes and utterly destroyed.
Amalek is, in other words, the eternal enemy of the Jewish people. It manifests itself in figures like Haman and exacts a terrible price in blood. Nonetheless, in the end, Israel will defeat Amalek utterly and for all time.
This understanding of Amalek begins with the biblical narrative itself. In Exodus 17:14-16 (due credit: I have consulted Sefaria for all translations), following a battle in which Israel emerges victorious, God says to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens.”
Then, the passage states, “Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Adonai Nissi (the Lord is my banner), for he said, ‛Because the Lord has sworn by his throne that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.’”
Amalek’s violence against defenseless people is explicitly cited as justification for such enmity and Amalek’s ultimate fate. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 states, “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt. How, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when your Lord God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your Lord God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
Numbers 24:20, in poetic fashion, restates this apocalyptic doom, stating:
He saw Amalek and, taking up his theme, he said:
A leading nation is Amalek;
But its fate is to perish forever.
The continuing battle with Amalek maintains its presence in the biblical narrative. In the Book of Samuel, Saul is commanded by God to fight a battle to the end with Amalek, though Saul fails to fulfill the decree:
Thus said the Lord of Hosts: “I am exacting the penalty for what Amalek did to Israel, for the assault he made upon them on the road, on their way up from Egypt. Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses!”
Saul mustered the troops and enrolled them at Telaim: 200,000 men on foot and 10,000 men of Judah. Then Saul advanced as far as the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the wadi.
Saul said to the Kenites, “Come, withdraw at once from among the Amalekites, that I may not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they left Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites.
Saul destroyed Amalek from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is close to Egypt, and he captured King Agag of Amalek alive. He proscribed all the people, putting them to the sword; but Saul and the troops spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the second-born, the lambs, and all else that was of value. They would not proscribe them; they proscribed only what was cheap and worthless.
The word of the Lord then came to Samuel: “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from Me and has not carried out My commands.” Samuel was distressed and he entreated the Lord all night long. (I Samuel 15:1-11)
Incensed by Saul’s failure to carry out his demand to completely extirpate Amalek, God begins the process of toppling Saul from the throne and giving the kingdom over to David.
The rabbinic tradition seized on the biblical idea of Amalek as an eternal rather than a historical enemy and greatly expanded it. For example, Rashi, perhaps the most famous of the commentators, noted the metaphysical dimensions of the concept. He wrote:
The Holy One, blessed be He, swears that His Name will not be perfect nor His throne perfect until the name of Amalek be entirely blotted out. But when [Amalek’s] name is blotted out, then will His [God’s] Name be perfect and His throne perfect. As it is said (Psalms 9:7): “The enemy is come to an end, he whose swords were for ever”—and this refers to Amalek, of whom it is written, “He kept his wrath forever.”
The verse in the Psalm continues: “And thou didst uproot enemies, their very memorial is perished.” What does it say immediately after this? “But the Lord shall now remain for ever” (Psalms 9:8). You see that the Name will be perfect [after Amalek]. “He establishes his throne in righteousness”—so you see that His throne will then be perfect.
14th-century commentator the Ralbag also spoke of the eternal nature of this conflict, saying that God will destroy Amalek “in estimation of the evil they would try to do to the Jewish people in every generation when they have the ability.” He adds the example of Haman as a descendant of the Amalekites and states that such descendants “are always turning to do evil to the Jewish people when they have the ability.”
This tradition, as evidenced by Netanyahu’s statement, is very much alive today. Not surprisingly, it makes many people—including many Jews—decidedly uncomfortable. The primary reason is not the condemnation of Amalek for killing the defenseless nor the concept of an eternal enemy. It is the admonition to completely annihilate Amalek, which many view as a call for genocide.
This interpretation of the apocalyptic references to Amalek is not entirely baseless, though it is an extreme interpretation and, in the end, not a very insightful one. There is, first, the problem of the word “genocide.” It is a very modern word—less than a century old—and today, sadly, it is largely meaningless.
Despite the protestations of some, words ought to mean something, even in our day and age. Thus, it must be pointed out that the term “genocide” literally means “murder of a race.” Among many today, however, the term essentially means any act that kills a large number of people. At their lowest ebb, people simply use the term as shorthand for “something of which I very much disapprove.”
Viewed according to the word’s actual meaning, however, the admonitions regarding Amalek do not refer to a genocide except under the most tendentious interpretation. Amalek as described in the Bible is clearly a tribe, not a race. If one can apply the modern term “race” to biblical times at all, the Amalekites were very likely of the same race as the Israelites. Presuming the story is not wholly legendary, the conflict between the two was likely nothing more than a manifestation of the tribal warfare typical of the time.
Such forms of warfare are often notably brutal and sometimes involve the total destruction of one tribe by another. Again, if we view the story as at least somewhat true, then given the Amalekites’ deliberate attack on non-combatants, the Israelites could be forgiven for presuming that their enemy intended to destroy them and, therefore, they were involved in a war to the death. That a great legend rose out of this should not be unexpected. In those times, people rarely differentiated between the divine world and the material world, so it is not surprising that divine commandments came into the picture. It was all but inevitable that they would do so.
Much of this is unquestionably horrific stuff according to modern sensibilities. Nonetheless, it was par for the course in Levantine tribal warfare and the Bible—which would have considered it the norm in any case—simply describes it in an honest and forthright manner.
The metaphysical understanding of Amalek, however, is quite different. For the most part, it conceives of the total destruction of Amalek only in the most apocalyptic terms. That is, the final battle and Amalek’s annihilation are a very long way away and will only take place in the messianic era. By and large, the rabbinic tradition sees the conflict with Amalek as a near-endless series of battles in which Amalek rises again to attack Israel at its weakest point but inevitably fails. Despite defeat, however, Amalek returns b’kol dor v’dor, “in every generation,” to attack again until Israel’s final triumph with the coming of the Messiah.
It seems clear, then, that the rabbinic concept of Amalek is not about admonitions to kill people. It is an explanation. A reason why. That is, it serves as a metaphor for Jew-hated or what is today called antisemitism.
As understood today, the concept posits that antisemitism does not arise because of specific historical circumstances. At best, those circumstances are surface ephemera. In their essence, the various forms of antisemitism are but manifestations of a single satanic force that has sought the destruction of the Jewish people again and again over the millennia. Thus, the concept of Amalek’s ultimate destruction is not a sadistic fantasy, but an expression of hope. The hope that, at some point, this eternal evil will be destroyed and the Jewish people finally left alone by a world that seems incapable of it.
This understanding of Amalek is, in many ways, essential to understanding how many Israelis, Diaspora Jews, and certainly Netanyahu view the current war.
No doubt, a great many do see the Palestinians as Amalek in some form. This is somewhat understandable. What was the Oct. 7 massacre, after all, if not a cowardly attack on the weak and unarmed? At the same time, there will inevitably be those who also believe that to defeat today’s Amalek, the Palestinians must be destroyed or at least expelled.
It is very likely, however, that most of those who accept the Amalek paradigm simply see the Palestinians as today’s iteration of the eternal enemy. As such, they must be defeated, not destroyed. Amalek itself will only be destroyed in the days of the Messiah, which—except in the minds of the most fanatical among us—have yet to come. For the moment, Amalek must be prevented from doing any more damage than it has already done. There will, after all, be more battles to come.
To a great extent, this is the source of many people’s failure to understand how Israelis and Jews view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general. Even many secular Jews—and Netanyahu is probably one of them—do not view the conflict as a specific contention between two peoples over the same land. They see it as a struggle between Israel and the singular force that has risen up against the Jews in an endless historical cycle.
As such, this is a war not to the death, but to the enemy’s temporary defeat. Amalek must be humbled and sent back into the shadows from whence he came. Then, preparations must be made for the next round. That there will be a final battle is certain, but not yet.
Anyone of a secular bent is bound to be skeptical of such an understanding of the current war. Nonetheless, it is difficult not to think that there is at least something in it.
Antisemitism is hardly inexplicable: Numerous psychological, cultural, religious, political, and economic forces can incite and drive it. Yet precisely because of this seemingly infinite morphology, it does often seem as if something quite strange is working itself out through Jewish history. Precisely what this something is remains unclear. The religious would claim instantly that it is metaphysical in nature. But it may be destiny, fate, coincidence, synchronicity, collective madness, or history itself.
One feels, however, that the longevity of Jew-hatred fails of explanation by prosaic means. Other means may or may not be available to us. But Amalek, perhaps, is better than nothing.
Ironical that the South African government leads the "war crimes" chorus.
The same government which routinely sponsors gatherings where "Kill the Boer" is chanted.
The same government that allows what was the richest nation in Africa to slide into poverty and despair.
Through corruption, incompetence, and indifference.
No. Until they provide justice and a decent life for their people, I have no interest in anything that they say.
And the ICC is just a self serving pawn in the South African game.
This is superb, Benjamin. I cross-posted it.