Original Meaning

INSERTED AT THE END of fourteen chapters of appeals to righteousness and covenantal fidelity demonstrated in total devotion to Yahweh and compassionate commitment to others, verses 17–19 seem out of place. What has this note to do with the preceding? At best, the reference to Amalekites links this text to 23:3, which bars Ammonites and Moabites from the assembly of Yahweh for ten generations because they had hired Balaam to curse them. But now Moses reaches back even further to the Israelites’ pre-Sinai encounter with the Amalekites with a seemingly ruthless charge to blot out every memory of them (cf. Ex. 17:14–16).1

Stylistically, verses 17–19 do not exhibit the qualities of “law,” which reminds us again to classify Moses’ entire second address as pastoral instruction rather than legislation. Here Moses admonishes the people to take care of some unfinished business. Two imperatives frame this paragraph (v. 17a; 19c),2 which divides into two parts almost equal in length. In the first Moses charges the Israelites to “remember” the Amalekites’ past hostilities (vv. 17–18), and in the second he charges them to “blot out” their memory from human history (v. 19).

The opening appeal to “remember” Amalek is characteristic of Moses’ rhetorical style.3 He cites three actions by the Amalekites against Israel that demand response. (1) They opportunistically “cut off” the Israelites along the way when they came out of Egypt. The attack signified unprovoked and malicious intervention in Israel’s pilgrimage to Horeb for their appointment with Yahweh. (2) The Amalekites committed barbaric and cowardly atrocities. Fearing to engage the Israelites in a frontal attack, they let the Israelites pass by; then, when they were famished and weary, they attacked powerless stragglers at the rear. These probably involved the weak and the sick, who could not keep up with the main camp and proved easy targets for marauders.4 (3) The Amalekites did not fear God. Although “to fear God” sometimes bears an ethical sense,5 the expression should not be limited to the ethical sphere. Moses would never speak of the Amalekites fearing Yahweh, but with this comment he suggests the Amalekite attack involved direct interference in the plan of God.6

This interpretation may explain Moses’ second charge in verse 19. They are to fulfill this charge when Yahweh has given Israel rest from all their enemies and delivered into their hands the land promised them as their grant.7 When the Cannanites no longer threaten and they live securely in the land, they must wipe out every vestige of Amalekites. The charge adapts a declaration Moses had heard Yahweh himself issue forty years ago (Ex. 17:12–14). However, he transforms the original divine declaration of purpose into a duty: the people are to “to blot out” the “memory” of the Amalekites.8

The paragraph ends with a final appeal to the Israelites: “Do not forget!” But the statement is cryptic: Forget what? Grammatically it could refer to what the Amalekites have done to them and what they will eventually do to the Amalekites—though it conflicts with the command to wipe out the memory of this people. It seems best, therefore, to see this command as answering the “remember” at the beginning of the paragraph, in which case the object of “do not forget” is the preceding command to blot out the Amalekites.9

Bridging Contexts

THE AMALEKITES IN ISRAEL’S history. The Amalekites resurface at several points in Israel’s later history. In the book of Judges they appear with other peoples from the surrounding deserts to oppress and harass Israel.10 Sometime later, following an initial valiant victory over marauding bands of Amalekites,11 Samuel informed Saul that Yahweh had not forgotten his earlier declaration of intent to wipe out the Amalekites for what they did to Israel (1 Sam. 15:1–3). Yahweh’s expression of intent and his command to Saul to settle the Amalekite question allude to our text:

I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. (1 Sam. 15:2–3)

Yahweh through Samuel commissioned Saul as the agent through whom both his promise in Exodus 17:14 and Moses’ charge in Deuteronomy 25:19 would be fulfilled. The narrative that follows creates the impression that Saul fulfilled his charge, with the notable exception of sparing King Agag.12 However, David continued to be involved in conflicts with the Amalekites, apparently winning the decisive victory over them while Saul was being defeated by the Philistines.13

Although Saul’s campaign is characterized as a mission of ḥērem, the narrator makes no attempt to link David’s campaign either to Yahweh’s promise in Exodus 17:14 or Moses’ charge in Deuteronomy 25:19. Remarkably, when the person who claimed to have assisted in the death of Saul identified himself as an Amalekite, David had him killed, not because he was an Amalekite, but because he dared to kill Yahweh’s anointed (2 Sam. 1:14–16). Except for later references to spoil that David seized from the Amalekites—along with other nations (2 Sam. 8:12; 1 Chron. 18:11)—the Amalekites appear again only in 1 Chronicles 4:43,14 which notes that in the days of Hezekiah five hundred Simeonites defeated the remnant of Amalekite escapees. Apparently the campaign of elimination called for by Moses in Deuteronomy 25:19 had never been fully carried out.

If Haman the Agagite is to be connected to Agag the Amalekite in the book of Esther,15 this attests to the persistence of remnants of this people. However, it is unclear whether he was an actual descendant of the Amalekite king Agag, or whether Agagite functions as a pejorative appellative for all who hate the Jews.16

Contemporary Significance

TO MANY THIS CALL for the extermination of the Amalekites is as troubling as earlier commands to wipe out the Canaanites. It is small comfort that this text seems to reflect a more enlightened ethic than does the narrative account of Exodus 17:14–16. Whereas the narrative calls for their elimination simply because a people had been attacked, here it is grounded in specific ethical considerations. The Amalekites deserve this fate because they violated fundamental principles of warfare: attacking the Israelites from the rear when they were exhausted and famished, and focusing particularly on those lagging behind. Because of their immoral conduct in war they may be rightly condemned.

However, reducing the present prescription to a moral rather than religious or spiritual issue clouds rather than clarifies the problem. Moses insists on eliminating the Amalekites because they defied God, not only by stifling the fear of divinity that is common to all civilized people, but also by daring to interfere with God at a critical moment in the history of salvation. Yahweh had just rescued the Israelites and was leading them to Sinai, where he would formally confirm them as his covenant people. All this was preparatory to delivering into their hands the land of Canaan so they could flourish there and become his agent of blessing to the whole world. Moses hereby in effect declares, “Woe to any who interfere with the plan of God.”

While this text speaks eloquently to the issue of the just pursuit of war, it has little to contribute to contemporary debates about theories of just war. Like his instructions regarding the Canaanite nations listed in 7:1, Moses’ charge regarding the Amalekites is exceptional. Under no circumstances are these policies to be generalized into national policies of genocide or justification for violent expressions of revenge.

While these observations reflect a realistic interpretation of the present text, there is some virtue in interpreting this text paradigmatically. With roots in the identification of Haman as “the Agagite,” Jewish interpretive tradition often perceived the Amalekites as symbols of anti-Semitism.17 More generally, inasmuch as the Amalekite attack interfered with God’s mission of mercy to the world through his chosen people, they represent the forces of evil arrayed against the kingdom of light and salvation, and their doom is also decreed. In the meantime, the people of God do battle with all powers and principalities that are hostile to the kingdom of God. They do so not with military armaments or material resources, but with the armor God has provided and marching forth in the strength he provides (Eph. 6:10–20).