Wednesday, October 02, 2019

Sound like anyone you know?

Furthermore, because Amalek assaulted the weakest of Israel, he is labeled in Deut 25:18 as one who “does not fear God.” According to Moberly, the phrase “fear of God” in the Old Testament signifies “moral restraint out of respect for God, a moral restraint specifically that refuses to take advantage of a weaker party when it would be possible to do so with apparent impunity.” This fundamental respect for life the Amalekites, at least according to Deut 25:17–19, did not embody. Moberly’s conclusion describes the logic of the ban well: “Its logic appears to be that the attack on defenseless people constitutes such a fundamental denial of God that those who do such things thereby deny their own humanity and so lay themselves open to a treatment not otherwise given to other human beings.” It was the malicious attack upon the most vulnerable of Israel that was behind Israel’s animosity towards Amalek and YHWH’s order of the ban in 1 Sam 15:32 They respected neither human conventions nor God, and therefore became liable to be subjected to this horrifying ordeal.—The Unfavored, page 156

<idle musing>
That sounds amazingly like the current policies of the United States, doesn't it?
</idle musing>

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