Exodus 17:8

CONFLICT WITH AMALEK, Exodus 17:8-16.

8. Then came Amalek The Amalekites were a nomadic people of whom we find the first trace in the life of Abraham, (Genesis 14:7,) who seem to have been pressed westwards into Southern Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula, from the shores of the Persian Gulf, by the advance of the Assyrian empire . (Knobel’s Volkertafel .) There are now found in the desert primitive remains of tombs, stone circles, and archaic sculptures, which are referred to this people. Stone huts of the beehive form, seven to ten feet high, with well-made door-openings two feet square, made of rubbed stones, are also found in various parts of these deserts, and are assigned by many antiquarians to the Amalekites. (See cut on opposite page.)

This tribe, or nation, now held the great thoroughfare from Egypt to Palestine by Wady Feiran and Akabah. We have already seen that the Philistines held the northern thoroughfare along the Mediterranean shore, by Gaza and the maritime plain, so that collision with the one or the other of these nations was inevitable. This was now their first conflict with this wide-spread people, who harassed them at intervals through all the period of the Judges, who were signally defeated by Saul, and finally destroyed by David. 2 Samuel 8:12. This was chiefly a guerrilla warfare, the Amalekites blocking the steep, narrow passes against the advance of Israel, and harassing their flanks and rear. Deuteronomy 25:18. At Rephidim, however, three miles above the rock just described as the rock of Moses, in the Arab tradition, the Wady Feiran broadens out into a plain which extends up into two branch valleys along the flanks of the lofty Mount Serbal . The conical hill Tahuneh, above described, commands a full view of this plain and of these branch valleys, between which rises the jagged front of Serbal. (See cut on opposite page.)

The only objection worthy of notice which is made to locating this conflict before Tahuneh is thatxodus 19:2, states that when Israel departed from Rephidim they "camped before the mount," Sinai, which is more than a day's march from the oasis ofFeiran. But Mount Sinai is not stated to be the next station after Rephidim, and the itinerary of Numbers xxxiii shows, as we have already seen, that several intermediate stations are omitted in the Exodus narrative. Dophkah and Ahesh, between the Desert of Sin and Rephidim, find no mention here. Of course those who (like Knobel, Keil, Murphy) suppose that the Israelites went to Sinai by the Debbet er Ramleh, place Rephidim somewhere in that sandy plain. See Introduction to chap. 16.