25:17-19 Let every persecutor and injurer of God's people take warning from the case of the Amalekites. The longer it is before judgement comes, the more dreadful will it be at last. Amalek may remind us of the foes of our souls. May we be enabled to slay all our lusts, all the corruptions both within and without, all the powers of darkness and of the world, which oppose our way to the blessed Saviour.It was not after the spirit or mission of the Law to aim at overcoming inveterate opposition by love and by attempts at conversion (contrast Luke 9:55-56). The law taught God's hatred of sin and of rebellion against Him by enjoining the extinction of the obstinate sinner. The Amalekites were a kindred people Genesis 36:15-16; and living as they did in the peninsula of Sinai, they could not but have well known the mighty acts God had done for His people in Egypt and the Red Sea; yet they manifested from the first a persistent hostility to Israel (compare Exodus 17:8, and note; Numbers 14:45). They provoked therefore the sentence here pronounced, which was executed at last by Saul (1 Samuel 15:3 ff). 17-19. Remember what Amalek did—This cold-blooded and dastardly atrocity is not narrated in the previous history (Ex 17:14). It was an unprovoked outrage on the laws of nature and humanity, as well as a daring defiance of that God who had so signally shown His favor towards Israel (see on [162]1 Samuel 15; [163]27. 8; [164]30). Blot out the remembrance of Amalek; which was in great measure done afterward. See 1Sa 15 27:8 30:1,17 1 Chronicles 4:43 Esther 9:12,13.

Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about,.... Not only when they had subdued the Canaanites, and got possession of their land, but when they were clear and free from all their neighbouring nations, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Philistines; wherefore it may be observed, that this did not take place, as not immediately after the conquest of Canaan, so neither in the times of the judges, when they were harassed frequently by their neighbours, and not until the times of Saul, the first king of Israel:

in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it; the sense is, when they were in the full possession of the land given them by the Lord, as an inheritance to be enjoyed by them and theirs; and were at an entire rest from all enemies, and so had their hands at liberty to employ against Amalek:

that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven: that is, utterly destroy them, so that there should be none left of them any where, to put in mind that there ever were such a people on earth; men, women, children, cattle of all sorts, were to be destroyed, and nothing left that belonged unto them; that it might not be said this beast was Amalek's, as Jarchi, and to the same purpose Aben Ezra; see the order for this renewed, and the accomplishment of it, at least in part, 1 Samuel 15:2, &c.

thou shall not forget it; neither the unkindness of Amalek, nor this order to destroy him. The Targum of Jonathan adds,"and even in the days of the King Messiah it shall not be forgotten.''

Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the {f} remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.

(f) This was partly accomplished by Saul, about 450 years later.