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Amalek


Amalek (Hebrew: עֲמָלֵק, Modern Amalek, Tiberian ʻĂmālēq) occurs in the Old Testament of the Bible and refers to a grandson of Esau, the descendant nation of Amalekites, and the territories of Amalek which they inhabited.

The Old Testament, accepted by Jews and Christians, describes the Amalekites as a nomadic tribe which lived in ancient Israel and in the land called Moab, what the Romans called Arabia Petraea (Moab and the desert of Sinai), a region depopulated in the fourteenth century BCE (maybe by the Egyptian Akhenaten, who introduced a worship centered in Aten-solar deity) and then occupied by Edomites.

According to the Book of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz and the concubine Timna. Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan. Amalek appears in the genealogy of Esau (Gen. 36:12; 1 Chr. 1:36) who was the chief of an Edomite tribe (Gen. 36:16). Amalek is described as the "chief of Amalek" in Genesis 36:16, in which it is surmised that he ruled a clan or territory named after him. In the chant of Balaam at Numbers, 24:20, Amalek was called the 'first of the nations', attesting to high antiquity.Rashi states: He was the first of all of them (the other nations) to war against Israel (when they came out of Egypt). First-century Roman-Jewish scholar and historian Flavius Josephus refers to Amalek as a 'bastard' (νόθος) in a derogatory sense.


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