The Books of Maccabees and the Al HaNisssim prayer for Hanukah

The Books of Maccabees and the Al HaNisssim prayer for Hanukah.

Reuven Kimelman

The Al HaNissim prayer inserted in the Amidah for Hanukah is a purposeful combination of 1 Maccabees with Rabbinic literature and liturgy. This becomes obvious upon comparing it with the less-developed version of Massekhet Sofrim20.6:[1]

בהודייה והודאת פלאות ותשועת כהנים
אשר עשית בימי מתתיהו בן יוחנן כהן גדול וחשמונאי ובניו
וכן עשה עמנו ה’ אלהינו ואלהי אבותינו נסים ונפלאות
ונודה לשמך לנצח
בא”י הטוב

In the Modim blessing of the Amidah, we acknowledge the wonders and the salvation of priests
that You wrought in the days of Mattathias son of Yohanan Kohen Gadol, the Hasmonean and his sons.
So perform for us Adonai our God and God of our ancestors miracles and wonders
and we will thank Your name forever.
Blessed are You Adonai, The Good One.[2]

In contrast is the Al HaNissim version of the early Medieval period that incorporates also material from 1 Maccabees. The following shows the links with Biblical and Rabbinic material, then that of Maccabees.

After the opener’s mention of God’s wondrous interventions, Al HaNissim focuses on the three agents of the Hanukah story: Greeks, God, and Israel. It goes as follows:

Al HaNissim

Opener: For the miracles, for the deliverance, for the acts of might, for the acts of salvation, and for the wondrous acts that you wrought for our ancestors in those days at this time.

Greeks

1. In the days ofMattathias, son of Yoḥanan, the distinguished priest, the Hasmonean and his sons,
2. when the evil Greek kingdom rose up against Your people Israel
3. to make them forget Your Torah and to get them to transgress Your laws

You (God)

4.You, in Your overwhelming mercy, stood by them in their time of distress,
5.You defended their cause, You sided with their grievances, You avenged them.
6.You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few,
the defiled into the hands of the undefiled, the wicked into the hands of the righteous,
7.and the perpetrators into the hands of the those committed to Your Torah.
8.And You had Your name magnified and sanctified in Your world.
9.Regarding Your people Israel:
You performed a great deliverance and redemption unto this very day.

Israel

10. Afterwards, Your children entered the Holy of Holies of Your Abode,
11. cleaned out Your Temple,
12. purified Your sanctuary,
13. and kindled lights in the courtyards of Your sanctuary,
14. and designated these eight days of Hanukah
15. for reciting “Hodu” and “Hallel” to Your great Name.

Selective line commentary based on biblical and rabbinic sources:

The Opener of Al HaNissim follows the preceding Modim blessing of the Amidah in its repetitive use of עַל and its reference to miracles and wonders —

Modim:

עַל־חַיֵּֽינוּ הַמְּ֒סוּרִים בְּיָדֶֽךָ
וְעַל נִשְׁמוֹתֵֽינוּ הַפְּ֒קוּדוֹת לָךְ
וְעַל נִסֶּֽיךָ שֶׁבְּכָל יוֹם עִמָּֽנוּ
וְעַל נִפְלְ֒אוֹתֶֽיךָ וְטוֹבוֹתֶֽיךָ שֶׁבְּ֒כָל עֵת

for our lives that are in Your hand,
and for our souls that are in Your charge ,
and for Your miracles that are daily with us,
and for Your wonders and kindnesses at all times

Al HaNissim:

עַל הַנִּסִּים
וְעַל הַפֻּרְקָן
וְעַל הַגְּ֒בוּרוֹת
וְעַל הַתְּ֒שׁוּעוֹת
וְעַל הַנִּפְלָאוֹת

For the miracles,
and for the deliverance,
and for the acts of might,
and for the acts of salvation,
and for the wondrous acts

Line 1. A Genizah version mentions only Mattathias.⁴ Since there is no known Yoḥanan or Mattathias as high priest, כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל may indicate a distinguished priest, as 1 Mac. 2:1 designates him only as a priest of the sons of Joarib. Moreover, the term for high priest at the end of the biblical period was הַכֹּהֵן הָרֹאשׁ as in Ezra 7:5

פִּינְחָס בֶּן־אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן הָרֹאשׁ

and 2 Chronicles 31:10

וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו עֲזַרְיָהוּ הַכֹּהֵן הָרֹאשׁ לְבֵית צָדוֹק

The reference to Hasmonean is also unclear.[5]

Line 2. The same expression of Greece rising up against Israel was applied in the Midrash (Exodus Rabbah 18:2) to Rome:

מִשֶּׁעָמְדָה אֱדוֹם אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא הַסִּימָן הַזֶּה יִהְיֶה בְּיֶדְכֶם בַּיּוֹם שֶׁעָשִׂיתִי לָכֶם תְּשׁוּעָה וּבְאוֹתוֹ הֱיוּ יוֹדְעִים שֶׁאֲנִי גוֹאַלְכֶם

Lines 6-7. The initial references to the “mighty” and the “many” refer to the Greeks while the concluding references to the “wicked” (וּרְשָׁעִים) and the “evil perpetrators” (וְזֵדִים) refer to the Hellenizing wicked of Israel, as in Daniel 11:32:

וּמַרְשִׁיעֵי בְרִית יַחֲנִיף בַּחֲלַקּוֹת וְעַם יֹדְעֵי אֱלֹהָיו יַחֲזִקוּ וְעָשׂוּ (דניאל יא:לב)

and in Nehemiah 9:16, 29:

(נחמיה ט:טז, כט) וְהֵם וַאֲבֹתֵינוּ הֵזִידוּ וַיַּקְשׁוּ אֶת־עָרְפָּם וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֶל־מִצְוֺתֶיךָ

Thus, the contrast with the positive-oriented, Israel-oriented phrase

“those committed to Your Torah” of line 7.

The middle transitional one, “the defiled into the hands of the undefiled,” may be Janus-faced, encompassing both Greeks and Hellenizers.

Line 8. is based on the opening of the geonic Kaddish[6]

יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא בְּעָלְמָא

“May His name become magnified and sanctified in the world”
and alludes to the terminology of the miniature Shema at the beginning of Shaḥarit,⁷ which also mentions God’s salvation.

קַדֵּשׁ אֶת־שִׁמְךָ עַל מַקְדִּישֵׁי שְׁמֶֽךָ
וְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת־שִׁמְךָ בְּעֹלָמֶֽךָ
וּבִישׁוּעָתְ֒ךָ תָּרוּם וְתַגְבִּֽיהַּ קַרְנֵֽנו
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְי מְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת־שִׁמְךָ בָּרַבִּים

1. Sanctify Your Name through those who sanctify Your Name
2. and sanctify Your Name in Your world.
3. And by Your salvation may our status be raised and exalted.
4. Blessed (are) You A-donai who sanctifies Your Name in public.

Line 9. The use of the Aramaic term for salvation פּוּרְקָן is common in geonic liturgy as in Yekum Purkan

יְקוּם פּוּרְקָן מִן שְׁמַיָּא
וְתִּתְפָּרְקוּן וְתִשְׁתֵּזְבוּן מִן כָּל עָקָא

and in some versions of Kaddish

וְיַצְמַח פּוּרְקָנֵהּ וִיקָרֵב (קֵץ) מְשִׁיחֵהּ

Line 15. The terms hallel and hodu appear together in Ezra 3:11; 2 Chronicles 5:13 and possibly 1 Mac. 4:24. Hodu may designate a specific liturgical response as in Psalms 106:1, 107:1, 118:1; 1 Chronicles 16:34, 41; 2 Chronicles 5:13; 7:3, 6; 16:41; 20:21, whereas Hallel may designate the liturgical use of Psalms 113-118, as is the practice on Hanukah.

Al HaNissim also integrates Hanukah-specific material from the Books of Maccabees.
The following lines of Al HaNissim have their parallels in 1 Maccabees.

Line 3: to make them forget Your Torah and to get them to transgress Your laws
Mac.1:49 : so as to forget the Torah and violate all the commandments

Line 6: You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few,the defiled into the hands of the undefiled, the wicked into the hands of the righteous,
1Mac. 3:18: “Judah said: It is easy for many to be delivered into the hands of the few. Heaven sees no difference in gaining victory through the many or through the few.

Lines 7. and the perpetrators into the hands of the those committed to Your Torah.
10. Afterwards, Your children entered the Holy of Holies of Your Abode,
11. cleaned out Your Temple,
12. purified Your sanctuary,
1 Mac. 4:42-48:

“He (Judah)…, appointed unblemished priests committed to the Torah
who purified the sanctuary
and removed the defiled stones into an unclean place .
They deliberated what to do with the profaned altar…
they tore it down and stored it in the Temple….
Taking uncut stones as prescribed by the Torah,
they built a new altar after the pattern of the old.
They repaired the sanctuary and hallowed the interior of the house and the courts …

Line 13. and kindled lights in the courtyards of Your sanctuary

1 Mac. 4:49-50:

They made also new holy vessels, and into the temple they brought lampstand,
….
and lit the lamps on the lampstand that they might give light in the Temple.

Opener: in those days at this time.

Lines 14. and designated these eight days of Hanukah
15. for reciting “Hodu” and “Hallel” to Your great Name.

1 Mac. 4:54-56:

On the very time of year and on the very day on which the gentiles had profaned the altar, it was dedicated to the sound of singing…
The entire people prostrated themselves and bowed and gave thanks to God
Who had brought them victory.
For eight days they celebrated the dedication of the altar joyfully

1 Mac. 4:59

Judas and his brothers and the entire assembly of Israel decreed that the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed at their time of year annually for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth of the month of Kislev, with joy and gladness.

^{2 Mac. 10:6, 8}

They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing,
in the manner of the Festival of Sukkot…
They decreed by public edict, ratified by vote, that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.

The report of the Talmud underscores the miracle of the lights:

Shabbat 21b

.מַאי חֲנוּכָּה? דְּתָנוּ רַבָּנַן: בְּכ״ה בְּכִסְלֵיו יוֹמֵי דַחֲנוּכָּה תְּמָנְיָא אִינּוּן דְּלָא לְמִסְפַּד בְּהוֹן וּדְלָא לְהִתְעַנּוֹת בְּהוֹן
.שֶׁכְּשֶׁנִּכְנְסוּ יְווֹנִים לַהֵיכָל טִמְּאוּ כׇּל הַשְּׁמָנִים שֶׁבַּהֵיכָל
,וּכְשֶׁגָּבְרָה מַלְכוּת בֵּית חַשְׁמוֹנַאי וְנִצְּחוּם
,בָּדְקוּ וְלֹא מָצְאוּ אֶלָּא פַּךְ אֶחָד שֶׁל שֶׁמֶן שֶׁהָיָה מוּנָּח בְּחוֹתָמוֹ שֶׁל כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל
.וְלֹא הָיָה בּוֹ אֶלָּא לְהַדְלִיק יוֹם אֶחָד
.נַעֲשָׂה בּוֹ נֵס וְהִדְלִיקוּ מִמֶּנּוּ שְׁמוֹנָה יָמִים
לְשָׁנָה אַחֶרֶת קְבָעוּם וַעֲשָׂאוּם יָמִים טוֹבִים בְּהַלֵּל וְהוֹדָאָה

What is Hanukkah? The Sages taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the days of Hanukkah are eight. One may neither eulogize or fast on them.
When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary.
And when the Hasmonean monarchy vanquished them,
they searched and came up with only one cruse of oil with the seal of the High Priest, only enough for one day of lighting.
A miracle occurred and they lit from it for eight days.
The next year, they fixed these days as holidays by reciting Hallel and the Prayer of Thanksgiving.[8]

.תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: מִצְוַת חֲנוּכָּה, נֵר אִישׁ וּבֵיתוֹ
.וְהַמְהַדְּרִין, נֵר לְכׇל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד
וְהַמְהַדְּרִין מִן הַמְהַדְּרִין
בֵּית שַׁמַּאי אוֹמְרִים: יוֹם רִאשׁוֹן מַדְלִיק שְׁמֹנָה, מִכָּאן וְאֵילָךְ פּוֹחֵת וְהוֹלֵךְ
וּבֵית הִלֵּל אוֹמְרִים: יוֹם רִאשׁוֹן מַדְלִיק אַחַת, מִכָּאן וְאֵילָךְ מוֹסִיף וְהוֹלֵךְ וּבֵית הִלֵּל
,טַעְמָא דְּבֵית שַׁמַּאי כְּנֶגֶד פָּרֵי הַחַג
וְטַעְמָא דְּבֵית הִלֵּל דְּמַעֲלִין בַּקֹּדֶשׁ וְאֵין מוֹרִידִין

The Sages taught: The mitzvah of Hanukah is to have a light kindled by the head of the household (for his household each day).
The meticulous kindle a light for each and every one in the household.
The extra meticulous adjust the number of lights daily:
According to Beit Shammai: On the first day one kindles eight and decreases by one for the next seven days.
According to Beit Hillel: On the first day one kindles one and increases by one for the next seven days.
Beit Shammai’s reasons that the number of lights corresponds to the bulls of the festival of Sukkot: which declined by one each day.
Beit Hillel’s reasons that the number of lights increases, regarding matters of holiness one upgrades not downgrades.

Beit Shammai’s reference to Sukkot matches that of 2 Mac. 10:6. It aims to recapture the past event. Beit Hillel aims to recapture the wonder of the growing miracle.

Lines 13-14 of Al HaNissim are purposely ambiguous.

On the one hand, they allow for the two going interpretations.

That of the Maccabees that the eight-day festival was based on the biblical precedent of the dedication of the first Temple under Solomon in 1 Kings 8:66, 2 Chronicles 7:9, and 2 Mac. 2:12 along with making up for the eight-day holiday of Sukkot (2 Mac. 10:6) for which there had been no access to the Temple two months earlier that year.

On the other hand, the association of the kindling of lights with eight days allowed it to be also grasped talmudically as referring to the miracle of the burning of the oil for eight days as is still understood.

Compare this with the less-developed version of Massekhet Sofrim that makes no mention of the oil miracle as opposed to the explicit reference to the miracle of the oil in Megillat Antiochus 76-80:[9]

After these things, the sons of the Ḥashmonai came into the Sanctuary, restored the gates, repaired the breaches, and cleansed the hall of the dead and of all its impurity. And they sought pure olive oil with which to light the Menorah, but they found only one little vessel sealed with the seal of the High-Priest and they knew it to be pure. And it contained but sufficient oil for one day. But the God of Heaven Who caused His presence to dwell in the Sanctuary, gave His blessing and it sufficed to light the Menorah eight days.

Therefore did the sons of the Ḥashmonai together with the Israelites ordain that these eight days be ever celebrated as days of joy and feasting along with the festivals ordained in the Torah; that candles be lit to commemorate the victory they achieved through the God of Heaven.

Megillat Antiochus’s explicit mention of the miracle of the oil stands in contrast to Massekhet Sofrim’s lack of mention.¹⁰ Nonetheless, it concludes that the candles are to “be lit to commemorate the victory they achieved through the God of Heaven.” Al HaNissim, further navigates between the two with its ambiguous ending, saying:

וְהִדְלִֽיקוּ נֵרוֹת בְּחַצְרוֹת קָדְשֶֽׁךָ .13

וְקָבְ֒עוּ שְׁמוֹנַת יְמֵי חֲנֻכָּה אֵֽלּוּ .14

לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל לְשִׁמְךָ הַגָּדולְ 15

which so sounds like the last two lines of the Rabbinic formulation of the miracle of the oil–

נַעֲשָׂה בּוֹ נֵס וְהִדְלִיקוּ מִמֶּנּוּ שְׁמוֹנָה יָמִים.
לְשָׁנָה אַחֶרֶת קְבָעוּם וַעֲשָׂאוּם יָמִים טוֹבִים בְּהַלֵּל וְהוֹדָאָה

— that it was taken as its equivalent.

The validation of both the Maccabean and the Talmudic account enabled all to join in celebrating Hanukah holiday for eight days by lighting lights.¹¹

The ambiguity of Al HaNissim casts its shadow over its epitome, HaNeirot Hallalu, recited after the kindling of the lights . Besides alluding to 1 Mac. 4:42 in referring to the unblemished priests as “Your holy priests,” it also links the miracles, reusing at the beginning and the end three of the terms from the opener of Al HaNissim, with the eight days without spelling out the specific miracle in contrast to the Talmudic assertion to which it alludes (as color-coordinated below)

albeit assumed by all.

It states:

HaNeirot Hallalu

These lights that we kindle are
For the miracles, for the wondrous acts, and for the acts of salvation –
which You wrought then at this time for our ancestors through Your holy priests.
For all eight days of Hanukah these lights are special, used only for gazing.–
In order to give thanks and say Hallel to Your great name
for Your miracles, for Your wondrous acts, and for Your acts of salvation.

By finessing the basis of Hanukah – be it the miraculous victory, the rededication of the Temple, or the miracle of the oil – all can find their way to welcome in the celebration of the festival of lights.

Reuven Kimelman

[1] For the lateness of chapters 10-21 of Sofrim, see Debra Blank, “It’s Time to Take Another Look at ‘Our Little Sister’ Soferim: A Bibliographical Essay,” JQR 90 (1999): 1-26, p. 4, n. 10. In any case, the version matches a Palestinian Genizah text which, however, adds a reference to “the evil Greek kingdom that rose against them” (Ezra Fleischer, Statutory Jewish Prayers: Their Emergence and Development [Hebrew], 2 vols., ed. S. Elizur and T. Beeri (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 2012):1:182.
[2] For הטוב (“The Good”) as an epithet for God, see my forthcoming book The Rhetoric of the Jewish Liturgy: A Historical and Literary Commentary on the Daily Prayer Book, London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Chapter 8, n.326. Here it corresponds to the Divine epithet at the conclusion of the Modim blessing, הַטּוֹב שִׁמְךָ (“Your name is The Good”), or הַטּוֹב לְךָ לְהוֹדוֹת.
[3] The versions in the geonic Seder Rav Amram Gaon (Amram b. Sheishna), ed. E. D. Goldschmidt (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1971), p. 97; and Siddur Rav Sa‘adya Gaon. ed. I. Davidson, S. Asaf, and B. Joel (Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1970), p. 255, lacks this, but add המלחמות והפדות (“the wars and the redemption”), making for six terms. There are other variants in other siddurim; see Maḥ̣zor Vitry. R. Simḥah Me-Vitry, ed. A. Goldschmidt, 6 vols. Jerusalem: Oṣar Ha-Posqim, 5764-5769 (2004-2023), 1:116; Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993, p. 52 (a translation by R. Schendlin of Ha–Tefillah Be–Yisrael Be–Hitpatḥutah Ha–Historit, Dvir: Tel Aviv,1972), p. 45; and Ephraim Zlotnik, Meqorei Ha-Tefillah: Ta’ameha, Nosḥoteha, U-Minhageha, 3 Vols., (Jerusalem, 2011-2021): 1:209-212. For mentions of Al HaNissim in general in geonic literature, see Neil Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot with a Supplement to Halakhot Pesuqot [Hebrew] (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993), pp. 240-241.
[4] See Stefan Reif, Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah: A Selection of Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library (Leiden: Brill, 2016), p. 274, with n. 16.
[5] See Mitchell First, “The Identity and Meaning of Chashmonai,” The Seforim Blog (here).
[6] For Kaddish as a geonic liturgy, see reference in n. 2, chapter 9.
[7] For the context there, see reference in n. 2, chapter 3, section 6.
[8] This may refer to Al HaNissim which is incorporated in the Modim (= Thanksgiving); see the beginning of the citation from Massekhet Sofrim, above, at n. 1; and Jonathan Goldstein, I Maccabees (AB 42) (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 286-87. Regarding the alleged parallel in Megillat Ta‘anit, see Vered Noam, “The Miracle of the Cruse of Oil: The Metamorphosis of a Legend,” HUCA 73 (2002), pp. 191-226.
[9] The numbering follows the version in Adolph Jellinek, ed. Bet Ha–Midrasch, 2 vols., 6 books (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1967), 6:7-8. See the Aramaic with Arabic translation in S. A. Wertheimer, ed., Batei Midrashot, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Ktav Ve-Sefer, 1968): 1:329-330, lines 79-86.A later rabbinized version understandably only mentions the miracle of the oil; see Jellinek, ibid., 1:141.
[10] Since their dating, as Al HaNissim, is unclear no statement is made on historical development, only content difference.Nonetheless, mention of the miracle of the cruse of oil seems to be absent from Palestinian sources.
[11] See Goldstein (above, n. 8) pp. 283-284.

The Seven Nations of Canaan

THE SEVEN NATIONS OF CANAAN[1]

By Reuven Kimelman

This study deals with the war and the
seven Canaanite nations.[2] It complements my previous post on Amalek of March 13, 2014, “The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An
Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition. “The popular
conception in both cases is that the Bible demands their extermination thereby
providing a precedent for genocide.[3] The popular reading of the Canaanites filters it through the prism of
Deuteronomy. The popular reading of
Amalek filters the Torah material through the prism of Saul’s battle against
Amalek in the Book of Samuel. In actuality, the biblical data is much
more ambiguous making the most destructive comments the exception not the rule as
will be evident from a systematic analysis of the Canaanite material in the
Bible as was previously done with Amalek.

This
post will deal with the following seven questions with regard to the nations of
Canaan:

a). What are the different biblical
approaches to the native nations of Canaan?

b). According to the Bible, what
actually happened to them?

c). What is the evidence that the
Bible is sensitive to the moral issues involved?

d). How has the Jewish tradition
removed the category of the seven nations from its ethical agenda?

e). What is the role of the
doctrine of repentance?

f). What is the relevance of the
“Sennacherib principle”?

g). How relevant is the category
“holy war”?

With
regard to the extermination of the seven nations of Canaan,[4] sometimes called Canaanites sometimes Amorites, the biblical record is also not
of one cloth. The clarification of their status in the Bible requires a
systematic treatment of all the data book by book.

Genesis (12:6, 15:16) is aware that the
Canaanites were in the land when Abraham arrived and would remain for
generations. From Genesis 38 and the end
of The Book of Ruth we learn that from the progeny of Abraham’s great grandson
Judah and the Canaanite Tamar will issue King David. Also Simeon’s son is identified as “Saul the son
of a Cannanite women” (Genesis 46:10, Exodus 6:15) without comment.

Exodus (23)’s position on the
elimination of the Canaanites (v. 23) is a gradual dispossession by God, not by
the Israelites:[5]

27 I will send forth My terror before
you, and I will throw into panic all the people among whom you come, and I will
make all your enemies turn tail before you. 28 I will send a plague ahead of
you, and it shall drive out before you the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the
Hittites.[6] 29 I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become
desolate and the wild beasts multiply to your hurt. 30 I will drive them out
before you little by little, until you have increased and possess the land.

Leviticus (18) refers to God casting out
of the nations:

24 Do not defile yourselves in any of
those ways, for it is by such that the nations that I am casting out before you
defiled themselves. 25 Thus the land became defiled; and I called it to account
for its iniquity, and the land spewed out its inhabitants.

Here there is a coordination between God
and land. The land spews out its
inhabitants for defiling it and God expels them.

Numbers (33) refers to the Israelites
deporting the local inhabitants:

51 Speak to the Israelite people and say
to them:

When you cross the Jordan into the land
of Canaan, 52 you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land; you shall
destroy all their figured objects; you shall destroy all their molten images,
and you shall demolish all their cult places. 53 And you shall take possession
of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess.

It is clear that the issue here is not
ethnic but religio-cultural. The fear is that Israel will be ensnared,
especially through intermarriage, by the local moral and cultic practices
.

Exodus 34 emphasizes the religious
factor:

12b Beware of making a covenant with the
inhabitants of the land against which you are advancing, lest they be a snare
in your midst. 13 Rather you must tear down their altars, smash their
pillars,and cut down their sacred posts; 14 for you must not worship any other
God, because the Lord, whose name is Impassioned, is an impassioned God. 15 You
must not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for they will lust
after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and invite you, and you will eat
of their sacrifices. 16 And when you take wives from among their daughters for
your sons, their daughters will lust after their gods and will cause your sons
to lust after their gods.[7]

Leviticus 18 emphasizes the moral
factor:

26 But you must keep My laws and My
rules, and you must not do any of those abhorrent things, neither the citizen
nor the stranger who resides among you; 27 for all those abhorrent things were
done by the people who were in the land before you, and the land became
defiled. 28 So let not the land spew you out for defiling it as it spewed out
the nation that came before you. 29 All who do any of those abhorrent
things—such persons shall be cut off from their people. 30 You shall keep My
charge not to engage in any of the abhorrent practices that were carried on
before you, and you shall not defile yourselves through them: I the Lord am
your God.

Numbers 33 warns Israel against
assimilating Canaanite norms lest they share their fate of expulsion. “55 But if
you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to
remain shall be stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall
harass you in the land in which you live; 56 so that I will do to you what I
planned to do to them.”

The exception is Deuteronomy 7
which demands total destruction:

1 When the Lord your God brings you to
the land that you are about to enter and possess, and He dislodges many nations
before you— the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites,
Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much larger than you—2and the Lord your
God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to
destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter.

Even according to Deuteronomy the fear
is not of their DNA but moral assimilation, for it goes on to say: “Lest they lead you into doing all the
abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before
the Lord your God” (20:18). For Deuteronomy (12:31; 18:9-12), the abhorrent
things include child sacrifice.

Strangely, Deuteronomy continues with a
provision against intermarriage:

3 You shall not intermarry with them: do
not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.
4 For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and the
Lord’s anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out.
5 Instead, this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars,
smash their pillars, cut down their sacred posts, and consign their images to
the fire.

Apprehension about intermarriage or coming to terms with an eradicated people
is strange unless Deuteronomy is aware that its demand to doom them will not be
(or was not) implemented. And, in fact, as we shall see the evidence from
Judges 3 is that they did intermarry.

Alternatively, ḥerem does not entail
the elimination of the Canaanites only their isolation, that is, they are to be
quarantined. This understanding follows its Semitic cognates where it means to
separate, to set aside.[8] The goal is to exclude any intercourse with them. Thus verse 5 only refers to
the elimination of their objects of worship not their persons. This opens the
possibility that “What we have is a retention of the … traditional language
of ḥerem, but a shift in the direction of its acquiring significance as
a metaphor … for religious fidelity.”[9]

Even stranger is the description of the
confrontation with Sihon king of the Amorites. Within the context of
Deuteronomy, one would expect an outright attack when God says to Moses: “See,
I give into your power Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin
the occupation: engage him in battle” (2:24). Instead, what does Moses do:

26 Then I sent messengers from the
wilderness of Kedemoth to King Sihon of Heshbon with an offer of peace, as
follows, 27 “Let me pass through your country. I will keep strictly to the
highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left. 28 What food I eat
you will supply for money, and what water I drink you will furnish for money;
just let me pass through.”

Sihon rejects the offer and attacks
Israel. They are destroyed only in the counterattack.

If there is no evidence for the
expulsion of the Canaanites, whence the position of Deuteronomy 7:1-2?
It has been speculated that Deuteronomy took “both the expulsion law of Exodus
23:20-33, directed against the inhabitants of Canaan, and the ḥerem
(total destruction) law of Exodus 22:19 (“Whoever sacrifices to a God other
than the Lord shall be proscribed), directed against the individual Israelite,
and fused them into a new law that applies ḥerem to all idolaters,
Israelites and non-Israelites alike.”[10] In other words, the ḥerem is not against Canaanites as Canaanites, but
idolaters as idolaters. Thus Deuteronomy (13:13-19) imposes the very punishment
on Israelite idolaters. The choice of the word ḥerem also promotes a
sense of quid pro quod, for, according to Numbers 14:45, the Canaanites and the
Amalekites pummeled Israel to Hormah a word which could simply designate a
place or also serve as a toponym since ad haḥormah could be
rendered “to utter destruction.”[11] The point of the paronomasia is that the Canaanites and the Amalekites got as
they gave.

In any case, except for some sources in
Joshua (6:21 and chapters 10-11) the later biblical sources follow the earlier
biblical books from Exodus to Numbers rather than Deuteronomy. Even the Joshua
material raises some questions. According to Joshua 10:33, Joshua totally
destroyed the people of Gezer. Yet Joshua 16:10 (like Judges 1:29) states: “They
failed to dispossess the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites
remained in the midst of Ephraim, as is still the case. But they had to perform
forced labor.” In actuality, they stayed there until the reign of Solomon only
to be killed off by Pharaoh as noted in I Kings 9:16. Apparently, once the
people were defanged by having its army destroyed, they were given quarter.[12] As a subject nation they apparently present no religious threat. In fact, save
for the peculiar case of Judges 3:5, the surrounding nations, not the
Canaanites, are blamed for Israelite apostasy.[13] In fact, according to Joshua 8:29 and 10:27, the bodies of Canaanite kings hung
by Joshua were buried by nightfall just as Deuteronomy 21:23 enjoins.
Apparently, Human dignity is inalienable even for Canaanite kings.

The triumphal picture of Joshua is
undermined by the facts on the ground. For example, Joshua 11:12 gives the
impression that Joshua wiped out all the cities in the area of Hazor and burned
them to the ground. Yet the next verse says: “However, all those towns that are
still standing on their mounds were not burned down by Israel; it was Hazor
alone that Joshua burned down.” In fact, only two other cities were burned —
Jericho and Ai.

Similarly, Joshua 11:23 claims: “Thus
Joshua conquered the whole country, just as the Lord had promised Moses,”
whereas 13:1 concedes “and very much of the land still remains to be taken
possession of.” Even where Israel spread out much of the native population was
allowed to remain in their midst, as it says later in the same chapter: “the
Israelites failed to dispossess the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and Geshur
and Maacath remain among Israel to this day” (13:13). The sparing of the
Canaanite population was common. With regard to southern Israel, Joshua 15:63
says: “But the Judites could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of
Jerusalem; so the Judites dwell with the Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day.”
With regard to central Israel, Joshua 16:10 says: “However, they failed to
dispossess the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites remained in the
midst of Ephraim, as is still the case. But they had to perform forced labor.”
And with regard to northern Israel, Joshua 17:12-13 says: “The Manassites could
not dispossess [the inhabitants of] these towns, and the Canaanites stubbornly
remained in this region. When the Israelites became stronger, they imposed
tribute on the Canaanites; but they did not dispossess them.”

Judges 1:27-36 follows suit. It begins:

27 Manasseh did not dispossess [the
inhabitants of] Beth-shean and its dependencies, or [of] Taanach and its
dependencies, or the inhabitants of Dor and its dependencies, or the
inhabitants of Ibleam and its dependencies, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and
its dependencies. The Canaanites persisted in dwelling in this region. 28 And
when Israel gained the upper hand, they subjected the Canaanites to forced
labor; but they did not dispossess them. 29Nor did Ephraim dispossess the
Canaanites who inhabited Gezer; so the Canaanites dwelt in their midst at
Gezer…

All these sources mention the failure to
dispossess the Canaanites, despite the Israelites’ power to do so. No mention
is made of any extermination.[14] Joshua 24:13 does mention the expulsion of two kings but without resorting to
the sword and bow, a point reiterated in Psalm 44:5. Most remarkable is the
story in Judges 4. There it is told that God punished the Israelites by handing
them over to Yabin the king of Canaan and Sisera his general. In the divinely
commanded revolt against them, God promised to deliver them into the hands of
the Israelites not to wipe them out.

Joshua concedes in his farewell address
the failure of his policy. The most he can hope is that “The Lord your God
Himself will thrust them out on your account and drive them out to make way for
you” (Joshua 23:5). In the meantime, they are exhorted to be resolute not “to
intermingle with these nations that are left among you. Do not utter the names
of their gods or swear by them” (23:7). He them mentions the apprehension of
Deuteronomy of intermarriage: “For should you turn away and attach yourselves
to the remnant of those nations — to those that are left among you–and
intermarry with the you joining them and they joining you, know for certain
that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you;
they shall become a snare and a trap for you” (23:12-13).

In fact, Judges 3 states that they did
intermarry: “The Israelites settled among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites,
Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites; they took their daughters to wife and gave
their own daughters to their sons, and they worshiped their gods” (5-6).
Intermarriage was likely a factor in the absence of biblical or extra biblical
evidence for Israel’s expulsion of the Canaanites.

The archaeological record confirms that
Israel primarily settled in previously unoccupied territory in the central
highlands rather than rebuilt towns on destroyed Canaanite cites. In Judges 2,
they are threatened with the consequences of not dispossessing them:

1 An angel of the Lord came up from
Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you up from Egypt and I took you into the
land which I had promised on oath to your fathers. And I said, ‘I will never
break My covenant with you. 2 And you, for your part, must make no covenant with
the inhabitants of this land; you must tear down their altars.’ But you have
not obeyed Me—look what you have done! 3 Therefore, I have resolved not to drive
them out before you; they shall become your oppressors, and their gods shall be
a snare to you.”
The Israelites not only did not drive out the inhabitants, they concluded
treaties with them. Their expulsion by God was contingent upon Israel’s refusal
to conclude a treaty with them. Neither took place.

Even at the height of ancient Israelite
power under the reign of Solomon there was no move to do away with them only to
subject them to forced labor, as I Kings 9 (= 2 Chronicles 8:7-8) states:

20All the people that were left of the
Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were not of the
Israelite stock—21those of their descendants who remained in the land and whom
the Israelites were not able to annihilate—of these Solomon made a slave force,
as is still the case.[15]

Nonetheless, Uriah the Hittite not only
marries Bathsheba but also serves as a trusted officer in David’s army.

Psalm
106 laments the total failure of the policy. According to it, everything that
Joshua warned against, they did and more. Following Deuteronomy 12:31, it also
provides the moral basis by documenting the abhorrent behavior of the
Canaanites to their own children:

34 They did not destroy the nations as
the Lord had commanded them, 35 but mingled with the nations and learned their
ways. 36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare for them. 37 Their own
sons and daughters they sacrificed to demons. 38 They shed innocent blood, the
blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
so the land was polluted with bloodguilt. 39 Thus they became defiled by their
acts, debauched through their deeds.[16]

Verses 34-35 attest to the non
implementation of the policy of Deuteronomy 20:17-18.

Remarkably,
the Rabbis explain the non implementation through the conversion of the
nations:

R. Samuel bar Nahman began his discourse
with the verse: “But if you will not drive out the inhabitants
of the Land before you, then shall those that remain of them be as thorns in
your eyes and as pricks in your sides” (Numbers 33:55). The Holy One reminded
Israel: I said to you, “You shall utterly destroy them: the
Hittite and the Amorite” (Deuteronomy 20:17). But you did not do so; for “Rahab
the harlot, and her father’s household, and all that she had, did Joshua save
alive” (Joshua 6:25). Behold, Jeremiah will spring from the children’s children
of Rahab the harlot and will thrust such words into you as will be thorns in
your eyes and pricks in your sides.[17]

Irony of ironies, the thorny and prickly
issue is no longer the continuity of pagan practices but the pointed prophetic
barbs from the progeny of converts.

The tendency to blunt the impact of the
seven-nations policy of Deuteronomy is also furthered by two other comments in
rabbinic literature. The first contends that Joshua sent three missives before
embarking on the conquest of the Land of Israel. The first said: “whoever wants
to leave — may leave;” the second: “whoever wants to make peace — make
peace;” and the third: “whoever wants to make war — make war.”[18] War was only conducted against those who opted for war.[19]

That war was not waged against those who did not opt for war may be supported
by the following verse in Joshua:

When all the kings of the Amorites on
the western side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites near the
Sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the sake of
the Israelites until they crossed over, they lost heart, and no spirit was left
in them because of the Israelites (5:1).

No war no killing. Similarly, Joshua 9
mentions that all six nations of Cannaan mobilized for war against Israel as
opposed to the Gibeonites who made peace with them. Even though the peace was
made under false pretenses, Joshua in chapter 10 honored his “treaty to
guarantee their lives” (9:15) by rescuing them from the attack of the five
Amorite kings. The treaty here entails security arrangements in exchange for
submission. Also in the beginning of
chapter 11 Joshua defeats those nations that had mobilized for war against him.
None of these accounts attribute their destruction to their religious
depravity, only to their initiation of attack on Israel.[20]

The other rabbinic comment rules that by
transplanting and mingling the populations he conquered, the Assyrian king
Sennacherib dissolved the national identity of the Canaanite nations in ancient
times.[21] Accordingly, Maimonides ruled that all trace of them has vanished.[22] Harav Abraham Kook, former chief rabbi, attained the same goal by limiting the
commandment to expel the Canaanites to the generation of Joshua. He writes:

If it were an absolute duty for every
Jewish king to conquer all the seven nations, how would David have refrained
from doing so? Therefore, in my humble opinion, the original duty rested only
on Joshua and his generation. Afterwards, it was only a commandment to realize
the inheritance of the land promised to the patriarchs.[23]

Moreover, non-Canaanites captured along
with a majority of Canaanites were to be spared just as Canaanites caught with
a majority of non-Canaanites were to be spared[24] reducing possibilities of any wholesale slaughter. In fact one commentator
contends that the destruction of a city is predicated upon the unanimous
opposition to submission to the Israelites for “we cannot impose a death
penalty on them (women and children) because of the sin of their fathers and
the guilt of their husbands.”[25] Finally, the Maimonidean ruling that all war must be preceded by an overture of
peace and that only the nations of Canaan that maintained their abhorrent ways
are to be doomed reduced the possibility of any war of total destruction.[26] His position is rooted in the repeated classical rabbinic comment to the verse
“Lest they lead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for
their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God” (20:18) — “This
teaches that if they repent they are not killed.”[27] The assumption is that the Canaanites got special attention not only because of
their geography, but also because “they were enmeshed in idolatry more than all
the nations of the world.”[28]

Similarly, The Wisdom of Solomon notes that the
Israelites did not wipe out the Canaanites “at once, but judging them gradually
You gave them space for repentance” (12:10).

The best biblical example of judging
Canaanites by their behavior and not by their genes is the case of Rahab of
Jericho. Since she acknowledged the God of Israel as “the God of heaven and
earth” (Joshua 2:12) and threw her lot in with Israel, she and her household
were not only spared but were welcomed “into the midst of Israel” (Joshua
6:25). Rabbinic tradition extended this welcome to marrying Joshua and becoming
the progenitor of priests and prophets.[29] Moreover, based on the fact that “The young men . . . went in and brought out
Rahab . . . and her brethren . . . all her kindred also” (Joshua 6:23), it was
understood that her immediate relatives, and also their relatives totaling many
hundreds were also spared.[30] The other salutary example is the Canaanite Tamar who not only trumped Judah
morally (see Genesis 38:26), but, according to the genealogy at the end of the
Book of Ruth, became the progenitress of King David. The other progenitress was
Ruth the Moabite who is linked to Tamar in Ruth 4:12. That behavior or
life-style trumps genes explains the permissibility of marrying the captured
woman in Deuteronomy 21:10. Having left her previous ways she no longer
presents a temptation of apostasy. Rabbinic tradition following suit
specifically included a Canaanite as long as she had shed her idolatrous ways.[31]

In the same vein, rabbinic tradition
held that the descendants of the Canaanite general Sisera became Torah teachers
in Jerusalem,[32] and that Abraham’s servant Eliezer was removed from the category of Canaanite
due to his loyalty to Abraham,[33] indeed, deemed his peer in piety,[34] worthy of entering Paradise alive.[35]

In the light of the biblical doctrine of
repentance (“For it is not My desire that anyone shall die—declares the Lord
God. Repent, therefore, and live!” — Ezekiel 18:32), it is hard to contemplate
an alternative. Such a doctrine does not sit well with the possibility of
irredeemable evil. A lesson that Jonah had a hard time learning. According to
The Book of Jonah, even Nineveh, the capital of the empire that brought ruin on
the lost tribes of Israel and annihilated everything in its path (see Isaiah
37:11), could avert destruction by engaging in repentance. Finally, the
evidence that the issue was all along ethical and not ethnic lies in the fact
that Abraham was prevented from taking possession of the land in his day
“because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16),
whereas his descendants were allowed to take possession because of the
“wickedness of these nations” (Deuteronomy 9:4-5).

The midrashic tradition followed the
biblical categorization of groups through a combination of ethics and
ethnicity. With regard to repentance, the Midrash pointed out that the Torah
was given in the third month whose Zodiac symbol is twins to make the point
that were Jacob’s twin Esau to repent and convert and study Torah God would
accept him.[36] In fact, God looks forward “to the
nations of the world repenting so that He might bring them nigh beneath His
wings.”[37] Kindness is also a criterion for inclusion; its absence a criterion for
exclusion. The Cannanite Rahab is allowed in for her act of her kindness.[38] Even Egyptians, according to Deuteronomy 23:8b-9, are accepted after
three generations apparently for having initially extended kindness to Israel.[39] The case of the Moabite Ruth is exemplary. According to Deuteronomy 23:4-5,
Moabites are not allowed into the Congregation of the Lord because of their
lack of human decency and hospitality to Israel after the Exodus. In contrast,
Ruth is accepted because of her decency and kindness to her Jewish
mother-in-law.[40] Her example led to the wholesale exemption of women from the Deuteronomic
prohibition.[41]

She in fact is a latter day Tamar. Both Tamar and Ruth are erstwhile barren
foreign widows of Israelite men who insinuate themselves into the messianic
line through linking up with prominent progenitors of David through a
combination of feminine wiles and moral rectitude.

In the same vein, Eliezer’s criterion,
according to Genesis 24:14, for incorporating a woman into Abraham’s family was
precisely kindness and hospitality to strangers. In fact, the midrash lists ten
biblical women of Egyptian, Midianite, Cannanite, Moabite, and Kenite origin
whose kindness accounts for their acceptance as converts.[42] As noted, kindness qualifies one for inclusion as its absence qualifies one for
exclusion, as the Talmud says, “Anyone who has mercy on people, is presumed to
be of our father Abraham’s seed; and anyone who does not have mercy on people,
is presumed not to be of our father Abraham’s seed.”[43] Maimonides follows suit by defining
charitableness as “the sign of the righteous person, the seed of Abraham our
Father. Indeed if someone is cruel and does not show mercy, there are grounds
to suspect his or her lineage.”[44] Obviously, Abrahamic lineage has also an ethical DNA marker.

In sum, there are basically
four strategies for removing the seven-nations ruling from the post-biblical
ethical agenda and vitiating it as a precedent for contemporary practice:

1. The recognition that the mandate for their extermination was a minority
position in the Bible, significantly limited to Deuteronomy 7:1-2, and was only
thought to be partially implemented in parts of the Book of Joshua.
2. The realization that since the threat was posed by their religion and ethics
a change in them brings about a change in their status.
3. The limitation of the jurisdiction of the ruling to the conditions of
ancient Canaan at the time of Joshua.
4. The application of the “Sennacherib principle” that holds that under the
Assyrian empire conquered peoples lost their national identity.

These four stratagems of the biblical and
post-biblical exegetical tradition mitigate if not undermind the ruling
regarding the destruction of the Canaanites. In both cases, ethics end up
trumping genealogy. This understanding helps account for the absence of any
drive to exterminate or dispossess the seven nations even when Israel was at
the height of its power under the reigns of David and Solomon.

Postscript
According to John Yoder’s When War Is Unjust, holy wars differ from just
wars in the following five respects:

1. holy wars are validated by a
transcendent cause;

2. the cause is known by revelation;

3. the adversary has no rights;

4. the criterion of last resort need not
apply;

5. it need not be “winnable.”[45]

This study illustrates how the antidotes
to 3-5 were woven into the ethical fabric of the biblical wars of destruction.
In most cases the resort to war even against the Canaanites was only pursuant
to overtures of peace or in counterattack, and even the chances of success
against Midian were weighed by the Urim and Tumim. It is therefore not
surprising that the expression “holy war” is absent not only from the Bible but
also from the subsequent Jewish ethical and military lexicon.[46]

[1] For a survey of
alternative ways of dealing with the history of the problem outside of Jewish
exegesis, see Ed Noort, “War in the Book of Joshua: History or Theology,”
Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook: Visions of Peace and Tales of
War (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 69-86, at 72-76. For an
assemblage of material on ḥerem, see P. D. Stern, The Biblical
Herem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience, Brown Judaic Studies 211;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.

[2] For the whole
subject of war in the Bible, see Charles
Trimm, “Recent Research on Warfare in the Old Testament,” Currents in
Biblical Research 10 (2012), pp. 171-216.

[3] On the practice
of genocide in antiquity, see Louis Feldman, “Remember Amalek!”: Vengeance,
Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo,
and Josephus, (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2004), pp. 2-6.

[4] Sources differ
on the number. For seven, see Deuteronomy 7:1, Joshua 3:10, 24:11. For six, see
Exodus 3:8, 17; 23:23, 33:2, etc. For five, see Exodus 13:5, 1 Kings 9:20, 2
Chronicles 8:7. For three, see Exodus 23:28. The most comprehensive list is
Genesis 15:19-20 with ten.

[5] The Septuagint
and Pseudo–Jonathan have, in Exodus 33:2, the angel expelling
them.

[6] This is
apparently behind the historical recollection of Psalm 4:2.

[7] See 23:32, 33:2.

[8] See Baruch
Levine, Numbers 1-20 (AB 4a) (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 446f.,with
Leviticus 27:28, and Ezekiel 44:29.

[9] R. W. L.
Moberly, “Toward an Interpretation of the Shema,” ed. Christopher Seitz and
Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard
S. Childs (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 124-144, at 136. For
an expansion of this metaphor thesis, see Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and
the Meaning of “Monotheism”, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), pp. 108-123.

[10] Jacob Milgrom, Numbers,
The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1990), p. 429; see idem, Leviticus (AB 3) ( New York: Doubleday,
1991-2001) 3:2419. Alternatively, see Ziony Zevit, “The Search for Violence in
Israelite Culture and in the Bible,”

eds.
David Bernat and Jonathen Klawans, Religion and Violence: The Biblical
Heritage (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), pp. 16-37, at 25, and 31.

[11] Baruch Levine, Numbers
1-20 (AB 4a) (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 372; see Targum Jonathan,
ad loc. Similarly, the last word of Numbers 21:3 can be rendered as Hormah or
“Destruction;” see Milgrom, ibid., Numbers, pp.172, 456-48. According to
Judges1:17, Hormah was destroyed later; see Tigay, Deuteronomy, p. 348,
n. 121.

[12] See Yehezkel
Kaufmann, Sefer Yehoshua (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer,1959), pp. 146-47.

[13] See Yehezkel
Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian
Exile (New York: Schocken,1960), p. 248. With regard to Judges 3:5-6, see
ibid., n. 4.

14] Judges 11:23,
Psalm 44:3, 80:8b, 2 Chronicles 20:7, Fourth Ezra 1:21, and
The Testament of Moses 12:8 mention only dispossession.

[15] For the presence
of Canaanites in King David’s administration, see the chapter “King David’s
Scribe and High Officialdom of the United Monarchy of Israel,” in Benjamin
Mazar, The Early Biblical Period: Historical Studies, eds. Shmuel Aḥituv
and Baruch A. Levine, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986.

[16] The prophetic
harangue against Canaanite practices focused on their abhorrent behavior to
their children; see Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah
2:23; 3:24; 7:31-32; 19:5-6, 11; 32:35; Ezekiel 16:20-21; 20:25-26,
30-31; 23:36-39. According to Deuteronomy (12:31; 18:9-12) such practices
include child sacrifice. The Wisdom of Solomon
(12:5-6) extends this to slaughtering children and feasting on human flesh and
blood.

[17] Pesiqta de-Rav
Kahana
13.5, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:228f.

[18] Leviticus Rabbah 17.6; see Deuteronomy
Rabbah 5.13-14; P. T. Sheviit 6.1, 36c; and
Maimonides, “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 6.5. According to the midrash, the
Girgashites took up Joshua’s offer and settled in Africa. Accordingly, there is
no mention of their defeat in the conquest narratives of Joshua 6-12, albeit
they are listed in Joshua 24:11 among the seven nations handed over to Joshua.

[19] See Sifrei
Deuteronomy 200, ed. Finkelstein, p. 237, l. 10. This refers to the
thirty-one kings of Canaan whose defeat is narrated in Joshua 12

[20] See Lawson
Stone, “Ethical and Apologetic Tendencies in the Redaction of the Book of
Joshua,” CBQ 53 (1991), pp. 25-36.

[21] See M. Yadayim
4:4, T. Yadayim 2:17 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 683), T. Qiddushin
5:4 B. T. Berakhot 28a, B. T. Yoma 54a, with Oṣar Ha–Posqim,
Even Ha–Ezer 4.

[22] Mishneh Torah,
“Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 5.4; “Laws of Prohibited Relations,” 12.25. See
idem, The Book of Commandments #187: “They
[Amalek(?) and the seven nations] were finished off and destroyed in the days
of David. Those that survived were dispersed and assimilated into the nations
so that no root of them remained.”

[23] Abraham Kook, Tov
Ro’i (Jerusalem 5760), p. 22.

[24] See Sifrei
Deuteronomy 200, ed. Finkelstein, p. 237, with n. 10; and Joseph Babad, Minḥat
Ḥinukh to Sefer Ha-Ḥinukh, mitzvah #527,

[25] Yaakov Zvi
Mecklenburg, Ha–Ktav Ve–Ha–Kabbalah (New
York: Om Publishing Co., 1946), p. 52a, to Deuteronomy 20:16.

[26] “Laws of Kings
and Their Wars,” 6.1,4; see Leḥem Mishnah ad loc.; and Shlomoh
Goren, Meishiv Milḥamah, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Ha-idrah Rabbah,
1986), 3:361-366.

[27] Sifrei Deuteronomy
202, T. Sotah 8:7, B. T.
Sotah 35b with Tosafot, s.v., lerabot

[28] See Sifrei
Deuteronomy 60, ed. Finkelstein, p. 125, lines 11-12, with n. 12.

[29]See Sifrei Numbers 78, ed. Horovitz,
p. 74; Sifrei Zutta, ed. Horovitz, p. 263; Midrash Ruth
Rabbah 2.1; Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 13. 5, 12,
ed. Mandelbaum, 1:228, 237; and Yalqut Shimoni, Joshua 9, Nevi’im
Rishonim, ed. Heyman-Shiloni (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1999), p. 16f.,
n. 4f., along with Michael Fishbane, The
JPS Bible Commentary Haftarot (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication
Society, 2002), p. 232, n. 11; p. 482, n. 11.

[30] See Ruth
Rabbah 2:1 and parallels.

[31] Sifrei Deuteronomy
211; see B. T. Sotah 35b and Tosafot, s.v. lerabot.

[32] B. T. Gittin
57b, B. T. Sanhedrin 96b, Midrash Psalms
1.18. Sennacherib got a similar
comeuppance (ibid.), while the Moabite king Balak became the progenitor of
Ruth; see B. T. Sotah 47a with parallels.

[33] See Genesis
Rabbah 60.7, p. 647; and Leviticus Rabbah 17.5, p. 383.

[34] Beit Ha–Midrash,
ed. Jellinek, 6:79.

[35] Derekh Erets Zutta
1.18, ed. Sperber, p. 20.

[36] Pesikta De–Rav
Kahana 12.20, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:218.

[37] Song Rabbah
5.16.5, and Numbers Rabbah 1.10 (middle).

[38] See Joshua 2:2
with Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 13.4, ed. Mandelbaum,
1:227.

[39] See Rashi ad
loc., and Philo, On the Virtues, 106-108.

[40] See Ruth
2:11-12, 3:10. R. Zeira (Ruth Rabbah 2:14) attributes the
composition of The Book of Ruth to its acts of kindness.

[41] B. T. Yevamot
77a; See M. Yevamot 9:3; Sifrei Deuteronomy 249,
ed. Finkelstein, p. 277, and parallels.

[42] See Yalqut
Shimoni, Joshua 9, Nevi’im Rishonim, ed. Heyman-Shiloni (Jerusalem:
Mossad Harav Kook, 1999), p. 17, line 15.

[43] B. T. Beṣah
32b.

[44] Mishneh Torah, “Gifts to the
Needy,” 10:1-2.

[45] John Howard
Yoder, When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-war thinking
(Minneapolis: Ausburg Pub. House, 1984), p. 26f.

[46] This point is
even conceded by Reuven Firestone in the Preface to his book titled Holy
War in Judaism, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
The biblical “wars of God” (Numbers 21:14; I Samuel 17:47, 18:17, 25:28) are
simply battles fought by the people of God. Although Maimonides (“Laws of Kings
and Their Wars,” 4:10) does take them as wars fought for God in the sense that
they are fought to promote God’s unity or to sanctify the Name, he does not
categorize them as commanded wars; see Gerald Blidstein, “Holy War in Maimonidean
Law,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and
Historical Issues, ed. Joel Kraemer (The Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization, 1991), pp. 209-220, esp. 220, n. 33. Nonetheless, there is
no case in the Bible of a war for spreading the Israelite religion to
foreigners or compelling then to accept it nor is there an example of wars of
conquest being dubbed holy even when booty is dedicated to God. For the
insinuation of “holy war” into Protestant, primarily German, biblical
scholarship based on the model of the Islamic Jihad, see Ben
Ollenburger’s Introduction to Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 1-33;
and John Wood, Perspectives on War in the Bible (Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1998), p. 16 with note.

The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition

by Reuven Kimelman

This study of Amalek deals with seven questions.

1. Is the battle against Amalek primarily ethnic or ethical?

2. What is the difference in reading the biblical data starting with Exodus and Deuteronomy or starting with I Samuel 15?

3. What is the evidence that the Bible already seeks ethical justification for punishing Amalek?

4. How does post-biblical literature in general and rabbinic literature in particular further the transformation of Amalek into an ethical category?

5. How is the “Sennacherib principle” applied to Amalek?

6. How is Amalek de-demonized?

7. How can Haman be an Amalekite when according to 1 Chronicles 4:43 the remnant of Amalek had been wiped out?

1. Introduction
This study deals with the wars against Amalek. The popular conception is that the Bible demands their extermination thereby providing a precedent for genocide.[1] This reading of Amalek filters the Torah material through the prism of Saul’s battle against Amalek in the Book of Samuel. The total biblical data is much more ambiguous making the most destructive comments the exception not the rule as will be evident from a systematic analysis of all the Amalek material in the Bible.

2. AMALEK
The first biblical reference to Amalek appears in Exodus 17:

7The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and because they tried the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord present among us or not?” 8Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 9Moses said to Joshua, “Pick some men for us, and go out and do battle with
Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.” Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11Then, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12But Moses’ hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands were faithful until the sun set. 13And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Inscribe this in a document as a reminder, and recite in the ears of Joshua:[2] ‘I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’ ” 15And Moses built an altar and named it Adonai-nissi. He said, “It means, ‘Hand upon the thro[ne] of the Lo[rd]!’ The Lord will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages.”

This text raises many questions: (1) why could Moses not keep his hands up fully aware that as long as they were raised Israel prevailed, (2) why are the hands of Moses called “faithful,” (3) why was it inscribed in a document and told specifically to Joshua that God — not he — is to blot out Amalek, (4) why is it God — not Israel — who will be at war with Amalek, and if God is waging the war (5) why does God not finish them off as was done with the Egyptians at the Sea rather than extending it throughout the ages. Finally, (6) why do the terms for God and throne appear in the Hebrew orthographically truncated? The inability to account for these matters in literal terms has generated the view that the battle between Amalek and God serves as a metaphor for the conflict between human evil and divine authority where human evil truncates, as if were, the divine presence and authority.[3] The metaphorical reading would account for locating the war with Amalek in Exodus after a crisis of faith — “Is the Lord present among us or not?” (17:7)[4] and why the hands of Moses are described as faithful, namely, faith generating. It also accounts for its location in Deuteronomy after a warning against dishonest business practices that ends with “For everyone who does those things, everyone who deals dishonestly, is abhorrent to the Lord your God” (25:16).[5]

The appearance of Amalek is thus correlated with the absence of faith and morality. Its presence signifies their absence. The position is epitomized in the rabbinic statement: “As long as the seed of Amalek is in the world neither God’s name nor His throne is whole. Were the seed of Amalek to perish from the world the Name would be whole and the throne would be whole.”[6] In fact, an alternative version explicitly states “the wicked” instead of Amalek.[7] Thus the war against Amalek is not against a specific ethnicity, but the human ethical condition. Such a battle ultimately can only be waged by God not Joshua. Therefore Joshua is pointedly told that what he started with the historical Amalek is not his job to finish since that can only be done by God. In sum, the more Amalek comes to embody moral evil, the more it moves from ethnicity to ethics.

It is generally assumed that the metamorphosis of Amalek from the ethnic to the ethical is a product of post-biblical exegesis, absent in the Bible itself. Alternatively, the aforementioned terminological peculiarities reflect a process of metaphorization already evident in the Bible. The possibility that the Exodus text was already understood metaphorically in the Bible may be gathered from the other references to the actual nation of Amalek which lack awareness of the Exodus text. Thus in the next reference to Amalek, in Numbers 13:29 and 14:25, they are designated by their location only. Numbers 14:43-45 warns Israel:

42Do not go up, lest you be routed by your enemies, for the Lord is not in your midst. 43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there to face you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned from following the Lord· and the Lord will not be with you.” 44Yet defiantly they marched toward the crest of the hill country, though neither the Ark of the Covenant nor Moses stirred from the camp. 45And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that hill country came down and pummeled them to/at Hormah.

There is no allusion to the Exodus episode unless it is in the metaphorical explanation that Israel meets defeat because they turn away from God. In any case, there is no command to do away with Amalek nor any special comment about them. In Numbers 24:20, it is predicted that Amalek will be gone or perish forever without any mention that Israel will destroy them.[8] It correlates well with the last biblical mention of Amalek in 1 Chronicles 4:43 where it is recorded that the last remnant of Amalek was done away with as part of its conflict with the tribe of Simeon, but not because of any mandated war against them.

The next reference to Amalek is in Deuteronomy 25. It adds three elements. It seeks to provide a basis for retributive justice by charging Amalek with an unprovoked ambush of the defenseless, seeking to “cut down all the stragglers in your rear.” It is precisely their immorality
that triggered the demand for retribution.[9] It also delays the battle until all the borders have been secured thereby removing it from any defense or security agenda. This process is extended by later authorities who further postponed the struggle with Amalek till the kingship was instituted and the Temple built,[10] while others delayed it to the messianic age.[11] And lastly, it shifts the responsibility for such retribution from God to Israel. It goes like this:

17Bear in mind what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—18how, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and undeterred by fear of God, cut down all the stragglers in your rear. 19Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

This description, especially the expression “undeterred by fear of God,” provoked various classical commentators to level against Amalek a slew of charges such as insolence, immorality in warfare, undermining divine authority,[12] and provoking other nations to attack Israel.[13] Thus it was claimed that they were “justly suffering the punishment which they wrongly strove to deal to others.”[14] Others, however, claimed that the expression “not fearing God” applied to Israel just as do the preceding expressions “famished and weary.”[15] Faulting Israel for “not fearing God” correlates with faulting Israel for the lack of faith, in Exodus 17:7, which precipitated the onslaught of Amalek in 17:8.[16]

Amalek next appears in The Book of Judges.[17] He is described as a launcher of raids into the Israelite heartland without any special comment. In fact, he is sometimes associated there with Midian, who becomes the object of Israel’s wrath (ibid., 6:15), not Amalek. The absence of any special enmity for Amalek is telling.

The next reference to Amalek in 1 Samuel 15 is fateful. It places the responsibility to blot out the memory of Amalek on the king and identifies “the memory” with all the people and livestock. This position was harmonized with Deuteronomy’s position that it is the people’s responsibility by maintaining that the demand devolves upon the people only when led by a king in an act of war.[18] It states:

1Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over His people Israel. Therefore, heed the voice of the Lord’s words. 2‘Thus said the Lord of Hosts: I am exacting the penalty for what Amalek did to Israel, for the assault he made upon them on the road, on their way up from Egypt.’ 3“Now, go attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.”

There are two ways of parsing this section. Either both verse two and three are God’s, or only verse two while three is Samuel’s inference. According to the second parsing, we have here Samuel’s interpretation and application. He places the responsibility to blot out the memory of Amalek on the king, he interprets “blotting out” as physical extermination, and identifies “the memory” with all the people and livestock. Samuel thereby extends the innovation of Deuteronomy seven of including Canaanites in the proscription of Israelite idolators to the Amalekites.[19] This move was perceived as so harsh that the talmudic rabbi, R. Mani, had King Saul himself protest the order objecting that even if the adult males were guilty the children and livestock were not.[20] Since there is no similar objection with regard to the Amalek material in the Torah, the Torah material was not understood as including children and livestock. Saul’s objection in the Talmud must hence be against Samuel’s interpretation that the proscription of Amalek includes the destruction of those who did not partake in Amalek’s dastardly deeds. After all, Exodus faults Amalek for mounting the attack at all, whereas Deuteronomy focuses on their crude cowardice of attacking the stragglers. Both accusations are limited to those who fought.

Just as Samuel expanded the biblical data, Maimonides later on circumscribed Samuel’s
position and harmonized it with Deuteronomy by limiting the attack on Amalek to the people when led by a king in an act of war.[21] He thus ruled that the appointment of a king precedes the war against Amalek. Since he also ruled there that the destruction of Amalek precedes the building of the Temple,[22] he ends up severely restricting its application to the period between the appointment of the king and the building of the Temple. In biblical chronology, that limits it to the reign of Saul and David. Even that, is not as limiting as the Bible itself since there is no mention of Amalek with regard to David’s failed attempt, or Solomon’s successful attempt, to build the Temple nor do either seek to do away with Amalek. Presumably, Amalek was already irrelevant or that Samuel’s understanding of Amalek was never accepted. This, as shall see, makes most sense of the biblical data.

Besides limiting the morally outrageous ruling on Amalek to a specific time, it was limited by a process of moral justification. This process begins already in Deuteronomy by spelling out their felonious behaviour and continues in the Book of Samuel. Samuel thus justifies his slaying of the king of Amalek, Agag, not by referring to crimes of long ago but to recent ones, saying: “As your sword has bereaved women, so shall your mother be bereaved among women” (I Samuel 15:33).[23] By understanding the king as representative of the people, a four hundred year vendetta becomes a quid pro quod judicial execution. Only those who have wielded the sword will die by the sword. [24] Lurking behind this understanding is obviously the verse “A man shall be put to death [only] for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16). A verse which was already used in the Bible (2 Kings 14:6 = 2 Chronicles 25:4) to prevent cross-generational vendettas. A similar understanding of the battle against Amalek as justified retribution appears in the reference to Amalek immediately preceding our story in 1 Samuel 14:48: “He (King Saul) was triumphant, defeating the Amalekites and saving Israel from those who have plundered it.” If the Hebrew of “and” is taken, as it sometimes is, as “namely,”[25] then Saul’s defeat of the Amalek is in response to Amalek’s plundering of Israel.

This reading that Amalek should only get as they gave is justified by David’s tit-for-tat response to Amalek’s plundering. 1 Samuel 30 states what Amalek did to Israel:

1By the time David and his men arrived in Ziklag, on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and against Ziklag; they had stormed Ziklag and burned it down. 2They had taken the women in it captive, low-born and high-born alike; they did not kill any, but carried them off and went their way.

Again Amalek attacked the weak left behind. What did David do? Not knowing what to do he inquired of the Lord:

7David said to the priest Abiathar son of Ahimelech, “Bring the ephod up to me.” 8When Abiathar brought up the ephod to David, inquired of the Lord, “Shall I pursue those raiders? Will I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall overtake and you shall rescue.”

Evidently, there was no recourse to any standing order to kill Amalek. Indeed, nothing is made of the fact that they are Amalekites. They are simply called raiders. David’s counterattack sought only to recoup his own. Amalekites who fled are left alone and the livestock is taken as spoil:

17David attacked them from before dawn until the evening of the next day; none of them escaped, except four hundred young men who mounted camels and got away. 18David rescued everything the Amalekites had taken; David also rescued his two wives. 19Nothing of theirs was missing—young or old, sons or daughters, spoil or anything else that had been carried off —David recovered everything. 20David took all the flocks and herds, which [the troops] drove ahead of the other livestock; and they declared, “This is David’s spoil.”

Note that there is no condemnation of David, à la Saul, for not slaying Amalek or for taking the spoil. Similarly, 1 Chronicles 18:11 records that David dedicated to God the spoils of Amalek[26] just as he did to those of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and the Philistines. Again Amalek is treated as other enemies without a distinctive comment or special treatment just as is the case in Psalm 83:7-9 which lists Amalek among the many enemies of Israel. One tradition, cited by Rashi and Radak to 2 Chronicles 20:1, has the Amalekites trying to pass as Ammonites to wage war against Israel in the time of Jehoshaphat, whereas another, based on Numbers 21:1, has them trying to pass as Canaanites to exploit Israel’s vulnerability upon the death of Aaron.[27]

The final case which shows that the treatment of Amalek was not different from other enemies is David’s encounter with the Amalekite who slew King Saul in 2 Samuel 1:

4“What happened?” asked David. “Tell me!” And he told him how the troops had fled the battlefield, and that, moreover, many of the troops had fallen and died; also that Saul and his son Jonathan were dead. 5“How do you know,” David asked the young man who brought him the news, “that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?” 6The young man who brought him the news answered, “I happened to be at Mount Gilboa, and I saw Saul leaning on his spear, and the chariots and horsemen closing in on him. 7He looked around and saw me, and he called to me. When I responded, ‘At your service,’ 8he asked me, ‘Who are you?’ And I told him that I was an Amalekite. 9Then he said to me, ‘Stand over me, and finish me off for I am in agony and am barely alive.’ 10So I stood over him and finished him off, for I knew that he would never rise from where he was lying. Then I took the crown from his head and the armlet from his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.” … 13David said to the young man who had brought him the news, “Where are you from?” He replied, “I am the son of a resident alien, an Amalekite.” 14“How did you dare,” David said to him, “to lift your hand and kill the Lord’s anointed?” 15Thereupon David called one of the attendants and said to him, “Come over and strike him!” He struck him down and he died. 16And David said to him, “Your blood be on your own head! Your own mouth testified against you when you said, ‘I put the Lord’s anointed to death.’ ”

The Amalekite who informed David that he had slain Saul at his request expected a reward not retribution. The fact that he tells David that he informed Saul that he is an Amalekite indicates his obliviousness of any Israelite crusade to do away with Amalek. Indeed, as we have seen, David treated Amalek no different than any other enemy.

Samuel’s demand for the wholesale killing of Amalek thus stands as the exception not the norm. It does not even coincide with the other biblical data. After all, if Saul had slain all the Amalekites why did they remain so numerous in David’s time? In Numbers, Judges, and elsewhere in 1 Samuel (14:48, 27:8) Amalek gets the same quid pro quod treatment as other ancient enemies. This is even their lot at the hands of Saul in 1 Samuel 14:48.

The normalization of Amalek reaches its peak in the en passant record of their destruction in 1 Chronicles 4:41-43:

41 Those recorded by name came in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah and attacked their encampments and the Meunim who were found there, and wiped them out to this day, and settled in their place because there was pasture there for their flocks. 42 And some of them, five hundred of the Simeonites, went to mount Seir with Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah, and Uzziel, sons of Ishi, at their head. 43 Having destroyed the last surviving Amalekites, they live there to
this day.

The destruction of the remnant of Amalek is told as part of a local conflict with the tribe of Simeon during the reign Hezekiah in the late eighth century BCE. Neither king, prophet, or God is involved. No biblical precedent is noted. It simply is not a big deal. Any subsequent reference or allusion to Amalek is perforce metaphorical. The major biblical example of the metaphoraization of Amalek is Haman, the would-be exterminator of the Jews in the Book of Esther. The association of Amalek with Haman through the term ‘Agagite’ is a consequential development in the move from the ethnic to the ethical. Since, as 1 Chronicles 4:43 notes, the last Amalekites were done away centuries earlier, the association of Amalek with Haman is part of the move of identifying Amalek with their historical wannabees. Apparently, aware of the historical problem, the Greek versions of Esther 3:1 call Haman, or his father Hammedatha, a Bougaean or Macedonian not the Agagite. The Talmud itself understood Hammedatha, in Esther 3:1, 10, as an expression of moral opprobrium.[28]

The Haman case is complex and requires extended analysis. It is common to see the conflict between Mordecai and Haman as an episode in the ongoing bout between Israel and Amalek by linking Mordecai with King Saul and Haman with Amalek. Both links are problematic. The identification of Mordecai with Saul is based on identifying Saul with “the son of Jair, the son of Shimi, the son of Kish, a man of Benjamin” (Esther 2:5). The assumption is that Kish is the Benjaminite Kish, the father of Saul (1 Samuel 9:1),[29] yet no mention is made of the most illustrious and pertinent ancestor — King Saul. Moreover, Jair is not a Benjamite name, but rather a son of Manasseh according to Numbers 32:41, or a priest of David according to 2 Samuel 20:26. Finally, Shimi is identified only as a member of the clan of Saul (2 Samuel 16:5), not as a descendant of Saul. Frustrated by these discrepancies, the Talmud takes Jair, Shimi, and Kish to be metaphorical epithets of Mordecai himself.[30]

With regard to designating Haman the Agagite (Esther 3:1, 10; 5:8; 8:1, 3, 5; 9:10, 24), note that Haman is not designated an Amalekite as other Amalekites are but only as an Agagite.[31] Moreover, the antagonism of Haman for Mordecai is attributed to Mordecai’s provocative
behavior (Esther 3:2-5), a stance he maintains even after the decree (Esther 5:9), and not to Haman’s genealogy. There is no evidence that Haman on his own had it in for the Jews. Similarly, the Greek Addition A to Esther (v. 17) attributes Haman’s ire against Mordecai and his people to Mordecai having exposed the plot against the king of the two eunuchs who, according to Josippon 4, were relatives of Haman. He only becomes subsequently the nefarious model of classical Judeophobia; ticked off by one Jew he seeks to eliminate all Jews.

Note that Haman is not executed because of his genealogy, but because of his murderous machinations. He is specifically hanged on the gallows he prepared for Mordecai as an expression of poetic justice and not for any long standing vendetta. As Samuel justifies Agag’s execution by his iniquitous acts so does the Book of Esther justify Haman’s by his. Neither is punished for the sins of their fathers. Similarly, the Book of Esther no more concludes with a mandate to remember Amalek than does the story of Saul and Agag. In both cases by doing away with the enemy, in Haman’s case also his sons, there remains no remnant in the story itself and the case is closed. Even Haman’s sons are slain not because of their father but because, as 9:5-10 notes, they numbered among the foes of the Jews. Had this been part of a historical vendetta, a tit-for-tat allusion to the impalement of Saul’s sons by the vindictive Gibeonites in 2 Samuel 21:9 would have been in order. Clearly, the moral structure of the book is predicated on a measure for measure system not on any historical retribution or squaring of accounts.

Instructively, if not ironically, Haman’s plan “to destroy, massacre, and exterminate all the Jews, young and old, children and women” (Esther 3:13) smacks of Samuel’s order to Saul: “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” (1 Samuel 15:3). In pointing out the moral absurdity of Haman’s designs there is an oblique critique of Samuel’s. Josephus indeed states that Haman’s hatred of the Jews derives from this incident,[32] as if to say that the Jews are now getting as they gave. A vendetta against Amalek has become a vendetta against the Jews. The Midrash, however, sees this as a preemptive comeuppance arguing that “God gave Amalek a taste of his own future work.”[33] The Midrash is extending Samuel’s moral justification for slaying Agag. Just as Samuel justified killing Agag because he killed others, so the Midrash justifies the order for wiping out Amalek because Haman ordered the wiping out of the Jews. Not able to anchor Amalek’s extraordinary punishment in any prior behavior, the Midrash perforce extends its moral compass to include Amalek’s future behavior. In any case, the issue remains moral.

This moral self-criticism extends to comments made about Amalek’s mother Timna. Accordingly to the Talmud, her efforts to convert were rejected by all three Patriarchs. Wanting to join this people at all cost, she marries Isaac’s grandson, through Esau, Eliphaz. The fruit of
this relationship is Amalek who goes on to aggrieve Israel for their having ticked off his mother Timna.[34] The insight is that Israel’s lack of receptivity to converts can trigger a resentment that leads to retributive vindictiveness.

The allusion to the Saul-Amalek incident explains another relevant peculiarity of the Book of Esther. Thrice, it states that “they did not lay hands on the spoils” (9:10, 15, 16) of those persons slain in trying to kill the Jews even though the royal edict (8:11) explicitly permitted it. Since the original decree specifically mentioned (3:13) the right of spoils for the slain Jews why did the Jews not act in kind? Unless it was to avoid transgressing the prohibition against taking the spoils of Amalek mentioned in 1 Samuel 15:3. But the murderous Persians are not of Amalek stock,[35] unlike the sons of Haman where the same scruple was adhered to (see Esther 9:10). If they are not of Amalek why were they treated as if they were? if not because they were Amalek in character. Despite no chance for spoils, now that government support had been rescinded, they pressed on to kill the Jews. Wanting to kill Jews for its own sake, they are dubbed thrice-fold not just the enemies of the Jews, but also their haters (Esther 9:1, 5, 16).[36]
Acting like Amalek, they are treated as Amalek, no longer an ethnic designation but an ethical metaphor.[37]

Maimonides also makes no special provision for Amalek when he argues that all wars must be preceded by overtures of peace indicating that were Amalek to sue for peace they would not be subject to destruction.[38] The ruling that all must be offered terms of peace flows from the following Midrash:

God commanded Moses to make war on Sihon, as it is said, ‘Engage him in battle’ (Deuteronomy 2:24), but he did not do so. Instead he sent messengers . . . to Sihon . . . with an offer of peace (Deuteronomy 2:26). God said to him: ‘I commanded you to make war with him, but instead you began with peace; by your life, I shall confirm your decision. Every war upon which Israel enters shall begin with an offer of peace, as it is written, “When
you approach a city to attack it, you shall offer it terms of peace”
(Deuteronomy 20:10).[39]

Since Joshua is said to have extended such an offer to the Canaanites,[40] and Numbers 27:21 points out Joshua’s need for inquiring of the priestly Urim and Tumim to assess the chances of victory, it is evident that also divinely-commanded wars are predicated on overtures of peace as well as on assessments of the outcome.[41] Moreover, the cross-generational struggle against Amalek, according to Maimonides, is limited to Amalek maintaining the practices of their biblical ancestors of rejecting the Noachide laws which stipulate the norms of human decency and civil society.[42] Were Amalek to accept them they would achieve the status of other Noachites. Again morality trumps biology.

The concern with the humanity of the enemy is also a factor. Referring to Deuteronomy 21:10ff. Josephus says the legislator of the Jews commands “showing consideration even to declared enemies. He . . . forbids even the spoiling of fallen combatants; he has taken measures to prevent outrage to prisoners of war, especially women.”[43] Apparently reflecting a similar sensibility, R. Joshua claimed that his biblical namesake took pains to prevent the disfigurement of fallen Amalekites,[44] whereas David brought glory to Israel by giving burial to his enemies.[45] It is this consideration for the humanity of the enemy that forms the basis of
Philo’s explanation for the biblical requirement in Numbers 31:19 of expiation for those who fought against Midian. He writes:

For though the slaughter of enemies is lawful, yet one who kills a man, even if he does so justly and in self-defense and under compulsion, has something to answer for, in view of the primal common kinship of mankind. And therefore, purification was needed for the slayers, to absolve them from what was held to have been a pollution.[46]

The position that the negation of Amalek is ethical not ethnic is also reflected in the following talmudic anecdote about Amalek’s ancestor Esau[47] who was later identified with Rome:

Antoninus (the Roman Emperor) asked Rabbi (Judah the Prince): Will I enter the world to come?” “Yes,” said Rabbi. “But,” said Antoninus, “is it not written, ‘And there will be no remnant to the house of Esau’ ” (Obadiah 18). (Rabbi replied) “The verse refers only to those who act as Esau acted.” We have learned elsewhere likewise: “And there will be no remnant of the house of Esau,” might have been taken to apply to all (of the house of Esau), therefore Scriptures says specifically — “of the house of Esau,” to limit it only to those who act as Esau acted.[48]

Once the criterion becomes behavior and not birth, the Talmud can claim that even the descendants of Haman the Amalekite became students of Torah.[49] Following suit, Maimonides ruled: “We accept converts from all nations of the world.”[50] Radak even entertains the possibility that the Amalekite who refers to himself as a ger in 2 Samuel 1:13 meant a convert to Judaism. For him and Maimonides, the wiping out of Amalek can be accomplished by the wiping out of Amalekite qualities. This is why Maimonides states with regard to Amalek: “It is also a positive commandment to remember always his evil deeds.”[51] He adopts the position of Sifrei Deuteronomy[52] that “remember” is fulfilled with the mouth, and “do not forget” is fulfilled through the heart. No act of violence is mandated against Amalek. So why, according to him, was Amalek punished so harshly to begin with? To deter future Amalek wannabees.[53]

As Amalek became more and more a metaphor for human evil, the eradication of Amalek from the national-historic plane was shifted to the metaphysical and psycho-spiritual.[54] The interioralization of Amalek imposes the duty of eradication on all. This shift parallels the aforementioned rabbinic reading of the Amalek episode in Exodus if not that of the Bible itself.

In the post-biblical period the shift from ethnicity to ethics is total. In both the Saul-Amalek and Haman episodes, Scripture indicates that no one remained. Their ethnicity was also rendered operationally defunct by applying the same “Sennacherib principle” to them that was applied to the long gone Canaanites.[55] This principle was based on the fact that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, erased the national identity of those he conquered which included all of the nations of ancient Canaan and surrounding nations,[56] as he says: “I have erased the borders of the peoples; I have plundered their treasures, and exiled their vast populations” (Isaiah 10:13). Independent of the “Sennacherib principle,” others limited the moral relevance of the command against Amalek by restricting the waging of a war of total destruction against Amalek to King Saul.[57] Such limitations best reflects the total biblical data. Applying the “Sennacherib principle” and limiting the commandment to a specific period in the past or postponing it to the messianic age effectively removes the case of Amalek from the post-biblical ethical agenda.

In sum, there are four ways of rendering Amalek operationally defunct:
1. The recognition that the mandate for their extermination was a minority position based on Na”kh (1 Samuel 15), not confirmed in the rest of the Bible indeed implicitly denied.
2. The realization that the process of transmuting Amalek into a metaphor for human evil is rooted in the Torah (Exodus 17).
3. The limitation of the conflict to King Saul and/or postponing the battle to the messianic era
4. The application of the same “Sennacherib principle” to Amalek that was applied to the long gone Canaanites.

These four overlapping stratagems of the biblical and post-biblical exegetical tradition mitigate the ruling regarding the destruction of the Amalekites. This trumping of genealogy by ethics helps account for the absence of any drive to exterminate or dispossess Amalek even when Israel was at the height of its power under the reigns of David and Solomon.

[1]On the practice of
genocide in antiquity, see Louis Feldman, “Remember Amalek!”: Vengeance,
Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo,
and Josephus, (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2004), pp. 2-6.

[2]Taking kee as
introducing direct speech; see The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old
Testament, eds. L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, et al., (3 vols.,
Leiden: Brill, 1994-1996), 2:471a; and Amos Ḥעakham, Sefer Shmot,
(2 vols., Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1991), 1:329a.

[3]See Pesikta de–Rav
Kahana 3; and Pesikta Rabbati 12.

[4] Which is how the
Midrash takes it; see Midrash Tanḥעuma, Be–Shalaḥע
25, p. 92; and Pesikta de–Rav Kahana 3.8, ed.
Mandelbaum, 1:47 with parallels in n. 5. Otherwise it should probably be
located several chapters later after the Sinaitic narrative.

[5]So Pesikta de
Rav-Kahana 3.4, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:42-43:

R. Banai, citing R. Huna, began his discourse
[on remembering Amalek] with the verse “A false balance is an abomination to
the Lord …” (Proverbs 11:1). And R. Banai, citing R. Huna, proceeded: When you
see a generation whose measures and balances are false, you may be certain that
a wicked kingdom will come to wage war against such a generation. And the
proof? The verse “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord” … which is
immediately followed by a verse that says, “The immoral kingdom will come and
bring humiliation [to Israel]” (Prov. 11:2).

See Rashi and Abarbanel
to Deuteronomy 25:17 with Tosafot to B. T. Kiddushin
33b, s. v. ve-eima.

[6]Pesikta De–Rav Kahana
3.16, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:53 with parallels in n. 8.

[7]See Menaḥem Kasher,
Torah Shelemah (Jerusalem: Beth Torah Shelemah, 1949-1991), 14:272f.

[8]This may be what allowed
Josephus (Antiquities 3:60) to say that Moses predicted that the
Amalekites would perish with utter annihilation.

[9]As spelled out in the
end of the first stanza of the kerovah of Parshat Zakhor; see the Yotzer
for Parshat Zakhor in The Complete ARTScroll Siddur for
Weekday/ Sabbath/ Festival, Nusach Ashkenaz (Brooklyn: Mesorah
Publications, 1990), p. 880f.

[10]Sifrei Deuteronomy 67, T.
Sanhedrin 4.5, B. T. Sanhedrin 20b.

[11]The eschatological
reading may already be in the Dead Sea Scroll 4Q252, 4.1-3; see Louis
Feldman, “Remember Amalek!”: Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group
Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus
(Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2004), p. 52f. It is clearly already
tannaitic. Rabbi Joshua reads Exodus 17:6 to mean “When God will sit on His
throne and His kingship is established — at that time will the Lord war on
Amalek.” And according to Rabbi Eliezer: “When will their names be blotted out?
When idolatry is uprooted along with its devotees,when the Lord is alone in the
world and His kingdom lasts forever– then the Lord will go out and war on
those people” (Mekhilta de–Rabbi Ishmael, ed.
Horowitz-Rabin, p. 186). See the version and discussion in Menahem Kahana, The
Two Mekhiltot on the Amalek Portion [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,
1999), p. 239f. The Aramaic translation, Targum Jonathan, takes
the word “end” in Numbers 24:20, which refers to Amalek, as an allusion to the
Messianic era. For medievals who also postponed the conflict to the messianic
period, see Moses b. Jacob of Coucy, Sefer Mitsvot Gadol (SeMaG),
negative commandment #226; and R. David b. Zimra (RaDBaZ) with Maimonidean
Glosses to Hilkhot Melakhim 5:5.This probably includes Maimonides
since he made the battle with Amalek contingent upon a king, see his “Laws of
Kings and Their Wars,” 1:2.

[12]See Nachmanides,
Abarbanel, and Sforno ad loc., and Exodus 17:16 along with Josephus, Antiquities
4.304.

[13]See Josephus, Antiquities
3.41; Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Amalek 1 (ed. Horovitz-Rabin), p. 176; Mekilta
de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai 81 (ed. Epstein-Melamed) 119; and the end of the
second stanza of the kerovah of Parshat Zakhor in The Complete
ARTScroll Siddur for Weekday/ Sabbath/ Festival, Nusach Ashkenaz (Brooklyn:
Mesorah Publications, 1990), p. 882f.

[14]Philo, The Life
of Moses, 1:218 (LCL 6:391).

[15]Mekhilta, Amalek 1, ed.
Horowitz-Rabin, p. 116, l. 9 (see p. 116, lines 3 and 18). See Ralbag
(Gersonides) as cited by Abarbanel ad loc.

[16]See Midrash Tannaim,
ad loc., ed. Hoffmann, p. 170; and Hizkuni ad loc.

[17]Judges 3:13; 6:3-5, 33;
7:12; 12:15. The
word עמלק
appears also in 5:14, but, based on the Septuagint, probably should be emended
to עמק.

[18]Based on B. T.
Sanhedrin 20b, Maimonides explicitly
states that the commandment devolves only on the collectivity not the
individual; see his Book of Commandments,
end of positive commandments #248. In his “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 1:2,
based on 1 Samuel 15:1-3, Maimonides rules that the appointment of a king
precedes the war against Amalek. He also rules there that the destruction of
Amalek precedes the building of the Temple; see Sifrei Deuteronomy 67, ed. Finkelstein, p. 132, with n. 4.
Nonetheless, there is no mention of Amalek with regard to David’s failed
attempt, or Solomon’s successful attempt, to build it. Presumably, Amalek had
already disappeared or was irrelevant.

[19]See Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary Haftarot
(Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002), p. 344f.

[20]B. T. Yoma
22b; and Yalqut Shimoni 2:121 (Genesis–Former
Prophets [10 vols., ed. Heyman-Shiloni, Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook,
1973-1999], Former Prophets, p. 242 with parallels).

[21]Based on B. T.
Sanhedrin 20b, Maimonides explicitly
states that the commandment devolves only on the collectivity not the
individual; see his Book of Commandments,
end of positive commandments #248.

[22]“Laws of Kings and Their
Wars,” 1:2; see Sifrei Deuteronomy 67, ed. Finkelstein, p. 132, with n. 4.

[23]This sentiment leads, in
the nineteenth century, Avraham Sachatchover (Bornstein) to reject the idea
that the seed of Amalek is punished for the sins of their fathers, for it is
written (Deuteronomy 24:16): “Fathers shall not be put to death for children,
neither shall children be put to death for fathers.” Thus the punishment
of Amalek is contingent upon their maintaining the ways of their fathers (Avnei Nezer, part 1: Orahע Ḥayyim [New York: Hevrat Nezer, 1954]
2.508).

[24]As Maimonides states:
“Amalek who hastened to use the sword should be exterminated by the sword” (Guide for the Perplexed 3:41. ed. Pines, p. 566); see
Eugene Korn, “Moralization in Jewish Law: Genocide, Divine Commands and
Rabbinic Reasoning,” The Edah Journal
5:2 (Sivan 5766/2006), pp. 2-11, especially p. 9.

[25]See The Hebrew and Aramaic
Lexicon of the Old Testament,
eds. L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, et al., (3 vols., Leiden: Brill, 1994-1996)
1:258a

[26]Just as Saul, in 1
Samuel 15:15b, claimed was his intention.

[27]See Numbers Rabbah 19.20, Yalkut Shimoni 1:764 with Menahem Kasher, Torah Shleimah 41:196,
nn. 4-5.

[28] צורר בן צורר, see P. T.
Yevamot 2:5 with Penei Moshe ad loc.; and Agadat Esther 3.1, ed.
Buber, p. 26, along with Louis Ginzberg, Legends
of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1968)
6:461, n. 88, and 462f., n. 93.

[29]See Midrash Psalms 7.13-15,
and B. T. Moed Qatan 16b

[30]B. T. Megillah
12b; see Menachem Kasher, Torah Sheleimah, Megillat Ester (Jerusalem 1994), p. 60, n. 45.

[31]Accordingly, Targum Rishon adds “Agag son of Amalek” and Targum Sheinei traces the
genealogy all the way back to Esau echoing Genesis 36:12.

[32]Josephus, Antiquities 11.212

[33]Pesikta Rabbati 13.7, ed.
Friedmann, p. 55b; ed. Ulmer, 13.15, p. 205. For the demonization of Amalek,
see the Yotzer for Parshat Zakhor, Birkat Avot, found in The Complete ARTScroll Siddur for Weekday/ Sabbath/ Festival, Nusach
Ashkenaz (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1990), pp. 880-883.

[34]See B. T. Sanhedrin 99b, Midrash Ha–Gadol, Genesis, ed. Margulies, p. 609

[35]Pace Targum Rishon 9:6, 12; Rabbenu Baḥעyעa to
Exodus 17:19 and Ralbag to 1 Samuel 15:6

[36]The combination of
“enemies and haters” recurs in the blessing after the Shema of the evening
service referring to Israel’s opponents in general not just the Egyptians.

[37]This is similar to the
classical Soloveitchikean position which identifies Amalek with those groups
whose policy with regard to the Jewish people is “Let us wipe them out as a
nation” (Psalm 83:5). See the discussion of Norman Lamm, “Amalek and the Seven
Nations: A Case of Law vs. Morality,” in War
and Peace in the Jewish
Tradition, ed. Lawrence Schiffman and
Joel Wolowelsky (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2007), p. 215.

[38]“Laws of Kings and Their
Wars,” 6.1, 4. This became the normative position; see Aviezer Ravitsky,
“Prohibited Wars in Jewish Tradition,” ed. Terry Nardin, The Ethics of War
and Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 115-127.

[39]Deuteronomy Rabbah 5.13 and Midrash
Tanhעuma, Sעav 5.

[40]“Who came and told the
Cannanites the Israelite were coming to their land?

R. Ishmael b. R. Nahman said, ‘Joshua
sent them three orders: “He who wants to leave may leave; to make peace may
make peace, to make war against us may make war.” ’ The Girgashites left …
The Gibeonites made peace… Thirty-one kings made war and fell” (Leviticus
Rabbah 17.6, ed. Margulies, p. 386 and parallels).

[41]The position that all
wars must be preceded by an overture of peace gained widespread acceptance; see
Maimonides, “Laws of Kings and Their Wars” 6:1, 5; Nahmanides and Rabbenu
Baḥaya to Deuteronomy 20:10; SeMaG
positive mitzvah #118; Sefer Ha-Hעinukh mitzvah #527 along with Minḥat
Hעinukh, ad loc.; and possibly
Sa’adyah Gaon, see Yeruḥעam Perla, Sefer
Ha-Mitsvot Le-Rabbenu Sa’adyah (3 vols., Jerusalem, 1973) 3:251-252. Cf. Tosafot, B. T. Gittin 46a, s.v. keivan.

[42]See Maimonides, “Laws of
Kings and Their Wars” 6.4, with Joseph Caro, Kesef Mishnah, ad loc.; and Avraham Bornstein, Avnei Nezer, to Oraḥע Ḥעayyim
508.

[43]Josephus, Contra Apion II. 212-13.

[44]Mekhilta, Amalek 1, ed.
Horovitz-Rabin, p. 181; ed. Lauterbach, 2:147; and Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, Ha‘ameq Davar to Deuteronomy 17:3.

[45]See Rashi and Radak to 2
Samuel 8:13. In general, no one is to be left unburied. Deut. 21:23 allows for
no exceptions; see B. T. Sanhedrin 46b with Saul Lieberman, “Some
Aspects of After life in Early Rabbinic Literature, in Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubileee Volume (Jerusalem: American Academy
of Jewish Research, 1965), pp. 495-532, 516.

[46]Philo, Moses 1.314.

[47]See Genesis 36:12, 16; I
Chronicles 1:36.

[48]B. T. Avodah
Zarah 10b. A later midrash even
applies “Your priests O Lord,” (Psalm 132:9, or 2 Chronicles 6:41) to Antoninus
the son of Severus; see Bet Ha–Midrasch,
ed. Jellinek (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967) 3:28; and Yalqut Shimoni 2:429. He
is also included among the ten rulers who became proselytes; see Louis
Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 7
vols. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1968), 6:412, n. 66.

[49]B. T. Sanhedrin 96b, B. T. Gittin 57b. For a range of modern traditional opinion on the
issue, see Yoel Weiss, “Be-Inyan Mi-Benei Banav Shel Haman Lamdu Torah Be-Benei
Beraq, Ve-Ha’im Meqablim Gerim Me-Zera Amaleq,” Kovets Ginat Veradim 1.1 (5768 [20008]), pp. 193-196.

[50]“Laws of Prohibited
Relations,” 12:17.

[51]“Laws of Kings and Their
Wars” 5.5. Not dealing with messianic reality, the subsequent codes, Arba‘ah Turim and the Shulkhan Arukh, make no mention of Amalek’s elimination only the possible
(!) requirement of reading it from the Torah; see Joseph Karo, Shulkhan Arukh, Orakh Hayyim 685:7.

[52]296; see Finkelstein
edition, p. 314, l. 8, with n. 8.

[53]Guide for the Perplexed
3:41 (ed. Pines, p. 566).

[54]See Zohar 3:281b. The approach gained currency in medieval philosophy, in
medieval and Renaissance biblical exegesis, in Kabbalah, in Hasidic literature,
and in other modern traditional commentaries; see Eliot Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of
Jewish Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 134-35;
Alan Cooper, “Amalek in Sixteenth Century Jewish Commentary: On the
Internalization of the Enemy,” in The
Bible in the Light of Its Interpreters: Sarah Kamin Memorial Volume, ed.
Sara Japhet (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1994), pp. 491-93; Avi Sagi, “The
Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with the Moral Problem,” The Harvard
Theological Review, 87 (1994), pp. 323-346, esp. 331-36; and Yaakov Meidan, Al Derekh
Ha–Avot (Alon Shvut: Tevunot, 2001), pp. 332-35.

[55]See Elimelech (Elliot)
Horowitz, “From the Generation of Moses to the Generation of the Messiah: Jews
against Amalek and his Descendants,” [Hebrew] Zion 64 (1999), pp.
425-454; and Sagi, “The Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with
the Moral Problem,” op. cit. pp. 331-336, who cites Yosef Babad, Minḥat Ḥinukh, 2. 213 (commandment
604); and Avraham Karelitz, Ḥazon Ish Al
Ha-Rambam (Bnei Brak, 1959), p. 842.

[56]See M. Yadayim 4:4, T. Yadayim 2:17 (ed. Zuckermandel, p.
683), T. Qiddushin 5:4 B. T. Berakhot
28a, B. T. Yoma 54a, with Osעar Ha–Posqim, Even Ha–Ezer 4.

[57]See Minhעat Hעinukh to Sefer Ha–Hעinukh,
end of mitzvah #604; and Avraham
Karelitz, Ḥעעazon Ish Al
Ha–Rambam (Bnei Brak, 1959), p. 842.