Israel and Amalek

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\JSOT12 (1985) 15-22]

ISRAEL AND AMALEKTHE CONTEXT OF EXODUS 17:8-16

Bernard P. Robinson

10 Gretna Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE15 7PE

There is a broad measure of agreement among commentators that inEx. 17.8-16 we have a story which had as its original drift the defeat

of the Amalekites through a semi-magical gesture1

the lifting up ofMoses' rod or his hand(s) or both rod and hands.2 The idea of thesemi-magical action is played down in the text as we now have it,presumably through the modification of the original tradition byeitherJ/E3 or a redactor. Moses the magician is clearly not the themeof the resultant text. What, then, is its theme? Clues as to how thoseresponsible for the redaction meant the text to be read are to be foundin the internal pattern discernible in the story, and in correspondences

between this narrative and others in the Pentateuch.

Internal Patterning

The narrative exhibits a chiastic structure:

A. Amalek at war with Israel (17.8)B. Moses' instructions to Joshua

What he (Moses) will do. Compliance of Joshua. (17.9,10a)C. Joshua smites Amalek (17.10b)
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16 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32 (1985)

The fact that YHWH is mentioned only late on in the story springsdoubtless from the circumstance that the original narrative was notabout YHWH but about Moses. In our present text, however, therecan be no doubt but that the whole action is meant to be interpretedtheologically. YHWH himself is hostile to Amalek (17.14,16) and ifMoses instructs his disciples how to act (17.9) without explicitlyconsulting YHWH first, this is to be presumed to be only because hehimself is so much a disciple of YHWH that he is already privy to hisLord's wishes. It is clear from the structure of the passage that hiskeeping his hands aloft forms the heart and core of the narrative.What is one to make of this actionis it to be seen as an act of prayer,a symbol of victory, or what? Taken on its own, the passage affordsthe reader no clear answer, but 17.14-16 makes it unthinkable thatthe gesture is to be construed as indicating that Moses is a magus. Toread the passage aright, we need to see it in context

Exodus 17 and 18: Some Symmetries

There are striking similarities between the three narratives containedin these chapters: (1) 17.1-17: Massah and Meribah; (2) 17.8-16:Amalek; (3) 18.1-26: Jethro.

In all three, Moses takes (17.5) or chooses (17.9; 18.21) helpers:elders in 17.5 (their role is not specified); fighting men in 17.9;

rulers/judges in 18.21.All three stories stress the inadequacy of Moses: to provide water

(17.4); to keep his hands aloft, unaided (17.12); to judge all the casesreferred to him (18.18). Note a verbal similarity between 17.12 and18.18: Moses' hands were heavy; the task of judgment was heavy.

Apart from these features that are common to all three narratives,there are others common to two of the three.

Between (1) and (2) the following similarities are evident. Theword ns, to try, which in (1) is given as the etymological explanationf h l M h (17 2 7) i h d i 17 15 h M


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ROBINSON Israel and Amalek 17

by God (17.5-6), goes ahead with some of the elders to Horeb to drawwater with his rod; meanwhile, back at Rephidim, the Israelites areattacked while still thirstyhence the particular heinousness ofAmalek's crimeand Moses in the distance is seen raising his handson the summit ofHoreb.5

Features common to (2) and (3) include the following. BothAmalek (17.8) and Jethro (18.5) came. Moses' positioning himself onthe hilltop (17.9) and the people's standing all day (18.14) aredescribed by the same verb (nsab). Two other roots recur lqah(Aaron and Hur took a stone, 17.12; Jethro took a holocaust, 18.12)and spar (Moses wrote in a book, 17.14; Moses narratedto Jethrothe works of YHWH, 18.8).

There are too many features common to these three stories forcoincidence to be the explanation. The narratives are clearly meantto hang together and to be read together. Seen within the context of

chs. 17 and 18 as a whole, it seems evident that one of the mainemphases in the Amalek story is on the relative inadequacy of Moses.His need for the co-operation of Joshua and hisfightingmen, and hisdependence on Aaron and Hur to keep his hands held high, show thatMoses is farfromomnicompetent. He relies on other human beingsfor help. Even more, however, he depends on YHWH, as is underlinedby his erection of an altar ascribing his victory to YHWH.

We have still not discovered, however, the precise significance of

Moses' gesture with his hands. Light is shed on this by a comparisonof the Exodus passage with Num. 21.4-9, the story of the BronzeSerpent.

Exodus 17.8-16 andNumbers 21.4-9

There are two striking similarities between these stories, which havebeen associated together at least since the time of the Mekhilta andthe Mishnah.6

The root sm occurs twice in each narrative: in Ex 17 Aaron and


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21.8,9 for the Bronze Serpent. As noted earlier, ns may also occur inEx. 17.16 if we emend the text as many critics recommend.

The similarities noted suggest that a conscious attempt was made,at some stage in the construction of the Pentateuch, to assimilatethese two traditions to each other. The Serpent was a ns, a sign ofdivine power, equally, in the Amalek pericope, the lifting up ofMoses' hands was commemorated by an altar proclaiming YHWH asa ns. The implication is surely that Moses raised his hands aloft in a

banner-like gesture7 betokening his total dependence on YHWH,Israel's true banner of war, like the worshippers in the Temple whosehands are lifted to bless the name ofYHWH (PS. 134.2).8

There is yet one more passage outside Exodus which appears tohave been consciously fashioned to exhibit resemblances to Ex. 17.8-16: namely, Deut. 25.17-19, the command to obliterate the memoryof Amalek.

Exodus 17.8-16 and Deuteronomy 25.17-19

Both passages speak ofwiping out (mh, Ex. 17.14; Deut. 25.19) thememory (zker, Ex. 17.14; Deut. 25.17, 19; zikkarn, Ex. 17.14) ofAmalek. The root nuah occurs in both: in Ex. 17.11 Moses lets drophis hands and in Deut. 25.19 YHWH gives respite to Israel. Morestriking, perhaps, is the similarity of the verb hlas in Ex. 17.13

(Joshua weakens the Amalekites) with hsal(a hapax) in Deut. 25.18(the Amalekites smite the enfeebledamong the Israelites).9

Once again, the similarities are unlikely to be entirely a matter ofcoincidence. What these two passages about the Amalekite attackand defeat have in common is the notion of destroying the memory ofthe Amalekites. In view of the fact that by the time that thePentateuch was completed the Amalekites, who according to 1Chron. 4.43 ceased to exist in Hezekiah's day, were part of ancient

historyironically, they might well have been forgotten altogetherhad not passages such as these been preserved enjoining their


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without provocation.It remains to consider the Amalek story in two other contexts, that

of the Wanderings narratives and that of the Pentateuch as a whole.

The Wanderings Stories as Context

The Amalek episode occurs in the first of the two collection ofWanderings narratives (Ex. 15-18; the second collection is to befound in Num. 10-12.). Why is it placed at this particular point in thecorpus of traditions? One might be tempted to say that the fact that itis stated to have occurred at Rephidim more or less dictated the placein the Moses story at which it had to be told. There are, however,some commentators who think that 'at Rephidim' (17.8) was not partof the original tradition. To Noth, the phrase 'looks out of place at theend of the verse; had the story of the battle against the Amalekites in

its original form had some place-name to describe the scene of action,we should surely have had an introductory remark that Israel wasencamped at such and such a place'.11 The argument is perhapsrather tendentious. Hyatt questions whether the Amalekites wouldhave ventured as far south as Rephidim, taking Rephidim to beprobably the Wadi Refayid near Jebel Musa.12 The location ofRephidim is, however, far from certain. Not being completelypersuaded by the arguments of Noth, Hyatt and others, I hesitate to

assert that 'at Rephidim' was not part of the original story. Even if itwere original, however, the author of the Wanderings collection wassurely under no obligation to use the tradition; or he could have usedit elsewhere in the collection, deleting the reference to Rephidim.The fact that the story has been put in, and put in at this point, surelyargues a desire for it to be read in this particular context Why?

One reason why it is appropriate that the Amalekite narrative

should be read at this point rather than earlier or later may be that atRephidim there was no water to be had (17.1), so that the Amalekiteswere behaving particularly badly in attacking the Israelites at this


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The Pentateuch as Context

David Clines has reminded us13 that the Pentateuch is not just arepository of diverse traditions. It is, above all, a remarkable literaryentity. It dates from the exilic period and it has a discernible theme,namely the threefold divine promise (ofland; of posterity; and of aspecial divine-human relationship) and its partial fulfilment. In sucha work, of such a date, what is the Amalek story saying? In what

respects, if any, would the Pentateuch have been a less effective workif this passage had been omitted?

An important implication for the original, exilic, readers of thePentateuch of its extended narrative of the giving of the divinepromise and its (partial) fulfilment will surely have been that the armofYHWH which had wrought such marvels in the past has not lost itspower, and that YHWH could be trusted in the sixth century to bringto completion the promises he had made so long ago. The Babylonian

exile could be no obstacle to him who had already, centuries before,brought his chosen people from slavery to possession of the Land.

In this context, the significance of the Amalek story can perhaps becharacterized as follows. In the past YHWH had, through the agencyof Moses, crushed opposition to Israel's progress towards settlementin the promised land from the gratuitous assault ofan unprincipledfoe. It was not because of Moses that the victory had been gained, butbecause of the might ofYHWH. In the exilic age, the people need notfear that the absence of a Moses figure would stand in the way oftheir return, their successful restoration, and the final fulfilment ofYHWH'S promise to make them a very numerous people who dwell inthe land of promise and enjoy a unique relationship with YHWH.Moses had not been essential then, and his absence would not bedecisive now. YHWH had been the victor then and would be thevictor now, provided that Israel raised its arms aloft in benediction

on his name. Under the divine leadership it need fear no assaultsfrom latter-day Amalekites (Edomites? 'Samaritans'?). Let Israel butl f h bj i h f YHWH d


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magical effect Yahweh is not mentioned at all in the whole section w. 8-13,not even as having given Moses the instructions for his action. A mysterious

power seems to come from Moses which is focussed in the direction of the

Israelite force, visible from the hill and thus reachable in a straight line by

the beam of power. We may compare Joshua stretching out the spear against

the city of Ai which he meant to sack in Josh. 8.18, 26.' Gressmann,

Gradwohl and Beer also take Moses' action to be magical.

2. In 17.9 Moses says that he will stand with the rod of God in his hand;

thereafter the rod is not mentionedonly Moses' hand (17.11a, lib) or

hands (17.12a, 12b).

3. There is general agreement that the story emanates, in substance at

least, from a single source. The older commentators ascribed the passage to

E, on the strength of the reference of the rod. Since, however, this is not

mentioned after 17.9, it may not be an original element in the tradition. Noth

is inclined to give the story to J; similarly F. Michaeli.

4. B.S. Childs, Exodus (London, 1974), argues plausibly that the form of

the aetiology requires ns not ks.

5. So CM. Carmichael, The Laws of Deuteronomy (Ithaca, 1974),pp. 244-45. Ibn Ezra certainly took the hill of 17.10 to be Horeb.

6. RH 29a; Mekhilta on Ex. 17.11. Both Moses' gesture with his hands

and his Bronze Serpent, says the Mekhilta, were intended to lead the

Israelites to faith in YHWH, who worked for them signs (nissm) and mighty

works.

7. D.M. Beegle, Moses, the Servant of Yahweh (Grand Rapids, 1972),

p. 190, quaintly suggests that we are to understand the text to imply that

Moses' rod acted as a flag-pole, having a banner attached to it. Rather, it isthe gesture of the outstretched hands which itself is a banner or ns.

8. In the Psalm, however, the verb is ns\ not rm as in Exodus. The

interpretation of Moses' gesture as an act of prayer has a long pedigree: RH

29a, Jerusalem Targum, Ps.-Jonathan, Onkelos, Origen, Jerome, Mathew

Henry, Joseph Hall, F. Michaeli, et al. In prayer, however, one is usually said

to spread out {paras or stah) one's hands (an exception is Ps. 28.2, which has

the raising of the hands in prayer).

9. I agree with Carmichael, op. cit., p. 245 n. 19, that the suggestion of

BDB that the verb hlas rather than hsalshould be read in Deut. 25 is to be

rejected: the lectio difficilior should be preferred. It is a witty word-play on


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22 Journal for the Study ofthe OldTestament32 (1985)

p. 183): the title 'the Agagite' given in Esther to the villainous Haman in anallusion to Agag king of Amelek(1 Sam. 15.32-33).11. Noth, op. cit., p. 141.12. Hyatt, op. cit., p. 183.

Dsot pRessDepartment of Biblical Studies University of Sheffield Sheffield SI 0 2T N England

THE TEMPLE SCROLL ^5,,

Joha nn Maier XS> ^

The introduction, translation and commentary on the Temple Scrollby Johann Maier has been thoroughly revised and updated by theauthor for its English edition, taking account of improvements inreadings, and, among other recent secondary literature, the Englishtranslation of Yadin's edition, to which cross-references are given.Students of Second Temple Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls inparticular, will at last have a convenient English edition of this mostimportant document from Qumran


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Israel and Amalek

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