First Covenant Foundation

In the Bible, Amalek is the anti-Israel.

       Starting in Genesis, Amalek comes into the world as the grandson of Esau - Esau, Abraham’s grandson, Isaac’s son, and Jacob’s dangerous brother, Esau.

Esau is the man who thought so little of God’s blessing that he traded it for a pot of soup! His illegitimate but direct descendant Amalek bred and multiplied and became a family and then a nation: a jealous, cruel nation.

In the course of more than 100 generations, Amalek spread, like a virus. It shared its seed with every nation. 

The theory of this blog piece is that, historically, not merely as metaphor but in a very real sense, Amalek exists as an infectious spirit: a contagious infestation of fierce jealousy, envy, injured pride and ultra-violence.

God created Israel as a force for holiness: Amalek is Israel’s opposite. Amalek is Israel’s destroyer.

Nazi Germany incarnated Amalek. From 1933 until May, 1945, Amalek ruled Germany. The German people became Amalek.

This is not to say that every single German in that time period became evil. Not at all: the Germans themselves suffered from the Nazis. Some Germans hated the Nazis and everything they stood for. Some Germans were good, even saintly people. But it’s still fair to say that, in that time period, the German people accepted Nazism. In other words, the spirit of Amalek infected the German people.

The Nazis infected the Arab world with the Amalek virus, and the same virus has now spread to much of the Muslim world. Again, some Arabs today and some Muslims today despise this evil, just as there were Germans who lived under Hitler and the swastika who hated Nazism. But it’s still fair to say that the spirit of Amalek infects the Arab world and that the spirit of Amalek infects Islam.  And now Amalek - as the Nazis did - threatens the world.

Amalek hates Israel and all whom it associates with Israel. Amalek hates America.

Amalek is furiously jealous. Amalek attacked America and “the Jews” on 9/11. Amalek infects and has become Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and Fatah and Hamas. Amalek cannot be appeased. Amalek threatens the world like the Nazis - the Muslim and Arab Amalekites’ recent predecessors - menaced the world.

Exodus 17:16: The Lord hath sworn, the Lord will have war with Amalek in every generation (from generation to generation).

Israel is commanded to “blot out the memory of Amalek.”

The spirit of Amalek operates as the antithesis of and greatest hindrance to the manifestation of the reign of God in the world.

‘When will the name of these [Amalekites] be blotted out?’ asks the Midrash, the ancient rabbinic commentary on the Book of Exodus. ‘When idolatry is eradicated together with its worshippers, and God is recognized throughtout the world as One, and His kingdom is established for all eternity.’ (Midrash, Mechilta on Exodus, chapter 17)

In Deuteronomy 25, God commands Israel: Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way, when you were leaving Egypt: that he happened upon you on the way, and he struck those of you who were hindmost, all the weaklings at your rear, when you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear G’d. . . You shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens - you shall not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

Amalek appears in every generation. Not every evil character and not every enemy of Israel is Amalek. The Babylonians who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem weren’t Amalek, for instance. Neither were the Romans who destroyed the Second Temple. But the Edomites who called out to the Babylonians to “destroy, destroy” (as the Bible’s Writings record) were Amalek; the Nazis were Amalek, and the Arabs and Muslims who live jealous of Israel, who pray to a Jew-hating Allah, who furiously envy Israel: they are infected with the spirit of Amalek.

Al-Qaeda and the vicious terrorists who carried out the attacks on America “and on the Jews” on 9/11 are Amalek. By attacking America they hurt Jews and by attacking Jews they hurt America, they think.

Go the First Covenant Website to the August, 2006 Covenant Connection, the First Covenant Foundation’s monthly newsletter, to learn more about Amalek.

MD

Hiram wants to get into Isaiah 53 and the true identity of G’d’s suffering servant. We had an article here on the subject, but, as I went through it, trying to correct a huge number of misformatted punctuation marks, I decided that I just didn’t like the article that much. It wasn’t that it was strident or offensive to Christians - though it did seem gratuitously offensive - but that it just didn’t do a good enough job of interpreting Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 is very important. It scrolls across the beginning of the Mel Gibson movie, the Passion of the Christ, and much of the point of that movie is that prophecy - Isaiah - foretold that “a man” should suffer horribly for the sake of G’d before man. But anyone who reads Isaiah chapter 53 in context with Isaiah chapters 49-52 and 54 should immediately recognize that the “man” is Israel, the Jewish people as a whole. It’s the Jewish people, not a single Jewish man (that is, not just Jesus, or Yeshu ben Yosef, but the Children of Israel collectively) who represent G’d’s special instrument to bring Torah principles to the rest of humankind. What Isaiah is saying is that the Children of Israel will experience great suffering as they try to accomplish the special mission that G’d has given them.

Probably the strangest thing about the history of Isaiah 53 is the way that that it, through what we might call the Gibson intepretation of the chapter, has promoted Jewish suffering - that Isaiah’s acute prophecy has directly contributed to the woes of the Jewish people on earth, by making them out to be the bad guys, the bad people who cause the horrible suffering of their own fellow Jew, Jesus.

A good article on the subject of Isaiah 53 - on its meaning, on its history, on the Gibson version of it, etc. - would be very welcome here. In the meantime, if you want to see  the article that we used to have here, please contact Hiram, in care of this blog, and he can send it along to you himself. 

Our purpose here is to introduce people of every creed to the greatness of the Seven Universal Laws. The world needs to discover the depth and brilliance of the Noahide Laws. That just isn’t going to happen if, instead of straightly explaining these sublime principles, we try to take people’s precious religious ideas and feelings away from them. The First Covenant Foundation exists to give, not to take or diminish. We have this tremendous Biblical system to offer - the stories of Adam and Noah and Abraham and the patriarchs and Moses, etc., and true knowledge of right and wrong. We don’t do our job when, instead of adding to people’s knowledge, we insult, mock or diminish their reality.

Every spiritual institution, whether church, temple, synagogue, or mosque, should teach the Seven Universal Laws. Without eliminating existing religions (and true understanding of Isaiah 53 isn’t about to eliminate Christianity), these sublime moral principles, the Seven Universal Laws, will eventually bring the world’s people together in harmony and love.

 MD