Tag: Apologetics

Conclusion

The accusation of dawah team against the Bible regarding the destruction of Amalek is invalid. What YHWH did in commanding the extirpation of the Amalekites was a judgment upon a vicious gang of murderous enslavers. This was no ethnic or religious pogrom or genocide, like the IS massacres of Alawites and Shia; rather, it was the punishment of a violent robbery gang, engaged in slave-raiding.

Just as popular opinion across the world was revolted by the massacres of innocent people and organised rape of Yezidi girls by IS such that they demanded the destruction of such a malicious entity, the same was true of Amalek. Also, the contrast between the Hadith and the Bible on the issue of massacre is clear. The Bible records the command to destroy a gang of incorrigible thugs, not innocent civilians.

The Judgment of YHWH Upon the Amalekites

The previous point brings us back to what we previously stated – the Amalekites were incorrigible and unassimilable – even when they had opportunity to learn the revelation of YHWH. His ethics never penetrated their inner beings, so callous and murderous was their culture. They had no fear of God. Note how David describes the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 30: ‘²⁶ When David came to Ziklag, he sent part of the spoil to his friends, the elders of Judah, saying, “Here is a present for you from the spoil of the enemies of YHWH”’ This is important: the Amalekites were not just the enemies of Judah, but of YHWH Himself. Note that when YHWH through Samuel orders Saul to destroy Amalek (1 Samuel 15), great care is made to separate them from the Kenites, who were innocent – indicating that Amalek were guilty (note v18 – ‘¹⁸ And YHWH sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’):

2 Thus says YHWH of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destructionall that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

4 So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. 6 Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart; go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.

Amalek are described as ‘the sinners’, and as such, are distinguished from the innocent Kenites. The reason for the designation of the Amalekites as ‘sinners’, and thus for their punishment, was their unprovoked attack upon the refugee train of ex-slaves fleeing Egypt after the Exodus. This recalls what YHWH declared in Exodus 17:  ‘¹⁴ Then YHWH said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” ¹⁵ And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, YHWH Is My Banner, ¹⁶ saying, “A hand upon the throne of YHWH! YHWH will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”’

YHWH promised to destroy Amalek in the same way that US Attorneys have vowed to extirpate the Mafia, or the way Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, the USA, Britain, etc. all vowed to wipe IS off the face of the earth, and for the same reason – that IS, like the Amalekites, were a murderous gang that enslaved innocent people and raped innocent girls, just like the UK grooming gangs that raped white and Sikh girls. All right-thinking people in the UK want to see such grooming gangs punished and destroyed. Just like the Cubs of the Caliphate were imbued with the evil murderous and sexually abusive ideology of IS, so ‘the Cubs of Amalek’ were likewise imbued with Amalek’s evil culture of raiding, murdering and enslaving – hence the verdict of YHWH to have ‘war with Amalek from generation to generation’.

Each generation of Amalek was as bad the preceding or subsequent one. In this light, we can understand the command to ‘kill both man and woman, child and infant’. We have seen how even the youngsters of IS committed evil acts, and had IS been left to continue, the Cubs would have become lions who continued their fathers’ practices of mass murder, enslavement and rape, because this was the culture of IS, and to this they were trained. The same was true of Amalek.

This command is repeated in Numbers 14 by Balaam under divine inspiration: ‘²⁰ Then he looked on Amalek and took up his discourse and said, “Amalek was the first among the nations, but its end is utter destruction.”’ Amalek was the first to attack Israel, but it would not continue, as YHWH would obliterate it.

Again, think of the Barbary Corsairs. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, they raided the West, as far north as Iceland, as far west as Newfoundland, sometimes stealing whole communities, who were enslaved, with the women repeatedly raped.

Generation after generation it continued, until finally Britain, in the wake of its victory over Napoleon, sent an Anglo-Dutch squadron to Algiers in 1816 which virtually destroyed the city, freed the slaves, and forced North Africa to cease Corsairing. Algiers had to be destroyed, because otherwise the raiding would have continued, as history demonstrated. The fault was that of Algiers, just as the fault in this case was that of Amalek.

In spiritual terms, Amalek were the enemies, not of Judah or Israel as such, but of YHWH. In fact, they were the agents of Satan. The Septuagint of Exodus 17 is significant:

11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.12 But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.

17.11 καὶ ἐγίνετο ὅταν ἐπῆρεν Μωυσῆς τὰς χεῖρας, κατίσχυεν Ἰσραήλ· ὅταν δὲκαθῆκεν τὰς χεῖρας, κατίσχυεν Ἀμαλήκ.

17.12 αἱ δὲ χεῖρες Μωυσῆ βαρεῖαι· καὶ λαβόντες λίθον ὑπέθηκαν ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν, καὶ ἐκάθητο ἐπ αὐτοῦ· καὶ Ἀαρὼν καὶ Ὥρ ἐστήριζον τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ,ἐντεῦθεν εἷς καὶ ἐντεῦθεν εἷς· καὶ ἐγένοντο αἱ χεῖρες Μωυσῆ ἐστηριγμέναι ἕως δυσμῶν ἡλίου. 17.13 καὶ ἐτρέψατο Ἰησοῦς τὸν Ἀμαλὴκ καὶ πάντα τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν φόνῳ μαχαίρας.

This phrase, ἐντεῦθεν εἷς καὶ ἐντεῦθεν εἷςenteuthen eis kai enteuthen eis, is reproduced in John 19:18: ‘There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.’ The Greek is ὅπου αὐτὸν ἐσταύρωσαν, καὶ μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἄλλους δύο ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν, μέσον δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν. Note the phrase enteuthen kai enteuthen– and compare it with John 12:31: ‘Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.’ John wants the reader to remember the battle with Amalek.

The Crucifixion is the battle with Satan that destroys his power. This implies that the power behind Amalek was Satan. Amalek’s attack upon the Israelites was demonic in inspiration. Satan is the enemy of YHWH – and Amalek is so-described. The Amalekites were thus the pawns of the Devil, who was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). Note that 1 Samuel 15:33 states that the Amalekite king Agag was slain ‘before YHWH’ – not before Israel,because Amalek, as Satan’s instrument, was the enemy of YHWH.

Further evidence of the incorrigible callousness of Amalek is demonstrated in what Agag said to Samuel as the former faced judgment – essentially, ‘well, that’s all past now, we can move on’:

2 Then Samuel said, “Bring here to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” 33 And Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before YHWH in Gilgal.

Despite being responsible for mass slaughter, Agag had no sense of the scale of his crimes. Similarly, note how lacking in remorse Shamima Begum has been. Observe how she justified the Manchester massacre – despite it happening in the country in which she was born and to which she wanted to return. Note how self-pitying she has been, down-playing what IS did, and her role therein. Observe how IS women never challenged the rape of Yezidi girls, never expressed horror or showed empathy, and even aided in their oppression. Amalek was the same.

The next part is Part 6, the Conclusion.

The Amalekite Attacks On The Israelites

The Amalekites were not even great fighters, or at least brave – another reason that History would ignore them, since they were unlike the all-conquering Assyrians or the later Macedonians.

This is evidenced by the first Amalekite interaction with the Israelites, which occurred almost immediately after the Exodus. In Exodus 17, the Israelites are still in Horeb. This is important, since it shows that they were attacked by Amalek, even though they were not yet in Palestine. Hence, this was an unprovoked attack.

Remember, they did not live in the Land of Promise, so they were not under threat from the Israelites and had they not attacked the Israelites, they would have been spared in the way the Canaanites could not be. Note the timingof their attack. This was when the Israelites were a group of refugee slaves with no military experience. From what we know of Amalek later, it is likely that they sought to gain easy booty from a group of vulnerable refugee ex-slaves – obviously, people who posed no threat and could be easily attacked and plundered. The Israelite liberation from Egypt had not been accomplished by their own violent insurrection, but by supernaturalintervention.

The Amalekites obviously thought the Israelites were easy pickings, but even then, they only attacked the most vulnerable – the stragglers at the back of the mobile community. Note that they attacked the vulnerable and defenceless– Deuteronomy 25: ‘¹⁷ “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt,¹⁸ how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God.’ They attacked the old and weak in the back of the train.

This is just what the Islamic State (IS) did when they attacked the vulnerable Yezidis – a peaceful people who never harmed anyone, had no military defences and posed no threat to IS or anyone else. It is interesting that we never hear about Amalekite religion – just that they ‘did not fear God’. Note what it does not say; it does not say that they did not fear YHWH, but rather God. This phrase underlines their criminality, their reckless disregard for civilised norms, like the Mafia or IS in Sinjar (the Yezidi home). There was no fear of God in their eyes – of any deity. They were like Louis Lepke, the 1930s American gangster who founded ‘Murder Incorporated’ for the Mob, and callously killed people without a second thought.

Later, in the Judges period, Amalek once again attacked a defenceless and vulnerable Israel: note what Amalek alongside Midian in plundering Israel – Judges 6: ‘³ For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.⁴ They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey.⁵ For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted — so that they laid waste the land as they came in.’ Observe what this tells us about the Amalekites. Clearly, they were not pastoralists – they were not tending crops nor even sheep or cattle, since they had time to raid away from their homes. They simply stole the property of others.

Again, they were not even great fighters – even in this case, they attacked the Israelites only in alliance with other peoples (Midianites and ‘peoples of the east’). Essentially, Amalek behaved like a gang of armed robbers, preying upon the defenceless. They never conquered peoples or lands and ruled them like the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians or Macedonians, but rather simply raided and plundered them. This demonstrates their economic and cultural matrix. One cannot make peace with a criminal gang in the way one would with an enemy nation.

This continued unto the days of Saul and David, as evidenced by 1 Samuel 30:1-3: ‘Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire ² and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. ³ And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.’ The captives included his wives. Notice this was not a conquest, but rather a raid for plunder. Amalek had no interest in occupying Ziklag – they simply destroyed it, perhaps another indication of their desert nomad condition, which had no need for any kind of urban existence. Observe the occasion of the attack – while Ziklag – a Philistine city given to David (1 Samuel 27:6) – was undefended, as the Philistines (under whom David served at this point) and Saul were fighting, Amalek again raided a defenceless, vulnerable people, seeing an opportunity for plunder while everyone was distracted. This tells us much about their character.

Next is Part 4 – The Malicious And Incorrigible Nature Of The Amalekites