SUMMARY
The Amalekites attack the wandering Israelites. The Israelites prevail as long as Moses keeps his hands raised. God declares that the memory of Amalek will be forever blotted out.
ANALYSIS
While this brief episode may seem incidental in the grand scheme of the journey through the wilderness, it casts a long shadow through the rest of the Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God instructs Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites, taking no spoils of war, on account of this attack against Israel in the wilderness. Yet Saul spared Agag, King of the Amalekites, as well as the most valuable of his livestock. It is this failure of Saul to follow God’s instruction that leads to his being rejected by God from kingship (1 Samuel 15:23). An Amalekite will later kill Saul (2 Samuel 1:1-16). Then, it will be Haman—a descendant of Agag (Esther 3:1)—who initiates a murderous edict against the Jews that will be foiled by Queen Esther. Moses’ declaration that “The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” is borne out indeed. Ironically, God’s telling Moses to write down the fact that God will “utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14) has the opposite effect: cementing the memory of Amalek in writing for all successive generations.
