Imagine this scene; Moses leading the children of Israel through the desert after the miraculous Red Sea crossing, sees them running out of water. At the leading of the Lord, Moses strikes the rock. This is representative of Jesus Christ, struck once and for all, leading to waters of life, or one might say “living waters.”

Immediately afterwards, they come to a place of rest or resting places, Rephidim in Hebrew. And they get attacked. Let’s read from Exodus chapter 17.

“Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 

So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 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. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. 

Then the LORD 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.” And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The LORD Is My Banner, saying, “A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”” Exodus 17:8-16 (ESV)

I believe the stone they put under Moses was representative of Jesus Christ and of the throne of Christ. When Moses’ hands were up, touching the throne of God all the way through Third Heaven, he operated in God’s authority. Jehovah-Nissi was there, revealing His banner of victory over Moses.

When he was sitting on the throne of Christ, he operated in Christ’s authority. And their spiritual and physical enemies were defeated before them. 

Yes this was a spiritual battle. How do I know this? Well, the Lord wants this note written as a memorial, “that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

Why would God want to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven? Because there were very evil things going on in the spiritual realm, as we will discover.

Amalek and the Amalekites always represent sin every time they show up, and they are defeated using the miraculous power of God, or perhaps I should say the dunamis or power of the Holy Spirit.

Some might say, “Oh, there Brett goes again, making everything spiritual.” Perhaps…

But remember one of the core verses of this entire series of Mysteries of the Bible applies to this topic of the Amalekites:

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

Remember, the things of the Spirit are discerned through the Spirit. The word ‘discerned’ means a ‘forensic investigation,’ so we are to thoroughly investigate spiritual things by the power of the Holy Spirit within the guardrails of Jesus Christ, who is the Living Word.

Who Are the Amalekites?

You may be wondering, “Where did the Amalekites come from? Who is Amalek?” I’m glad you asked, because we’re going to dive in in great detail, going back in time over 400 years from the story we just read.

Esau

Anyone remember Esau, Jacob’s brother? The Bible narrative really follows the story of Jacob, but it does mention what became of Esau, which is what we’ll focus on for a few minutes.

Well, he gave up his covenantal blessing for a bowl of food, trading his spiritual inheritance for something physical. Even though we see this as Jacob’s trickery, I think it was perhaps a test orchestrated by the Lord to reveal Esau’s heart. It says that after this transaction with Jacob, Esau despised his birthright. He started to hate his lineage and the covenant with God. The whole story is found in Genesis 25.

We also see Esau’s identity start to change. He went by a new name: Edom, which means “red.” It has the implication of “going red,” like the stew that he sold his birthright for that was blood red. It was an indication of revenge, anger and basically a turning towards “the dark side.”

In the very next chapter, Genesis 26, we see Esau taking two wives, both Hittites. Remember, the Lord told Moses many times of the “detestable practices of the Hittites.”

And by Genesis 27, Esau is relieved of his blessing, and it is given to Jacob. Esau vows to kill his brother Jacob after his dad, Isaac, dies. Esau’s mom Rebekah hears these words and hatches a plan to send Jacob out to her brother in the land of Haran. Rebekah is tormented by Esau’s Hittite wives, and starts complaining to her husband Isaac that she “loathes her life because of the Hittite women” (Gen. 27:46) and convinces Isaac to send Jacob away from their family (and the threat of death by Esau) to her brother’s family to find a wife.

So Esau leaves at some point, after trying and failing to please his family, at least from his perspective. He attempted to make things right by taking a third wife from Ishmael’s family (Gen. 28, Ishmael was Isaac’s brother, so this was Esau’s uncle’s family). And finally he finds a place to live and settles in the hill country of Seir.

Seir

Well, the hill country of Seir has an interesting past. In the days of Esau’s grandfather Abraham, a group of kings led by Chedorlaomer defeated several races of giants in that land: the Rephaim, the Zuzim, the Emim, and the Horites. I believe this was continued judgment on the evil Nephalim race and satanic agenda that continued after the flood. The Lord was using these pagan kings to execute His judgment on evil. Interesting, isn’t it?

Well, going back to Esau, he moves into this same hill country of Seir. And we learn in Genesis 36 that the man Seir, who the whole place is named after, is likely still alive. Seir is called a Horite, meaning he is descended from one of the clans of the giants, who always hate God and God’s plan.

Well, the daughter of Seir named Timna becomes a concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz. This seems more like a political marriage, because Timna becomes one of the chiefs of Edom (that is Esau’s clan), and Esau gets to live in the Seir’s land, which eventually becomes the land of Edom.

But there was one named offspring of what I’m calling an unholy union between Timna and Esau’s son Eliphaz: it is Amalek. Amalek is listed in parentheses as one of the sons of Eliphaz, like he’s an oddball, but then he’s listed as the 6th chief of Eliphaz.

You could think of it like this: Esau was part of God’s family and God’s plan, but he chose to go against the Lord’s plan for his life, and turned towards vengeance. He made his identity something different than what the Lord had planned for him. This is iniquity, and it’s passed down genetically to a person’s offspring.

On the good side, we see Esau repent and receive his brother Jacob later on in Genesis 32. And even when their father dies, both Jacob and Esau bury their father, and Esau does not fulfill his vow to kill Jacob.

But on the bad side, we see Esau’s iniquity moving through the bloodline, running especially hot in Amalek.

And the next time we see Amalek’s name mentioned, over 400 years later, the tribe is anti-Israel and anti-God. They show up in the story we read at the beginning, where Moses had to keep his hands up to defeat them. I believe this group of people called the Amalekites has fully embraced the heritage of the giants (from their mother’s father) and the heritage of vengeance (from their father’s father).

I believe the Lord confirms this in the story we read, when he says:

Then the LORD 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.” And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The LORD Is My Banner, saying, “A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”” Exodus 17:14-16 (ESV)

In this, the Lord is declaring war on iniquity. He’s declaring war on the spirit of the giants and will make them a spectacle to the world of his judgment, and He’s going to use His people to make it happen.

So, here we have an introduction to the Amalekites. Now you know where they originated, and hopefully you understand why they were so evil. We will continue our study on the Amalekites next week. I hope you will join me.