Who Were the Amalekites? (And the Israelites for that Matter)
The truth about the biblical Amalekites and what it teaches us about close associations gone bad and the seeds of genocidal fervor.
September 24, 2024
At first glance, a novel set in ancient Israel, about 2700 years ago, might not seem all that relevant in the year 2024. But then the prime minister of modern Israel, facing domestic corruption charges and international atrocity crimes, invokes one of the principal themes of There Came Darkness in the context of an ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The theme in question being undeniably dark: genocide.
The biblical text describes Amalek as a nomadic or semi-nomadic nation from the barren deserts south of Canaan, and an irreconcilable enemy of the ancient Israelites.
When Benjamin Netanyahu twice referenced “Amalek” in association with Hamas, his intended audience understood exactly how to interpret it. The applicable bible verses are as follows:
Deuteronomy 25:17-18: ”Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
There is also the unsettling passage of 1 Samuel 15:3, which reads, “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Netanyahu’s suggestion did not go unheard. Shortly after, uniformed Israeli soldiers were recorded chanting, “We know our motto: there are no uninvolved civilians … wipe off the seed of Amalek!”
The invocation of Amalek as a symbol of absolute enmity is not new. In 1994, American-Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein carried out a horrific mass shooting in a mosque in Hebron, south of Jerusalem, killing 29 Palestinians and wounding 125 others. Consistent with the racial and religious hatred that drove him to commit this atrocity, he contemptuously referred to Palestinians as the new Amalek.
So, who exactly were the Amalekites?
Outside of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh, there is no evidence of them. Rabbinical tradition does not provide much help either, as it has long maintained that Amalek, or Amalekites, ceased to exist more than 2,000 years ago, or that they were meant to be interpreted symbolically. However, if we read between the lines and closely examine the evidence, we find tantalizing hints that suggest some fascinating possibilities.
In this article, I will lay out my theory concerning who the Amalekites were and why the biblical authors held them in a level of contempt beyond Israel’s many other bitter enemies. This is a topic I have explored in depth, since it is a central theme and plot element of There Came Darkness.
A key storyline in this series revolves around the effort of King Joshiah to finish the work his predecessors had started: the annihilation of a people branded as Amalekites. But Amalekite is not their real name. Instead, it was a name given as part of an attempt by those seeking their destruction to divorce them from their true identity and history and the uncomfortable link to that of the Israelites.
The Shasu of Yahweh
While it makes for a fascinating plot device, I also believe this theory is backed by substantial evidence and logic. It starts with multiple ancient Egyptian references to nomadic desert clans in the Sinai and Negev deserts between the 16th and 13th centuries BCE. They were referred to as “Shasu”, a general term for the people of this barren region, believed by scholars to mean “wanderers”. Within this larger confederation of tribal clans, there were sub-clans such as Shasu of Edom, Shasu of Seir, and others. But the most intriguing of these sub-clans is the Shasu of Yhw, whose name bears a striking resemblance to the tetragrammaton “YHWH”, meaning Yahweh, the God of the Israelites.
Ancient Egyptian records provide us our earliest extant source for Israel. Around 1208 BCE, an inscription from Pharaoh Mernaptah’s victory stele declared: “Israel is laid waste—its seed is no more.” This was obviously an exaggeration. The timing is significant because around 1200 BCE a massive wave of migrants came from the Aegean Sea region in the north, sending the entire eastern Mediterranean into disarray. This migrant horde was likely the result of drought conditions and warfare plaguing the Mycenaean Empire, forcing people to flee.
Dubbed the Sea Peoples by Egyptian scribes, they arrived by sea and wreaked havoc as they made their way southward. Archaeological evidence shows that several coastal and inland Canaanite cities were destroyed during this period. Like other notable migrant hordes throughout history, such as the Huns, Mongols, and the Germanics, the Sea Peoples undoubtedly assimilated many others as they advanced, including Canaanites, Shasu, and even Israelites.
The Sea Peoples made their way to Egypt, but their invasion was swiftly crushed by the Pharaoh’s navy and army. Despite their defeat, the devastation caused by the Sea Peoples left Egypt permanently weakened, forcing them to abandon their colonies in the Sinai and Negev deserts to the east, and Canaan and Syria to the north. The Egyptians captured and killed many of the invaders. But the Sea Peoples from the Mycenaean region were settled in an area approximating modern Gaza following the failed invasion, and would henceforth become known as the Philistines.
In my theory, a small band of Israelites who had joined the invasion escaped the Egyptian forces by fleeing deep into the Sinai Desert, since the King’s Highway would have been too dangerous to travel. Perhaps they accompanied members of the Shasu of Yahweh clan with whom they fought alongside. Either way, they were fortunate recipients of the nomadic clan’s hospitality. The Shasu not only provided refuge to the Israelites, but also introduced them to their god—a prototypical desert and storm deity. Perhaps these Israelites even attributed their good fortune and miraculous escape to this desert god in what might have been a Constantine-like conversion story.
Hints of these real-life events are woven into the Torah, serving as the basis for the symbolic figure of Moses as it would be formulated decades or centuries after the fact. In the Torah, Moses finds refuge with Jethro’s clan and is introduced to Yahweh through the burning bush. There is also the dramatic escape from Egypt.
However, later authors of the Hebrew canon referred to the hospitable desert clan not as Shasu, but as Midianites. We may never know if the Shasu of Yahweh referred to themselves this way or if another motive was at play. It’s possible that these early Moses archetypes married Midianite women, just as the Torah’s Moses married Zipporah, the daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro.
The Torah may subtly hint at a far less dramatic historical journey of Israelites trying to make their way back home to the highlands of Canaan in the north. One can picture them toiling in the desert for many years with their Midianite wives and children. Consistent with the written text handed down to us, I believe they invited some of the men among the Midianite-Shasu clan to accompany them north to help establish Yahweh worship in their homeland.
Echoing the biblical account, this group tries to take the most direct route, through southern Canaan near Beersheba. But they encounter hostile Canaanites in the area, forcing them to divert east around the Dead Sea, which would have been friendlier territory for a band of desert nomads.
They cross the Jordan north of the Dead Sea, consistent with the biblical narrative. These Israelite returnees were more likely to hail from the northern region of Israel, which was much more populated than the southern region later associated with the Jerusalem-based Kingdom of Judah.
Bringing Yahweh-ism from the Southern Deserts to the Israelite Highlands
As this “Miniature Exodus” established its roots in the northern highlands, it is possible direct descendants of the Israelite contingent adopted the Levite name as a priestly title. According to the Tanakh, Moses is a direct descendant of Levi. While the Twelve Tribes of Israel are largely considered to be etiological myth, there is some genetic evidence supporting the historicity of a Levite tribe.
It is possible that the small number of Midianites in their group also remained distinct and similarly esteemed. But at this point, they are invisible in the surviving record, perhaps because they were few in number or intentionally edited out. It is plausible because there is a compelling case to be made that these Midianite priests, or whatever name they went by, were later pejoratively labeled as Amalekites, by way of Kenites.
The Kenite (or Cainite) Connection
The biblical text itself seems to be making this exact case. Centuries after the fact, biblical authors and editors would engage in a concerted effort to place a group of Jethro’s descendants in Israel under the name of Kenites. What’s intriguing is that the name 'Kenites' could just as easily be translated as 'Cainites,' as the two names are suspiciously similar both orthographically and phonetically. Both names derive from the Hebrew root “QYN” in the Tanakh.
There is a line of logic to support this aside from the name itself. Kenites were associated with nomadism, while Cain, according to the biblical story, was cursed to wander the earth as punishment for killing his brother Abel. But this could be a distortion of an existing etiological myth. In the original version, Cain might have been portrayed as a noble and virtuous figure, commanded by Yahweh to forsake agriculture and embrace a life of nomadism as a matter of spiritual principle. It is easy to see how this could have served as a founding narrative for a nomadic people such as the Shasu of Yahweh, and how it might later have been revised by those seeking to co-opt Yahweh-ism to a version more compatible with a pastoralist lifestyle, represented by Abel.
It is noteworthy that the term “Kenites” appears only twice in the Torah. In both cases, it bears the hallmarks of an interpolation added by redactors many years later. In one instance, they are mentioned barely in passing in a list of people inhabiting Canaan before the Israelites. In the other case, they are mentioned alongside the Amalekites during the Exodus, seemingly inserted into a story that involved neither group. In this story, the Amalekites were cursed by the non-Israelite prophet Balaam to suffer utter destruction as a people, while the Kenites were blessed with protection. Despite these mentions, the Torah reveals virtually nothing about who the Kenites are.
Only in the books of Judges and Samuel do we learn that the illustrious Jethro was a Kenite, though the Torah never indicates such an association. Even still, we are not treated to any pertinent details about the Kenites, including whether they were an ethnic group or a priestly order. We are only told that some accompanied the Israelites to the Promised Land.
In a later account, the Kenites are portrayed heroically, aiding the Israelites in their victory over the Canaanites. Also relevant to the Kenite/Cainite/Amalekite theory, King Saul warns the Kenites to separate themselves from the Amalekites to avoid being destroyed along with them. He commends the Kenites for having showed kindness to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. The prophet Samuel reinforces this action, insisting that God has commanded the Israelites to destroy every man, woman and child of the Amalekites.
But how did a revered priestly order of desert nomads, once imbedded in the Northern Kingdom to help establish Yahweh-worship, become marked for genocidal annihilation? To understand this shift, we must examine the priestly dynamics that shaped the evolving Israelite form of Yahweh-worship over the next few centuries following the return of our small group of wayfarers.
Levites vs Cainites vs Kohen
The Tanakh is clear that the Levites became the custodians of Yahweh worship after the Israelites entered the Promised Land. External evidence also suggests that it first caught on in the northern region of Israel. Archaeologists have found there to be a conspicuous absence of pig bones at cultic and sacrificial sites around Shiloh by the 12th or 11th centuries BCE.
This is significant because the Tanakh portrays Shiloh as the early capital of Yahweh worship before the construction of the Jerusalem temple. According to the text, it is where the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant were kept. It is the location of an annual feast dedicated to Yahweh. And it is where Joshua divided the land among the tribes.
This theory, which proposes a small-scale return of Israelites from Egypt by way of the barren deserts of the south, aligns with the evidence that Yahweh worship found its initial foothold in the central highlands of the north. It also makes sense from a geopolitical standpoint. According to archaeological evidence and ancient court records, the Northern Kingdom of Israel based in Samaria—which included Shiloh—more closely resembled the legendary United Monarch of David and Solomon as depicted in the Hebrew bible than its southern counterpart. The Northern Kingdom was far more populous, prosperous and developed, while the Judahite Kingdom at this time was more of a loosely organized chiefdom. Though Jerusalem was the most prominent town in the southern highlands, it was still just a small hamlet on a hill compared to the urbanized Samaria.
This is consistent with the climate and geography profiles of the central highlands of Israel, where the northern region receives more rainfall and has more fertile soil than the south. To this day in modern Israel and Palestine, the area corresponding to the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel is more densely populated than the area corresponding to the Judahite Kingdom. This pattern has persisted throughout history. There is no doubt that the Samaria-based kingdom of the north became far more cosmopolitan than its country cousin to the south. Not only had they outgrown their tribal ways, but they had also outgrown the original Yahweh-ism that had found its way north from out of the rugged terrain of the southern deserts.
The evidence for this has also been uncovered by textual analysis. Biblical scholars have identified two competing sources in the Torah. One is the Jahwist, which espouses a more primitive and anthropomorphic version of God, referring to him by his original name: Yahweh. The Jahwist is more interested in the affairs of the southern Judahite kingdom while casting Jerusalem and the Davidic monarchy in a preferential light.
The other source is the Elohist, which depicts God as distant and transcendent while referring to him as Elohim. Elohim is plural for El, the Canaanite term for “God”. The Elohist focuses on the affairs of the northern region while casting Jerusalem and the Davidic monarchy in a less favorable light.
It is not hard to imagine that the small band of Midianite-Cainite priests grew dismayed with this cosmopolitan adaptation of Yahweh-ism and its syncretism with Israel’s traditional Canaanite religion. Or how it was appropriated to serve the Israelite nationalist cult.
I propose that at some point, the Midianite-Cainite priestly clan left the Shiloh area to resettle in southern Judah, around Hebron, Beersheba and Arad. This was a frontier zone at the time and would have been home to a mixed ethnic composition, consisting of Israelites, Edomites and other desert tribal clans. Since those belonging to the Cainite priestly order would have taken Israelite wives over the years, they would have had natural ties with each of these sects. Over time, they may have evolved into a distinct but related ethnogroup unto themselves, similar to other priestly orders throughout history, such as the Druze and Brahmins.
There is evidence on the ground to support this. By the 10th century BCE, we start to see evidence of Yahweh worship in the south. Except according to archaeological surveys and excavations, Jerusalem was sparsely populated at this time. The walls that were erected circa 1800 BCE had not yet been rebuilt. The most glaring evidence of Yahweh worship at this junction in history is actually found much farther south, in the Fortress of Arad Temple. It comes complete with two incense altars, a holy of holies chamber, and inscriptions proclaiming “House of YHWH”. In other words, it fits the description of the Jerusalem Temple as specified in the Tanakh. But the Fortress of Arad temple is southwest of Beersheba, at the northern edge of the Negev Desert—an apt place for the Cainite clan to resettle.
And I expect that their reputation likely preceded them. The Judahites were undoubtedly aware of their indispensable role in the Israelite national narrative. In Judah at this time, it was customary for families to hire personal priests to officiate sacrifices and other rituals on their behalf. The Midianite-Cainites would have been a welcome addition for this purpose. And perhaps they also helped to operate, and even build, the Fortress of Arad Temple, along with any of the other small temples discovered in the region over the ensuing century or two.
More importantly, their arrival would have represented a significant humiliation against the Northern Kingdom and its Levite priests. At its height, the Northern Kingdom sought to unify all Israelite lands and people under its banner. This included their version of the state religion. The Judahites of the south resented these encroachments. The defection of the esteemed Midianite-Cainite priests would have only validated their animus.
But they are not to be conflated with the Zadokite, or Kohen priests, who purportedly descended from Aaron, brother of Moses. The Zadokites were likely a priestly order that originated among the Jebusites, a Canaanite tribe that inhabited Jerusalem before the Israelites. Following David’s conquest of the city, they probably maintained their status through a diplomatic bargain of some sort. As Jerusalem grew in size and prominence, they aligned themselves with Yahweh-ism, inserting themselves into the text of the Torah and elsewhere in the Tanakh as part of the Levite lineage by way of Aaron instead of Moses.
The Collapse of the Northern Kingdom and the Rise of Jerusalem
This set the stage for a volatile situation when the Northern Kingdom of Samaria was conquered by the Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE. Thousands of Northern Israelite refugees, including Levite priests, poured into the Judahite Kingdom. The refugee wave was massive, increasing Judah’s population by 50% to 100% practically overnight. Disproportionately high numbers flocked to Jerusalem, leading to rapid urban expansion of the city that doubled its footprint and tripled its population. With Assyria poised to advance southward, major construction projects were undertaken to fortify the city.
The northerners brought more than just numbers to Judah. They brought also their higher levels of literacy, artisan skills and military acumen, along with a more systematized version of Yahweh-ism. The Levites immediately established themselves as influential members of King Hezekiah’s court. Their primary emphasis was the centralization of the cult, insisting that it was Yahweh’s will for all sacrifices to be performed exclusively at the Jerusalem Temple. All other temples were to be decommissioned. Even the altars and sacred stands that families used to worship on their own were to be outlawed.
The Levites were also adamant about ending the worship of Yahweh’s consort, Asherah, the Mother of Heaven. Asherah had been an essential part of Yahweh-worship since at least the 9th century BCE, and possibly since its very inception. According to the biblical record, the people of Judah defied these injunctions, persisting with Asherah worship and their decentralized practices.
Textual and archaeological evidence suggests that Hezekiah tentatively pursued this Levite agenda. Even the Fortress of Arad Temple and other houses of worship show signs of being dismantled during his reign between the late 8th century to early 7th century BCE.
The Aaronid-Kohen and Midianite-Cainite priests likely opposed these reforms as well. Following the death of King Hezekiah, they got their way. King Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son, reversed these reforms, restoring the shrines and high places throughout the kingdom. Even the temples in the south were allowed to resume services. Astral worship and foreign cults were also permitted, likely due to pressure from their Assyrian masters, which had succeeded in submitting Judah under its suzerainty.
But starting with the reign of King Josiah in 640 BCE, the reforms were carried out in earnest. A high priest of the Levitical order conveniently claimed to have found a scroll containing the fullness of the law. This discovery likely served as the basis for the Book of Deuteronomy, which was later added to the Torah. The scroll called for the exclusive worship of Yahweh and the centralization of worship and sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple only. Every Israelite throughout the kingdom was now obligated to make multiple annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices and tithes. Once again, the altars in the high places and the sacred stands in the groves were outlawed and destroyed. Josiah also destroyed the cult center in Bethel, associated with the Aaronid priests.
A Bitter Theological Rivalry
The Deuteronomist history, including the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, and parts of Isaiah, was also compiled during Josiah’s reign. These histories were written in part to craft a narrative that aligned with religious reforms. Along with likely Deuteronomist redactions elsewhere in the Torah, these books also introduce the Kenites into the record, including their patrilineal connection to Jethro. They also call for the annihilation of the Amalekites, often in connection with the favored Kenites.
But why the special hostility toward the Amalekites? Israel had other bitter enemies, but only the Amalekites were designated for total destruction. Unlike most of these other nations, Amalekites are not attested in extant sources. All of this suggests that the Deuteronomist authors invented them. They took a name from the genealogy of Esau in the existing Torah—compiled from the merged Jahwist and Elohist sources centuries earlier—and created a fabricated and disparaging history. In every mention in the pre-Deuteronomist Torah, the Amalekites are merely depicted as joining forces with other enemies, such as the Edomites, Moabites and Canaanites. They could have been easily added without the need to alter any details from the existing storylines.
But why would the Deuteronomist authors go to such lengths?
I believe the Deuteronomist Levites were motivated by a religious contention. The Midianite-Cainite priestly order at the southern margins of the kingdom would have been active in operating the temples and officiating at the altars and grove stands erected throughout the land. They would have been a thorn in the side to the Levite-Deuteronomist reformers. And this thorn was especially gouging considering these were the descendants of Jethro and those nomadic priests who introduced the Israelites to Yahweh worship—the very foundation of their collective identity. To the Levite priests, they embodied every insecurity about ecclesiastic authority and credibility, and they were deeply embedded in the southern hinterlands where the citizenry was already resistant to Levite efforts to usurp Yahweh worship and suppress their most sacred customs.
We know that the Levites of Josiah’s regime pseudigraphically added another book of law to the Torah (which suspiciously reads like an Assyrian tribute contract), and we know that they made redactions and interpolations throughout the rest of the Torah. They wrote the history of their people starting with Moses’ death, conveniently justifying every policy they vehemently touted, from centralization of the cult to the extermination of those they saw as the greatest threat to their agenda.
The Aaronids also posed a threat, but they were persuadable. This is evident in how the Kohen priestly order, claiming descent from Aaron, eventually embraced these policies of exclusivity and centralization during and after the Babylonian exile. More importantly, the Kohen were considered full-blooded Israelites. The Tanakh is replete with examples of people from mixed-Israelite ancestry, like the Samaritans, being treated with contempt over this fact. Likewise, the Midianite-Cainite priestly ethnogroup could be racialized and otherized as distinctly non-Israelite.
The Sleight of Hand and Inventing of a History
For the propaganda to succeed, they needed to be reassigned to a group that did not carry with it the positive connotations of the Cainites. The tale of Cain and Abel shows that the Hebrews had previously engaged in efforts to disparage the name and history of Cainites. But they also conveniently terminated Cain’s lineage with the Noahic Flood, enabling them to dissociate the Midianite-Cainite group from their eponymous founder. With a slight altering of spelling, the descendants of those who accompanied the Israelites to the Promised Land were rebranded as Kenites.
But the Deuteronomic Levite priests also needed to separate these venerated Kenites from their modern-day claimants, whom they sought to vanquish. This intransigent and idolatrous clan could not be Kenites because Kenites no longer existed. In Deuteronomist history, the Kenites heroically help the Israelites to defeat the Canaanites in the turbulent era of the Judges, and are later protected by King Saul in his war against the Amalekites. After this, they mysteriously vanish from the biblical record.
This apparent mystery is resolved definitively by the likely interpolation to the story of Balaam. In his prophecy, Balaam first suggests the Kenites will be protected, but then reveals they will eventually be taken captive by Assur, an Assyrian god. Israelites at the time would have understood this to mean that the Assyrians took the Kenites captive and dispersed them until they ceased to exist as a people, as was believed to have happened with other groups.
This was likely a Deuteronomist strategy to erase a people’s true history, absolving the Israelites of any consideration owed to those claiming to be contemporary descendants of those who had contributed so much. This follows a pattern of cultural genocide and historical erasure that enables the dehumanization of a group, a tactic repeated throughout history.
A parallel can be drawn with how European-Christian colonial powers invented the “Curse of Ham” myth, presenting it as literal history to justify the enslavement of Black Africans. Another example is “Manifest Destiny” in the U.S. White Americans perpetuated a false history of the indigenous to justify their removal from the territories they sought to steal. They promoted these falsehoods while systematically destroying evidence of native culture and civilization. This happened throughout the Americas, including Mesoamerica and South America.
This is why the Levite-Deuteronomists couldn’t simply lump the Cainites with the Edomites, who still existed in the region at the time, because this Cainite clan was too distinct from these southern desert and Transjordan nations. They were dedicated Yahwists. They were integrated into Israelite society. Their disentanglement required some creative storytelling.
But the question remains: Did the effort to eradicate the Cainites-Amalekites succeed? I do not doubt that some atrocities were committed against those identified with the Amalek lineage, though the scale remains unclear. But there are no signs left behind of a genocide being carried out in the Canaan and Negev regions during the Iron Age. It seems likely that the Levites did their best to incite violence against this ethnographic priestly order and their families, but their campaign was cut short by Josiah’s untimely death at the hands of the Egyptians and the Babylonian conquest that followed.
What Became of the Cainites-Amalekites?
The Tanakh offers little clarity, especially with earlier narratives sowing doubt on their historicity. The last mention of the Amalekites by the Deuteronomist historians is found in the Book of First Samuel. In this account, the Amalekites conduct a raid against the Israelites in the town of Ziklag, located somewhere in the southern Judah and northern Negev region. David leads a counterattack to recover everything the Amalekites had taken. This would have presumably occurred in the 10th or 9th century BCE at the latest.
In the Book of Chronicles, it is written somewhat anticlimactically that the Simeonite Tribe of Israel descends upon the Amalekite remnants in the Negev, wiping them out and then dwelling in their lands “to this day”. This event is placed in the reign of Hezekiah, in the late 8th century or early 7th century BCE. The Book of Chronicles was written by Priestly sources after the Babylonian exile. The Priestly source in textual analysis is associated with the Kohen priesthood that rose to primacy both during and following the exilic period. While this Aaronid priestly order adopted many of the Levite reforms, especially as it concerns exclusivity and centralization of worship and ritual, they relegated the Levite priesthood to a supporting role in the ecclesiastic hierarchy.
But they undoubtedly recognized a loose end when it came to the Amalekites. Had this Simeonite massacre had truly occurred, the Deuteronomist would have certainly mentioned it. There is also the fact that the Amalekites enter the narrative again, in the Book of Esther, where Haman the Amalekite is the primary antagonist. Esther is set in the exilic period and was likely written much later.
What can we infer from this? I believe that the Cainites were absorbed into the Edomite and Arabian peoples who settled in southern Judah and the Negev during the Babylonian exile. But the Hebrew scribes during and after exile continued to use them as a bogeyman—a fitting villain when it suited their nationalistic narratives, as seen in the Book of Esther.
More than two thousand years later, the fictional Amalekites are still weaponized for political and genocidal agendas, as demonstrated by Prime Minister Netanyahu. The bible is a work of immense historical, philosophical, and spiritual importance. It contains both straightforward history and clues of real history that require skillful examination to extract. But much of it was written for propagandist purposes—designed to persuade rather than accurately inform. And in some cases, it was written to justify violence—and it continues to be used for instigating violent today.
A central theme in There Came Darkness highlights the danger and tragedy of this. In this series, King Josiah, influenced by the Levites, attempts to follow through with the supposed commandment to “blot out the memory of Amalek”. But then the Cainites invoke another figure from the original Yahweh-ism to protect them—one associated with their folkloric hero, whose name translates to “adversary”. In There Came Darkness, the adversary is none other than Ha Satan himself, or “Satan” for short.
It raises the question of whether the Cainites exacted their revenge for the pogrom against them. Following Josiah’s unexpected death, the Deuteronomist fell silent on the matter. It is important to consider that Josiah was not merely a venerated king—he was seen as a king of kings. He was believed to be the prophesied messiah, foreordained to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. The Deuteronomist portions of Isaiah, often mistakenly claimed as prophecies of Jesus Christ, were actually written about Josiah.
But perhaps the Israelites did not remain silent about the slaying of their king of destiny. Maybe the hint of how their king really died survived in the collective, generational memory, added to the sacred writings centuries later. The word “Armageddon” appears exactly once in the bible—in the Book of Revelation, which includes more allusions to the Tanakh than any other New Testament book. “Armageddon” translates to “the revenge of Megiddo”. Only one thing of significance happened in Megiddo in all of the bible, and that was the death of King Josiah.
It turns out the Amalekites were indeed consequential in Israelite and biblical history, though not in the way we have been led to believe. And they also represent a vital lesson for the modern world. Except this lesson is not about irreconcilable enemies—it’s about our tribalistic tendencies and inclinations to otherize and dehumanize.
