{"id":58009,"date":"2019-06-22T08:09:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T05:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=58009"},"modified":"2023-01-15T09:36:52","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T07:36:52","slug":"amalekites-and-kenites-cruelty-and-compassion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/amalekites-and-kenites-cruelty-and-compassion\/","title":{"rendered":"Amalekites And Kenites, Cruelty And Compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[641,603,436,397],"acf":{"old_id":"58009","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":48376,"related_cahpter":"247","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The Amalekites are not emotionally unintelligent. But they are cruel","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">God acts in today\u2019s chapter on a promise that he made long before. Upon departing Egypt for the wilderness, Israel was immediately set upon by the Amalekites. (Exodus 17:8-16) With Joshua on the field of battle and Moses above, raising his hands, Israel defeated the Amalekites, and God pledged to make eternal war against them. Now Samuel comes to Saul, recalling the Amalekite attack on Israel \u201cwhen it went up from Egypt\u201d (1 Samuel 15:2), and urges him to seek vengeance. Saul marches on the city of the Amalekites, but before he attacks, he warns off the Kenites, a tribe that evidently lives alongside the Amalekites: \u201cTurn and descend from the midst of the Amalekites, lest I sweep you away with them; yet you did kindness with all the children of Israel when they went up from Egypt\u201d (15:6). The Kenites are descended from Jethro, Moses\u2019 father-in-law, and Saul seems to allude to the story in which Jethro counseled Moses to establish a judicial system rather than serve alone as judge for all Israel (Exodus 18).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This passage, pairing the Amalekites and the family of Jethro as two groups that came to Israel after the exodus from Egypt, the second directly after the first, the one to do evil and the other good, compels us to reflect on the two passages in Exodus 17-18. Two notable points of comparison emerge. First, both the Amalekites and Jethro are attentive to the limitations of physical body. Jethro appreciates that Moses cannot judge the people alone; \u201cyou will wither away, you and all the people with you\u201d (Exodus 18:18). The Amalekites too, take note of others\u2019 fatigue. They recognize that the Israelites, after their hurried departure from Egypt, are \u201ctired and weary\u201d (Deuteronomy 25:18). The Amalekites are not emotionally unintelligent. But they are cruel. Unlike Jethro, they intervene not to prevent debilitating weariness, but to take advantage of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We also learn something about Moses. In Exodus 18 he is unable to recognize his own limitations: Jethro must teach him that he cannot judge the people alone. Yet in the very preceding narrative, in the war against Amalek, he takes Aaron and Hur with him up the hill, evidently aware that he will need their support to hold up his hands over the course of the entire battle (18:10-12). But there is a certain logic in Moses\u2019 selective blindness, if we attend to the connection between self-perception and self-evaluation. \u00a0Moses conceives of himself, we may suppose, as a teacher, not a warrior. In his own eyes, he is a man who works with his head, not his hands. It is easy for him to see that he cannot fight Israel\u2019s battles by himself, even in the quasi-magical way in which he conducts the war from the hilltop. But it is harder for him to acknowledge the fact that even in the role with which he most identifies, as Israel\u2019s teacher, his capacities are not unlimited. To see this, he needs Jethro\u2019s outsider perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image: William Brassey Hole: Battle of Raphidim \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":58010,"id":58010,"title":"isam15-amalek","filename":"isam15-amalek.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/amalekites-and-kenites-cruelty-and-compassion\/isam15-amalek\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"isam15-amalek","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":58009,"date":"2019-06-22 05:08:52","modified":"2022-05-07 22:59:11","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":549,"height":442,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek-300x242.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":242,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek.jpg","medium_large-width":549,"medium_large-height":442,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek.jpg","large-width":549,"large-height":442,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek.jpg","1536x1536-width":549,"1536x1536-height":442,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek.jpg","2048x2048-width":549,"2048x2048-height":442,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek.jpg","post_full_size-width":549,"post_full_size-height":442,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam15-amalek-522x420.jpg","home_baner-width":522,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Amalekites And Kenites, Cruelty And Compassion","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"The Amalekites are not emotionally unintelligent. 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