Latest / truthunedited / Who Were the Amalekites in the Bible _ The Only Nation God Said to NEVER Forgive

Transcript

Who Were the Amalekites in the Bible _ The Only Nation God Said to NEVER Forgive · truthunedited

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There is one civilization in the entire Old Testament that
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: God sentenced to total erasure, not punishment, not exile, not defeat, erasure.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: He commanded Israel to wipe out every man, every woman,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: every child, every infant, and every animal, nothing left alive,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: nothing left to remember them by. That is a sentence
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: God did not pass on Egypt. He did not pass
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: it on Babylon. He did not pass it on any
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: other nation in the entire biblical record. only the Amalekites.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: So what did these people do? What kind of life
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: did they live that made God, the God who is
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: slow to anger and rich in mercy, decide that the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: only answer was to remove them from the face of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the earth entirely? Today we are walking into the land
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of the Amalekites. We are going to see how they lived,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: how they fought, how they treated the people around them,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and what they did across centuries that built the case
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for their own destruction. And by the end, the question
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: will no longer be why God destroyed them. The question
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: will be why he waited so long. The Amalekites trace
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: their origin to one man, Amalek. Genesis chapter 36 verse
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: 12 identifies him as the grandson of Esau, the son
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of Esau's firstborn Eliphaz born through a concubine named Timnah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: That single verse is a genealogical entry, but behind it
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: lies one of the deepest family wounds in the entire Bible,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: a wound that never healed and a resentment that outlived
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: every person who carried it. To understand the Amalekites, you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: have to understand what Esau carried. Esau was the firstborn
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: son of Isaac. the man who should have received the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: covenant blessing, the birthright, the promises God made to Abraham.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: In the ancient world, the firstborn blessing was not a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: symbolic gesture. It was the transfer of authority, wealth, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: divine favor from one generation to the next. It belonged
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: to Esau by birth. But Jacob took it. Through deception,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: through manipulation, the birthright and the blessing passed to Jacob instead.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: And Esau wept. Genesis chapter 27 verse 34 records the moment.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: He burst out with a loud and bitter cry and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: said to his father, Bless me, me too, my father.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: That cry never stopped echoing. Esau carried a wound that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: never healed. He hated Jacob. Genesis chapter 27 verse 41
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: is direct. Esau held a grudge against Jacob. That grudge
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: did not die with Esau. It passed to his descendants.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It passed to the Edomites, the nation that emerged from
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Esau's line. And through the line of Eliphaz and Timnah,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: it crystallized into a people group whose entire identity was
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: built on opposition to Jacob's descendants, Israel. This is how
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: generational resentment works. In the first generation, it is a wound,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: something that happened to you. In the second generation, it
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: becomes a story, something you were told. By the third generation,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: it is no longer a wound or a story. It
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is an identity. The Amalekites did not wake up each
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: morning thinking about Esau's stolen blessing. They did not need to.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: The opposition to Israel was embedded in the fabric of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: their culture. It was who they were. The original offense
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: had been forgotten. The hatred it produced had not. The
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Amalekites were not just another desert tribe. They were not
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a random enemy who happened to cross Israel's path. They
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: were the nation born from a family wound. A grudge
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that should have been resolved between two brothers in one
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: generation became a civilization that waged war against Israel for
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a thousand years. The resentment was never released. It was inherited.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It was nurtured. And it became the foundation on which
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: an entire people built their existence. Balaam, the pagan prophet
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: hired to curse Israel in the book of Numbers, looked
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: out over the desert, and when he saw the Amalekites,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: he delivered a prophecy that frames this entire story. Numbers
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: chapter 24 verse 20. Amalek was first among the nations,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: but their end will be utter destruction. First among the nations.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: The Hebrew phrase is reshit goyim. Some scholars read it
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: as first in power, meaning the Amalekites were a dominant
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: military force in the ancient Near East, feared by surrounding peoples.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: But others read it differently, first to attack. The Amalekites
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: were the very first nation on earth to wage war
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: against Israel after God brought them out of Egypt. Not Egypt,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: who had just lost their army in the Red Sea.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Not the Canaanites, who were waiting in the Promised Land.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: not any of the desert tribes who watched from a distance,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the Amalekites. Israel had barely crossed the sea. They were
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: newly freed slaves, no military training, no weapons infrastructure, no
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: organized army, women and children walking through the desert with
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: everything they owned on their backs. And the Amalekites attacked
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: them at Rephidim before Israel had even reached Mount Sinai
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to receive the law. They did not attack a nation.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: They attacked a refugee column. And the way they attacked
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: reveals everything about who they were. The Amalekites did not
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: fight like other nations. Their warfare was not designed to
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: conquer territory or capture resources. It was designed to do
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: something far more disturbing. Deuteronomy chapter 25, verses 17 and 18. Moses,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: at the end of his life, recounting what the Amalekites
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: did at Rephidim. Remember what the Amalekites did to you
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: along the way when you came out of Egypt. When
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: you were weary and worn out, they cut off all
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: who were lagging behind. They had no fear of God.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Three details, each one devastating. First, when you were weary
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and worn out. They did not attack Israel at full strength.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: They waited until the people were exhausted, dehydrated, disoriented. stumbling
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: through unfamiliar wilderness after weeks of marching. They chose the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: moment of maximum vulnerability. This was not warfare. This was predation.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: A lion does not attack the strongest animal in the herd.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: It circles, it watches, it waits, and it attacks the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: one limping at the back. Second, they cut off all
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: who were lagging behind. The Hebrew word zanav means to
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: attack the tail, the rear of the marching column. In
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: any ancient migration, the rear was where the slowest people walked,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the elderly who could not keep pace, the sick, the injured,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the pregnant women dragging children through the sand, the families
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: weighed down with everything they owned. The Amalekites did not
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: engage the armed men at the front of the column.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: They did not challenge Israel's warriors to battle. They circled
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: behind and attacked the people who could not defend themselves.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: They chose their victims with surgical precision, selecting the most
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: vulnerable human beings in the entire column and butchering them
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: from behind. Third, they had no fear of God. This
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: is the Bible's own theological diagnosis. The text does not
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: say they did not believe in God. It says they
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: did not fear God. They saw a nation that had
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: just been delivered by the most powerful display of divine
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: intervention in human history. The ten plagues that dismantled Egypt,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that led Israel through the wilderness, and they attacked them anyway.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Every other nation in the region was paralyzed with terror
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: at what God had done to Egypt. The Canaanites were trembling.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: The Moabites were afraid, but the Amalekites looked at the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: evidence of God's power and calculated that they could still
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: prey on the weak without consequence. That calculation reveals the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: core of who they were. In Exodus chapter 17, Moses
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: sent Joshua to fight the Amalekites while he stood on
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the hilltop with the staff of God in his hands.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: When Moses raised his hands, Israel prevailed. When his hands dropped,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Amalek prevailed. Aaron and Hur had to stand on either
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: side of Moses and physically hold his arms up until sunset.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: The detail that should stop every viewer. This battle was
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: so close, so evenly contested, that it depended on whether
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: one man's arms stayed raised or dropped. The Amalekites were
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: not a minor nuisance. They were not a band of
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: desert raiders who scattered at the first sign of resistance.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: They were a military force capable of defeating Israel on
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the open field. And they chose to use that power
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: not against armies, but against the defenseless. This is the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: moment God issued the decree. Not after a thousand years
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of provocation. Not after a long pattern of offenses. At
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the very first encounter. Exodus chapter 17 verse 14 Then
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the Lord said to Moses, Write this on a scroll
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: as something to be remembered. and make sure that Joshua
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: hears it, because I will completely blot out the name
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: of Amalek from under heaven. God commanded it written down, recorded, preserved,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: made permanent, and he made sure Joshua, the military commander,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: heard it personally. This was not a passing statement of anger.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: It was a formal decree, documented for future generations. God
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: did not wait to see if they would change. The
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: method of attack, targeting the weak, the exhausted, the defenseless,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: was enough. The verdict was issued at the first encounter
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: because the character was already fully revealed. The Amalekites attacked
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the weak and retreated, but they did not disappear. Over
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the next several centuries, they built an entire economy on
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a single principle. And that principle reveals the next window
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: into what life among this people actually looked like. The
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Amalekites were nomadic raiders. They did not farm. They did
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: not build cities. They did not trade. They did not create.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: The book of Judges reveals a pattern that repeated for centuries.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Judges chapter 6 verses 3 through 5. Whenever the Israelites
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern peoples
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the crops all the way to Gaza and did not
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: them or their camels. They invaded the land to ravage it,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Read that passage carefully. The Israelites planted, the Amalekites waited.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And when the harvest was ready, when the labor was done,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: when the crops were grown, when the livestock had been raised,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they swept in and took everything. They left nothing alive,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: no crops, no livestock, no provisions. This was not a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: one-time raid. Judges chapter 6 verse 1 says this happened
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: for seven years. Seven consecutive years, the Amalekites and their
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: allies invaded at harvest time and stripped the land bare.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: The Israelites were reduced to hiding in caves and mountain
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: shelters just to survive. An entire nation driven underground, not
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: by a conquering army, but by raiders who timed their
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: attacks to the harvest. The Bible's own metaphor is revealing.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Like swarms of locusts. Locusts do not plant. Locusts do
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: not build. Locusts consume everything in their path and move
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: on to the next field. That is exactly what the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Amalekite economy looked like. They were a civilization of consumption.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Their wealth came entirely from destroying what others had produced.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: They brought their own livestock and tents. They did not
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: need cities because they were perpetually in motion, following the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: harvest cycles of other nations and stripping them clean. This
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: economic model reveals something fundamental about the Amalekite worldview. They
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: did not see other nations as neighbors, trading partners, or
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: even rivals. They saw them as crops to be harvested.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Other people's labor existed to be consumed. Other people's wealth
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: existed to be taken. And the Amalekites do not appear
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in the Book of Judges as the main villain. They
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: appear as the persistent allied raider. the force that joins
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: every enemy of Israel to multiply the destruction. They appear
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: again and again across the book of Judges, never alone,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: always allied, always on the side of whoever was attacking Israel.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Wherever there was an opportunity to raid and consume, the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Amalekites were there. They attacked the defenseless. They consumed what
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: others built. But there is a window into Amalekite life
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that is even more revealing because it shows how they
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: treated not their enemies, but their own people. In 1
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Samuel chapter 30, David and his men returned to Ziklag,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the city the Philistine king Achish had given them as
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: a base, and found it burned to the ground. The
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Amalekites had raided the city while David was away. They
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: had taken every woman, every child, every possession. David's two wives,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Abigail and Ahinoam, were gone. David's own men, broken by grief,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: talked about stoning him. 1 Samuel chapter 30 verse 6.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: stoning him. Each one was bitter in spirit because of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: his sons and daughters, but David strengthened himself in the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Lord his God. David, at his lowest point, rejected by
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the Philistines, his home destroyed, his family kidnapped, his own
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: men turning on him, strengthened himself in God and pursued.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And during the pursuit, David's men found someone in a field,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: 1 Samuel 30, verses 11-13, an Egyptian slave, collapsed, abandoned.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: He had not eaten or drunk water for three days.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: He was dying. David gave him bread. He gave him water.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: He gave him fig cakes and raisin cakes. And when
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the man revived, David asked who he was. I am
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: me when I became ill three days ago. This man
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: had served the Amalekites faithfully. He had marched with them.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: He had been part of their raiding force. He had
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: helped them burn Ziklag. And the moment he became sick,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the moment he could no longer function, they left him
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: in the desert to die. No food, no water, no burial.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: discarded like a broken tool. David asked the slave, Can
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you lead me down to this raiding party? The Egyptian answered,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Swear to me before God that you will not kill
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: me or hand me over to my master, and I
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: will take you down to them. He was more afraid
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of being returned to his Amalekite master than of being
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: killed by David. The slave led David directly to the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Amalekite camp. They found them spread across the countryside. eating, drinking, celebrating,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: reveling in the plunder they had taken from the land
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. David
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: attacked at twilight and fought them for twenty-four hours. He
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: recovered everything, every woman, every child, every possession. Nothing was missing.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: The man the Amalekites discarded became the instrument of their destruction.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: The slave they left to die led their enemy to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: their door. How you treat the weakest person in your
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: care will determine how your empire falls. The Amalekites attacked
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the defenseless, consumed what others built, and abandoned their own
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: people when they became inconvenient. But there is a question
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: every viewer is already asking, and it is the hardest
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: question in this entire case file. Why did God command
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: their total destruction? The answer begins with a detail most
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: people have never been shown— Before we go further, we
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: must address the question directly. God commanded the total destruction
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: of a people group. Every man, woman, child, infant, and animal.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: 1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 3. No exceptions, no mercy clause,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: no provision for surrender. To the modern ear, that sounds
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: like genocide. And if the Amalekites were destroyed simply for
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: being Amalekites, simply for existing, simply for carrying a particular bloodline,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Then the accusation would stand. But the biblical record contains
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a detail that changes the entire moral framework of the decree,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and most people have never been shown it. Before Saul
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: attacked the Amalekites in 1 Samuel chapter 15, he sent
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a message to the Canaanites, a people group living inside
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Amalekite territory. 1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 6. Saul said
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to the Canaanites, Go away, leave the Amalekites, so I
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: will not destroy you along with them. For you showed
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of Egypt. So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: The Kenites lived in the same geographical region as the Amalekites.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: They were neighbors. They shared wells. They shared trade routes.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: They shared the same desert. If God's decree was racial,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: if it was about blood, about ethnicity, about eliminating a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: gene pool, the Kenites would have been included in the destruction.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: They were not. Why? Because their conduct was different. They
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: had shown kindness to Israel when Israel came out of Egypt.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: They were judged by what they did, not by where
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: they lived or who they lived beside. The Canites are
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the biblical proof that God's decree was a verdict on
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: a culture, on a pattern of behavior accumulated across centuries
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of documented cruelty, not an extermination order based on identity.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: The same territory, different conduct, different outcome. That distinction changes
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the entire moral framework of God's decree. the Cainites proved
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that anyone living among the Amalekites who had conducted themselves
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: differently would have been spared. The decree targeted a civilizational pattern, predation, cruelty,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and systematic opposition to God's purposes, not a people group
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: defined by blood. The judgment was surgical. The innocent were
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: removed before the sentence was carried out. Now return to
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the Amalekite case file and read the alliance record across
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the entire Old Testament. They allied with Eglon, king of Moab,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in Judges 3.13, helping him capture the city of Palms
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and oppress Israel for 18 years. They allied with Midian
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in Judges 6-8, the seven-year devastation that reduced Israel to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: hiding in caves that stripped every harvest. that produced the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: crisis God used Gideon to resolve. They allied with the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Eastern peoples in Judges chapter 6, joining the coalition that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: came up like swarms of locusts to destroy Israel's crops
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and livestock. They raided Ziklag in 1 Samuel chapter 30,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: burning David's city and kidnapping every woman and child while
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the warriors were away. In every generation, on every occasion,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: without exception, The Amalekites chose the side that was attacking
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: God's people. Not once did they remain neutral. Not once
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: did they seek peace. Not once did they send an
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: envoy or propose a treaty. Not once did they demonstrate
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the conduct that saved the Kenites. 500 years of opportunities
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: to change course. And they chose predation every single time.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: The decree was not issued after one battle. It was
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: issued after the Amalekites demonstrated, across 500 years of documented behavior,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that they would always choose predation over peace. The pattern
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: was the evidence. The consistency was the proof. And the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: verdict was the only conclusion the evidence supported. God issued
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the decree. And then he entrusted the execution of that
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: decree to one man, the first king of Israel. And
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: what that man did with that assignment changed the course
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of biblical history for 500 years. In 1 Samuel chapter 15,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: God gave Saul a direct command through the prophet Samuel,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: verse 3. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: all that belongs to them. Do not spare them. Put
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: camels and donkeys. Total destruction. Nothing spared. This was the verdict.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: The sentence that had been accumulating since Rephidim, through centuries
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of raiding, through the targeting of the weak, through the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: locust economy, through every alliance against Israel. The case was closed.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: The sentence was pronounced. Saul was the executioner. Saul attacked
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the Amalekites. He won the military victory. But 1 Samuel
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: chapter 15 verses 8 and 9. He took Agag, king
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: of the Amalekites, alive, and all his people he totally
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: fat calves and lambs, everything that was good. These they
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and weak they totally destroyed. Read that structure carefully. They
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: destroyed everything that was worthless. They kept everything that had value.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Saul obeyed the parts of God's command that cost him
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: nothing and disobeyed the parts that required sacrifice. He kept
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the king alive, likely as a trophy, a symbol of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: his military victory. He kept the best livestock, the valuable animals,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the ones worth parading. When Samuel arrived, Saul greeted him
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: with confidence. The Lord bless you, I have carried out
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the Lord's instructions. And Samuel replied with a question that
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: echoes across the centuries. What then is this bleeding of
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: that I hear? Saul's excuse came fast. The soldiers brought
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: them from the Amalekites. They spared the best of the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Samuel's response is one of the most devastating lines in
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the entire Old Testament. 1 Samuel chapter 15 verses 22
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and 23. Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: rejected you as king. Saul's selective obedience was not mercy,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: it was rebellion dressed in religious language. He kept what
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: he wanted and called it an offering. He disobeyed God's
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: direct command and framed it as worship. And the kingdom
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: was taken from him that day, not because he lost
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a battle, but because he won one and handled the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: victory on his own terms. Then Samuel did what Saul
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: refused to do. 1 Samuel 15.33 Samuel hacked a gag
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. Years later, Saul
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: fell on the battlefield at Mount Gilboa, wounded, defeated, abandoned
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: by God. And in 2 Samuel 1, a young man
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: ran to David with the news of Saul's death. David
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: asked who he was. The young man answered, I am
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the son of a foreigner, an Amalekite. He claimed to
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: have finished Saul off at Saul's own request. David had
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: him executed immediately. The irony is unbearable. The king who
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: lost his throne because he refused to destroy the Amalekites,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: the man who spared their king, kept their livestock, and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: called it worship, was reported dead by an Amalekite. The
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: nation he refused to finish became the nation that stood
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: over his body. Saul failed to complete the command. Agag
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: was eventually executed by Samuel. But what Saul could not
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: have known, what no one in Israel could have predicted,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: was that the bloodline he allowed to survive would produce
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a man, 500 years later, who would come within days
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of exterminating every Jewish man, woman, and child on the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: face of the earth. 500 years after Saul's failure in
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the Persian Empire, a man named Haman rose to the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: second highest position in the kingdom. The book of Esther,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: chapter 3, verse 1, identifies him. Haman's son of Hamadatha,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the Agagite. Agagite, a descendant of Agag, the Amalekite king Saul,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: was supposed to destroy in 1 Samuel, chapter 15. Haman
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: did not just dislike the Jewish people. he designed a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: systematic plan to exterminate every Jewish man, woman, and child
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: in every province of the Persian Empire, 127 provinces from
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: India to Ethiopia. Esther 3.13 Letters were sent to destroy, kill,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, women and children,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: on a single day. The Amalekite strategy had not changed
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: in a thousand years. Target everyone. Spare no one. The weak,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the elderly, the children. The same categories they had hunted
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: at the back of Israel's column in Exodus chapter 17.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The method was the same. The scale was larger. The
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: bloodline carried the same predatory instinct across five centuries of silence.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And here is the detail that should stop every viewer. Saul.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the man who failed to destroy the Amalekites, was from
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the tribe of Benjamin. 1 Samuel chapter 9 verse 1. Mordecai,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the man who discovered Haman's plot and saved the Jewish people,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: was also from the tribe of Benjamin. Esther chapter 2
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: verse 5. Now there was in the citadel of Susa
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin named Mordecai. The
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: same tribe, 500 years apart. A Benjaminite failed to finish
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the job with the Amalekites. A Benjaminite was given a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: second chance to stop the Amalekites' final assault. The thread
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: runs from 1 Samuel to Esther, from Saul to Mordecai,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: from Agag to Haman, Benjamin versus Amalek across half a millennium,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and the final biblical mention of the Amalekites is almost silent.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: 1 Chronicles chapter 4 verses 42 and 43 Five hundred
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of these Simeonites attacked the remaining Amalekites who had escaped,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and they have lived there to this day. Five hundred men.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: That is all it took to end them. A nation
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that had terrorized Israel for a thousand years, that had
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: raided from the Negev to the Persian Empire, that had
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: allied with every enemy Israel ever faced. Ended with 500
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: men on a mountain. No fanfare, no major battle, no
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: historical monument, just a quiet disappearance of a people who
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: had been unraveling for centuries. Balaam's prophecy fulfilled. Amalek was
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: first among the nations, but their end will be utter destruction.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: First to attack, last to be remembered.