Deuteronomy 25:19

25:17-19 Let every persecutor and injurer of God's people take warning from the case of the Amalekites. The longer it is before judgement comes, the more dreadful will it be at last. Amalek may remind us of the foes of our souls. May we be enabled to slay all our lusts, all the corruptions both within and without, all the powers of darkness and of the world, which oppose our way to the blessed Saviour.

Not only when they had subdued the Canaanites, and got possession of their land, but when they were clear and free from all their neighbouring nations, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Philistines; wherefore it may be observed, that this did not take place, as not immediately after the conquest of Canaan, so neither in the times of the judges, when they were harassed frequently by their neighbours, and not until the times of Saul, the first king of Israel: in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it; the sense is, when they were in the full possession of the land given them by the Lord, as an inheritance to be enjoyed by them and theirs; and were at an entire rest from all enemies, and so had their hands at liberty to employ against Amalek: that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven: that is, utterly destroy them, so that there should be none left of them any where, to put in mind that there ever were such a people on earth; men, women, children, cattle of all sorts, were to be destroyed, and nothing left that belonged unto them; that it might not be said this beast was Amalek's, as Jarchi, and to the same purpose Aben Ezra; see the order for this renewed, and the accomplishment of it, at least in part, 1 Samuel 15:2, &c. thou shall not forget it; neither the unkindness of Amalek, nor this order to destroy him.

Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the {f} remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it. (f) This was partly accomplished by Saul, about 450 years later.

It was not after the spirit or mission of the Law to aim at overcoming inveterate opposition by love and by attempts at conversion (contrast Luke 9:55-56 ). The law taught God's hatred of sin and of rebellion against Him by enjoining the extinction of the obstinate sinner. The Amalekites were a kindred people Genesis 36:15-16 ; and living as they did in the peninsula of Sinai, they could not but have well known the mighty acts God had done for His people in Egypt and the Red Sea; yet they manifested from the first a persistent hostility to Israel (compare Exodus 17:8 , and note; Numbers 14:45 ). They provoked therefore the sentence here pronounced, which was executed at last by Saul ( 1 Samuel 15:3 ff).

17-19. Remember what Amalek did—This cold-blooded and dastardly atrocity is not narrated in the previous history (Ex 17:14). It was an unprovoked outrage on the laws of nature and humanity, as well as a daring defiance of that God who had so signally shown His favor towards Israel (see on [162]1 Samuel 15; [163]27. 8; [164]30).

19 . hath given thee rest ] See on Deuteronomy 12:9 f. in the land which , etc.] Deuteronomy 4:21 . thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek , etc.] E, Exodus 17:14 : I will utterly blot out , etc. God’s will is now Israel’s duty. thou shalt not forget ] Deuteronomy 9:7 . Deuteronomy 25:19

But whilst the Israelites were to make love the guiding principle of their conduct in their dealings with a neighbour, and even with strangers and foes, this love was not to degenerate into weakness or indifference towards open ungodliness. To impress this truth upon the people, Moses concludes the discourse on the law by reminding them of the crafty enmity manifested towards them by Amalek on their march out of Egypt, and with the command to root out the Amalekites (cf. Exodus 17:9-16 ). This heathen nation had come against Israel on its journey, viz., at Rephidim in Horeb, and had attacked its rear: "All the enfeebled behind thee, whilst thou wast faint and weary, without fearing God." זנּב, lit., to tail, hence to attack or destroy the rear of an army or of a travelling people (cf. Joshua 10:19 ). For this reason, when the Lord should have given Israel rest in the land of its inheritance, it was to root out the remembrance of Amalek under heaven. (On the execution of this command, see 1 Samuel 15 .) "Thou shalt not forget it:" an emphatic enforcement of the "remember" in Deuteronomy 25:17 .

[Bible] 25:13. Thou shalt not have divers weights in thy bag, a greater and a less: 25:14. Neither shall there be in thy house a greater bushel and a less. 25:15. Thou shalt have a just and a true weight, and thy bushel shall be equal and true: that thou mayest live a long time upon the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee. 25:16. For the Lord thy God abhorreth him that doth these things, and he hateth all injustice. 25:17. Remember what Amalec did to thee in the way when thou camest out of Egypt: Amalec... This order for destroying the Amalecites, in the mystical sense, sheweth how hateful they are to God, and what punishments they are to look for from his justice, who attack and discourage his servants when they are but just come out, as it were, of the Egypt of this wicked world and being yet weak and fainthearted, are but beginning their journey to the land of promise. 25:18. How he met thee: and slew the hindmost of the army, who sat down, being weary, when thou wast spent with hunger and labour, and he feared not God. 25:19. Therefore when the Lord thy God shall give thee rest, and shall have subdued all the nations round about in the land which he hath promised thee: thou shalt blot out his name from under heaven. See thou forget it not. Deuteronomy Chapter 26 The form of words with which the firstfruits and tithes are to be offered. God's covenant. 26:1. And when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee to possess, and hast conquered it, and dwellest in it: 26:2. Thou shalt take the first of all thy fruits, and put them in a basket, and shalt go to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may be invocated there: 26:3. And thou shalt go to the priest that shall be in those days, and say to him: I profess this day before the Lord thy God, that I am come into the land, for which he swore to our fathers, that he would give it us. 26:4. And the priest taking the basket at thy hand, shall set it before the altar of the Lord thy God:

Deuteronomy 25:17-19 . AMALEK TO BE EXTERMINATED. At the end of all the precepts of humanity, the extermination of that people which is presented to us as the incarnation of inhumanity is decreed. (18) He . . . smote the hindmost . . .—These details are not given in Exodus 17. Amalek’s attack follows the appearance of the stream of water from Horeb. There was nothing more natural than that the faint and weary should stay behind at the water side. There the Amalekites appear to have found them and cruelly massacred them. (19) Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek.—This decree was entrusted to Joshua in the first instance, as the “servant of the Book” (Exodus 17:14); here it is enjoined upon the nation of Israel. It was carried out in several stages: by Barak and Gideon (Judges 5:14; Judges 6:3; Judges 7:12, &c.), by Saul and Samuel (1 Samuel 15), by David (1Samuel 27:8-9; 1Samuel 30:17), by the Simeonites (1Chronicles 4:42-43), and lastly by Esther, who exterminated the Agagites in Haman’s house. No doubt any remnant of Amalek in the Persian empire under Mordecai would have shared Haman’s fate.