Amalek, amalekites

A nomadic Arabian tribe, occupying tlie \vide desert region between Sinai on the south and the southern borders of Palestine on the north. This district corresponds to what is now called the wilderness of Et-Tili. The Amalekites are represented as per- petually at feud with the Israelites, though such closely connected tribes as the Kenites and Keniz- zites appear from the first as friendly, and ulti- mately as peaceful settlers in the midst of the pos.sessions of Israel.

References to the Amalekites appear very early in the OT history. In the account of the cam- paigns of Chedorlaomer of Elam and his confeder- ates in Gn 14, ' the countrj" of the Amalekites ' near Kadesh is described as the scene of one of those desolatinp wars.

Hengstenberg, followed by Kurtz, maintains that this does not imply that the Amalekites were in existence in the Jays of Abraham, but only that this country, lying be- tween Kadesh and the land of the Amorites, after- wards kno\vn as ' the fields of the Amalekites,' was at that early period overrun and destroyed by Chedorlaomer. Had there been no other hints of the extreme antiquity of the Amalekites, this ex- planation might perhaps be accepted.

But we find again in the cliant of Balaam (Nu 24™) that Amaiek is described a.s 'the first of the nations,' which seems almost certainly to mean a primitive people to be reckoned among the very olilest of the nations. Most recent scholars are agreed in assigning to the Amalekites a high antiipiity. This is the conclusion to which such passages as those referred to would naturally lead.

The only reascm why an attempt should be made to jiut aiiv other interpretation upon these words is the idea that, in Gn 3(1", the descent of the Amalekites is traced from Amaiek, the grand.son of E.sau, and their origin thus brought down to a later period than that of Abraham. It is exceedingly hazardous to build any argument of this sort on an occasional statement in a genealogical table reproduced from some unknown source, seeing that it is inipo.

ssible to determine what the point of view of the original compiler may have been. In many ea.ses such genealogical lists seem intended to set forth simply certain interrelations of tribes, so that, though terms indicating personal and family relationsldps are 78 AAIALEK, AMALEKITES AMALEK, AMALEKITES nsed, the names do not always belonp; to persons his- torically real.

All that we need understand by this iniroduction of an Anialek, son of Eliphaz by a concubine, is that Tinina the Horite, the concubine referred to, represents the importation or incor- poration of a foreign and inferior, probably a servile, element into the pure Edoinite stock, the Horites being one of the tribes forming that federation, embracing the Amalekites, conquered by Chedor- laomer.

The region in which the Amalekites first appear in history, near Kadesh, lies just about a (fay's journey south of Hebron, on the undulating slopes and plain at the foot of the mountains held by the Amorites. It may be supposed that a branch of the tribe had settled there, or had begun to engage in agricultural pursuits.

When driven forth from their possessions by the conqueror, they no doubt returned to their old wandering modes of life, and rejoined their brethren who moved about through the wide extent of the great desert. The first meeting of the Israelites and the Amalekites took place in the southern part of the Sinaitic peninsula. At Rephidim, a broad plain to the nortn-west of Mount Sinai, the Amalekites came out against the Israelites, and a battle ensued which lasted tliroughout the whole day.

Joshua commanded in the light, and Moses on the hill top held up his rod in the sight of the people as the si^n from God that they would conquer by His might (Ex 17f-"). The Amalekites had at this time acted in a peculiarly bitter and exasperating manner towards the Israelites, harassing them on their rear, and cutting off the weak and the weary (Dt 25"""). In consequence, the Amalekites, to a greater extent than any of the other Can.

and neighbouring tribes, were placed under the ban, so chat J" Himself, as well as His people, is repre- sented as solemnly swearing eternal feud against them. The defeat of the Amalekites evidently put the fear of the Israelites upon the robber nomad tribes of the desert for a time, so that they were un- molested during their advance to Sinai, and during their year's encampment there, as well as during their subsequent march northward to the southern borderof Palestine at Kadesh.

It was the intention of the Israelites to enter Palestine from the south, and so from this point, just outside of the southern boundary of Palestine, spies were sent to examine the land, and to bring back a report as to whether an entrance from that point was possible, and if so, how best the invading forces might conduct the campaign. These spies on their return reported that the Amalekites dwelt in the land of the south in the valley, i.e.

in the soutliem portions of the region afterwards occupied by Judah and Simeon (Nu 13^ 14^), in the neighbourhood of the lowland Canaanites and the higliland Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites. The Amalekites are represented as the leaders of the confederate Canaanites who resisted the entrance of the Israelites into the south of Palestine (Nu 14^-").

They were evidently at that time of considerable importance, and must have been for a long period in possession of those territories only a little way north of the district in which we find their ancestors, or, at least, a branch of the same great nation, settled in the days of Abraham.

The bitter opposition shown by the Amalekites to the Israelites at Sinai and in Southern Pales- tine was distinguished from that of the other tribes by this, that they were really at the head of the confederated clans already in possession of the land, and the struggle between them and the invaders was to determine the whole future of the rivals, the success of the one necessarily meaning the utter destmction of the other. ' It was the hatred.' says Ewald (History of Israel, i. 2.

50), ' of two rivals disputino; a splendid prize whicli the one had previously possessed and still partially possessed, and the other was trj-ing to get for himself by ousting him.' The Ijittemess must have been in- tensified by the secession to the ranks of Israel of such branclies or families of the Amalekite stem as the Kenites and Kenizzites. These two families, with Jethro and Caleb respectively at their head, were the ancient allies of^ Israel, and ultimately settlers in the land.

The defeat of the Israelites may have secured for the Amalekites and their immediate neighbours peace and prosperity through- out a whole generation. When they were again attacked it was by a people already in possession of the northern regions, now pressing southward.

How far they were interfered with by Judah and Simeon is not recorded, but it would appear that even after the Israelitisli occupation of the country the Amalekites in considerable numbers maintained possession of the plateau and hilly regions in the extreme south. In the time of the Judges, however, we meet with the Amalekites in the company of the Midianites, as nomad tribes roaming about among their old desert haunts, and pursuing their old tactics of harassing peaceful agriculturists.

When the crops sown by the Israelites were ripening, the Amalekite marauders descended and reaped the har^'est, so that the unfortunate inhabitants were impoverished and discouraged (J" 6'). They, alonf; with the Ammonites, were aJlies of the Moabites in their conflict with Israel, and no donbt suffered in the defeat of the Moabites at the hand of Ehud (Jg 3'^). During this same period, it would seem that a branch of the Amalekite tribe had secured a settlement in Mount Ephraim.

Pirathoa, the residence of the judge Abdon, some 15 miles south-west of Shechem, bore the name of ' the Mount of the Amalekites,' or had in it a hill so called (Jg 12").

The settlers who had thus given their name to the hill belonged in all proba- bility to a branch of the Amalekites, who, about the time that some of their brethren settled in the south of Palestine, in what was afterward assigned to Judah, pressed farther to the north, and secured possessions among other Canaanite tribes in the very centre of the land.

This is more likely than the suggestion of Bertheau, that these Amalekites of Ephraim were remnants of those expelled by the men of Judah from their southern settlements in the days of Joshua. They had evidently been some considerable time in possession before locjilities came to be popularly known by their name. This view is furtlier confirmed by the words of Deborah in her song (Jg 5"), ' out of Ephraim came they down whose root is in (not against, as in AV ) Amalek.'

The land of Ephraim was the territory once possessed by the Amalekites. In the early years of his reign, Saul was commis- sioned to carry on a war of extermination against the Amalekites and their king Agag (IS 15). This was intended to be the execution of the sentence passed upon them in the days of Moses (Ex 17", Nu 24", Dt 25"-'*). No li\-ing thing belonging to the Amalekites was to be spared!

This great battle was evidently fought in the south of Judah, as the pursuit is described as extending from Havilah in Arabia, far to the ea.st, to Shur in the west of the desert on the border of Egypt. Wliun worsted in battle they evidently pas.^erl over the southern boundary of Palestine, and betook them- selves to their ancestral haunts in the wild desert. During the jieriod of their residence as a settled people in Southern Judah, they had a capital- citv, Ir-.

\malek, 'the city of Amalek' (1 S 15°). Koliber bands of the yet unsubdued nomad Anialek amam AMAZED 79 lies of the desert, durinfj the time of David's ^tay among tlie FhilLstines, sacked Ziklag, in tlie tem- torj' of Simeon, outside of the southern boundary of Jiidah (1 S 30). 'I'hese were overtaken by David, and only 400 young men on swift camels Buccee<led in making their escape.

The reference to the Amalekites in 2 S 8", in the list of spoils dedicated to tiod by David, is prohabl3' to this same incident. From tliia time onward the Amalek- ites seem to liivve been regarded as no longer formidable ; and even as raiders from the desert we find no further trace of them The last mention of them in the OT occurs in I Ch 4*", in the days of Hezekiah.

There it is said that ' tlie renmant of the Amalekites that escaped,' and who had con- tinae<l till that day in Mount Seir, were smitten by 500 of the Simeonites, who took possession of their land. Tli>it the Amalekites are not men- tioned in Gn 10 is regarded bj' DUhnann as proof that before the time of the writer they liad sunk into insignificance. Outside of the OT we have no reliable accounts of the Amalekites.

In the works of the Arabian historians very extensive and detailed reports are given of the progTess and achievements of the Amalekites ; hut these, as Noldeke has conWncingly sliown, are creiiible only in so far as they are based on the statements of the historical books of our own canonical Scriptures. LlTBRATTRE. — A very admirable ftnd comprehensive sketch Is given by Berlht-au in SclienkelL BibeVexicon, Leipz, 18(J9, vol. i. 111-114. Bee also Dillmanii, dom. on (Jenesit, on cbs. x.

and xitivl. ; EwaW, Hist, of Isnul, Eng. tr. 1S76, vol. 1. 109 f., 850 r. ; Kurtz, History nf tht Old Covmant, Eng. tr. 1850, iii. 48- 60 ; Noldeke, Vthf.r di€ Amaitkiter UTui einuje anderr Stiehhar. volkrr der l$mliUT, 1864. J. Macpukkson. AMAM 'c~¥), Jos 15^ only. — An unknown city of Judah, in the desert south of Beersheba.