Amalek: A Pawn in the Rivalry Between Saul and David’s Legacy

This piece is based on my, “Metaphysical Hatred and Sacred Genocide: The Questionable Role of Amalek in Biblical Literature,” Journal of Genocide Research 23.1 (2020): 1–16.

During the battle, Moses holds the staff of God aloft to engage YHWH’s support:

‏^{שׁמות יז:יא} וְהָיָה כַּאֲשֶׁר יָרִים מֹשֶׁה יָדוֹ וְגָבַר יִשְׂרָאֵל וְכַאֲשֶׁר יָנִיחַ יָדוֹ וְגָבַר עֲמָלֵק. ^יז:יב וִידֵי מֹשֶׁה כְּבֵדִים וַיִּקְחוּ אֶבֶן וַיָּשִׂימוּ תַחְתָּיו וַיֵּשֶׁב עָלֶיהָ וְאַהֲרֹן וְחוּר תָּמְכוּ בְיָדָיו מִזֶּה אֶחָד וּמִזֶּה אֶחָד וַיְהִי יָדָיו אֱמוּנָה עַד בֹּא הַשָּׁמֶשׁ. ^יז:יג וַיַּחֲלֹשׁ יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אֶת עֲמָלֵק וְאֶת עַמּוֹ לְפִי חָרֶב.

^{Exod 17:11} Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. ^17:12 But Moses’ hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands remained steady until the sun set. ^17:13 And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword.

Nevertheless, both accounts place the Amalekites in the same overall region, south of Canaan.

Editor’s note: For the function of genealogy in the Bible, see Aaron Demsky, “Reading Biblical Genealogies,” TheTorah (2016); Zev Farber, “Moses’ Father-in-Law: Kenite or Midianite?” TheTorah (2015).

See also later in the story Judges 6:33 and 7:12, which describes the same constellation of enemies attacking Israel.

The remark gives an impression of polemic, as it singles out the Amalekites as a great victory of Saul (cf. v. 48 and v. 47), possibly in response to that tradition of David defeating Amalekites later in Samuel.

Indeed, as will become clear below, the story of Saul’s attack on Amalek may well be the inspiration for this clause in Deuteronomy, which wishes to explain why it is Saul who destroyed the Amalekites and not one of Israel’s earlier leaders.

According to 1 Samuel 14:48, this defeat includes Amalek. This could be just a summary statement, referring to the war that will be described in the next chapter, or there may be a more complicated relationship between the textual history of these two chapters.

The description of a city of Amalek, which would imply a siege style war, is in some tension with v. 7 which sounds as if the Amalekites were spread over a large distance, as one might expect of semi-nomadic people. The LXX here reads τῶν πόλεων Αμαληκ “the cities of Amalek,” which would ameliorate the problem, though it is difficult to know if this text represents an alternative Vorlage (ערי עמלק) or reflects an attempt to solve the tension between verse 5 and verse 7. (The Syriac Peshitta, the Latin Vulgate, and Targum Jonathan all have “city” in the singular.)

At one point, he encounters an Egyptian man passed out on the way, and David has him revived and questioned:

^{שמואל א ל:יג} וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ דָוִד לְמִי אַתָּה וְאֵי מִזֶּה אָתָּה וַיֹּאמֶר נַעַר מִצְרִי אָנֹכִי עֶבֶד לְאִישׁ עֲמָלֵקִי וַיַּעַזְבֵנִי אֲדֹנִי כִּי חָלִיתִי הַיּוֹם שְׁלֹשָׁה. ^ל:יד אֲנַחְנוּ פָּשַׁטְנוּ נֶגֶב הַכְּרֵתִי וְעַל אֲשֶׁר לִיהוּדָה וְעַל נֶגֶב כָּלֵב וְאֶת צִקְלַג שָׂרַפְנוּ בָאֵשׁ.

^{1 Sam 30:13} Then David asked him, “To whom do you belong and where are you from?” “I am an Egyptian boy,” he answered, “the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I fell ill three days ago. ^30:14 We had raided the Negeb of the Cherethites, and the Negeb of Judah, and the Negeb of Caleb; we also burned down Ziklag.”

Like David, the Amalekites apparently raid widely. The Egyptian slave agrees to show David the camp, assuming David promises not to kill him or to return him to his master. While the treatment of the Egyptian slave is cruel (v. 13), the text never uses this as an opportunity to point to the Amalekite’s depravity.

The same is true later when an Amalekite comes to David to tell him that he assisted Saul in his failed attempt at suicide. David has him killed because he struck down Saul, not because he happens to be an Amalekite (2 Sam 1:1–16).

The Israelites take booty from the Midianites (Num 31:10–15), from the city of Ai (Josh 8:27), and from the Canaanites in general (Josh 11:14). Prohibitions against taking booty are generally accompanied by oaths, like in the story of Arad (Num 21:1–3), or divine commands, like in the story of Jericho (Josh 6:17–19). In such cases, the booty is declared to be YHWH’s and thus untouchable; otherwise, to the victor go the spoils.

Eventually, centuries after the Amalekites were no longer a known political or ethnic entity, Amalek became a symbolic foe. The villain of the Purim story, Haman, was said to be a descendent of king Agag, and he and his family are stamped out of existence by the end of the story. This connection is emphasized by the Torah reading the rabbis chose for Purim, namely, the Amalek’s attack on Israel from Exodus 17:8–16. Moreover, Rabbinic Jewish tradition (m. Megillah 3:4) has established a requirement to read the passage from Deuteronomy about Amalek every year on the Shabbat preceding Purim, called Shabbat Zakhor, and the haftara for this reading is none other than 1 Samuel 15, the account of the destruction of Amalek followed by Saul’s “failure” in the war (For a discussion of the connection between this story and the megillah, see Marc Zvi Brettler, “Megillat Esther: Reversing the Legacy of King Saul,” TheTorah [2017]). Paradoxically, the yearly reading of the passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy, which command Israel to wipe the memory of Amalek from the face of the earth, has had the opposite effect: it preserved their memory at the forefront of the listeners’ consciousness, prompting some of them to look for and pursue the “Amalekites” in their life.