A Brief History of Amalek
Circa 1446 BC, as the Israelites passed through Rephidim, Amalek attacked. Moses was able to fight off the Amalekites.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and rehearse it to Joshua, for I will utterly wipe out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Then Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner [Yahweh Nissi]; for he said, “For the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” — Exodus 17:14-15
40 years after Amalek savagely attacked the Israelites at Rephidim, the Hebrew people were preparing to cross the Jordan River to claim their promised land. God prohibited Moses from entering the promised land; God appointed Joshua to take the lead (Numbers 27:18, 1407 BC).
Circa 1407 BC, Moses instructed Israel, “Remember what Amalek did to you by the road when you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you by the way and attacked at your rear all that were stragglers behind you, when you were exhausted and weary. He did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, that you must blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You must not forget it.” — Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Holocaust 2023
On October 7, 2023, Iran-proxy Hamas raped, mutilated and decapitated women. More than 1,400 were slaughtered by Hamas, including babies. Hamas also made hostages of Israelis, adults, and babies. Many of the hostages were sexually abused and murdered in captivity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu has not forgotten the unholy, evil Nazi Kill-All-The-Jews worldview.
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu stated, “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized. These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza.” At the outset of the massacre, Netanyahu described Hamas terrorists as “dead men walking.”
You have an enemy
I was born and raised in the Texas Gulf Coastal Plains of South Texas. As a child, I knew that rattlesnakes were my enemy. You cannot reason with a rattlesnake. You can make pets of armadillos and raccoons, but you can never domesticate a rattlesnake.
My friends and I killed innumerable rattlesnakes; there was never a declared moratorium on hunting to preserve the rattlesnakes. To this day, there is no shortage of rattlesnakes in the Texas Gulf Coastal Plains.
Whether you know this or not, you have an enemy who seeks to kill you, “graveyard dead.”
- “Be sober and watchful, because your adversary the devil walks around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” — 1 Peter 5:8
- “The thief does not come, except to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” — John 10:10
A bit more Jewish history
Israel was reborn as a nation on May 14, 1948.
“In 1948, the Jewish people were still reeling from the tragedy of the Holocaust. The enormous scope and depravity of the Nazi genocide against the Jews was still being uncovered. Two-thirds of European Jewry had been gassed or gunned down en masse. Most of the surviving remnants were on the brink of starvation. Few wanted to return to their homes, even if they had one. They knew their neighbors had never really accepted them, and likely never would.” — International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
King Saul fails to obey God
Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you to be king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore listen to the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, ‘I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not have compassion on them but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” — 1 Samuel 15:1-3
“Then Saul struck the Amalekites from Havilah until you come to Shur, which is near Egypt. He took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, oxen, fatlings, and lambs. And of all that was good, they were not willing to utterly destroy them. But everything that was despised and weak, that they completely destroyed.” — 1 Samuel 15:7-9
Ancient Jewish wisdom
A careful reading of the verses reveals the true nature of Saul’s sin. The Hebrew language possesses several words that mean “having mercy.” Interestingly, when God commanded Saul to “not have mercy” on Amalek, God did not use the common Hebrew word for mercy, “rachamim,” but rather the less common word, “chemlah.” When describing Saul’s misplaced mercy, “chemlah” is used again: “But Saul and the people had mercy [do not have compassion on them] (chemlah) on Agag…” What is the difference between “chemlah” and “rachamim”?
Rabbi Meir Wisser explains that “rachamim is used to describe the difficulty one man has in seeing the death or suffering of another man.” In other words, “rachamim” refers to the emotional reaction of mercy that we experience when seeing other people who are suffering. By contrast, the word “chemlah” is used when describing a man’s difficulty in seeing the destruction of someone else’s possessions and “he decides using his own judgment that it would be unfortunate if these items were destroyed and that it would be better for them to be preserved.” In contrast to “rachamim,” a word that captures emotional pity, “chemlah” refers to an intellectual reaction in which one protests the destruction of property.
Israel 365 News, ELIE MISCHEL: King Saul’s Failure and Bibi’s Decision: The Future of Gaza
King Saul vis-a-vis Benjamin Netanyahu
The chief difference between Saul and Netanyahu is this. Netanyahu was elected seven times by the people. As king, Saul was appointed once by God. Netanyahu has to work with the parliament, a committee, and the Israeli judiciary. Unlike the two-party system of the United States, Israel has many parties, and they are forever at odds with one another. It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel longer than Ben Gurion. Unlike King Saul, appointed by God, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected by the Israeli citizens. He is not unfamiliar with criticism.
The leftist news media, including CNN, MSNBC, and Al-Jazeera, speak falsely about him.
It is said that if you put three Jews in a room, you get four opinions. The Knesset has 120 seats, so a coalition of 61 is a majority. Forging a political majority is a formidable task. The Israeli Knesset is very much like a large Jewish family.
While in the Navy, my best friend was Jewish. Les would invite me to join his family for dinner from time to time. The first time, there was a lot of loud talking, and disagreements flew back and forth. After some time, Les turned to me to explain they were not angry; it’s just the way some Jewish families are. From that experience, I came away with a point of view that suggests to me the Israeli people are not divided but testing everything, day by day. If Benjamin Netanyahu is the failure portrayed by the media, why has he been re-elected to the office more than any other prime minister in history?
The Biblical application for leaders who are repeatedly criticized is found in Matthew 5:11-12.
“Blessed are you when men revile you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be very glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in this manner they persecuted the prophets who were before you.“
Action Items
- Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” — Psalm 122:6-7
- Pray for Christians to love the Jews and pray for God’s blessings on them. Remember how Jesus revealed himself to the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter, both Jews. As it is written, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.“
- Pray for lying spirits to be bound and unable to influence U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.
The Word of God has answers for all the world’s problems.
For further study, I recommend BIBI – MY STORY, an autobiography of Benjamin Netanyahu. The extensive index makes this book an excellent resource for information about modern Israel and its history. Available in hardcover and paperback. I have the hardcover in my personal library.
John White
Rockwall, Texas
John N. White 