For the week of March 8, 2025 / 8 Adar 5785

T’tzavveh & Zachor
Torah: Shemot/Exodus 27:20 – 30:10; D’varim/Deuteronomy 25:17-19
Haftarah: 1 Shmuel/1 Samuel 15:2-34

Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (1 Shmuel/1 Samuel 15:2-3)

The Haftarah, the selection from the Hebrew prophets, is special for the Shabbat that precedes Purim, the festival of Esther, which begins this year on the evening of March 13. This selection was likely chosen because the villain of the Purim story, Haman, was a descendant of the Amalekite king Agag, who is mentioned in the Haftarah, 1 Shmuel/1 Samuel 15:2–34.

God, through the prophet Shmuel, directed King Shaul (Saul) to destroy the people of Amalek because of their treatment of the people of Israel generations before when they journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land. God clearly stated that every Amalekite and their animals were to be completely wiped out. God deemed Shaul’s failure to do so as an act of rebellion against him, resulting in God’s rejecting Shaul.

Many people, among them those who claim to adhere to the Bible, find God’s judgment of the Amalekites highly distasteful. A popular book that deals with aspects of Scripture many find abhorrent is Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God by Paul Copan. Without going into its details, note how the book’s title presupposes that the intended reader regards the God of Hebrew Scripture as a most distasteful character and one who is so very different from how he is depicted in the New Covenant Scriptures (New Testament). This supposed contrast is often regarded as so great that he is often thought of as an altogether different god.

It is common to resolve discomfort over God’s harsh actions in the Hebrew Scriptures by emphasizing his more lovable attributes and showing how they are consistent with the New Covenant Writings. While that is valid to some extent, it ignores that God also enacts harsh judgment in the New Covenant Writings. For example, in Luke chapter thirteen, some people mention to Yeshua the Roman governor’s horrific killing of certain Galileans. Here’s the Messiah’s response:

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2-5).

This is far from the stereotypical, patting-kids-on-the-head, meek-and-mild Jesus many prefer. Another time, he warned his followers, saying:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21–23).

Or how about when God killed two people simply for pretending they were more generous than they really were (see Acts 5:1–11)? Don’t get me wrong. I in no way want to minimize God’s overwhelmingly merciful and loving character as is wonderfully demonstrated throughout the entire Bible. But to claim that the harsh judgment toward the Amalekites is limited to a pre-messianic version of the God of Israel is to completely ignore what God thinks about evil.

To overemphasize God’s love to the point that we ignore evil’s consequences not only misrepresents his character, it helps no one. The sacrifice of the Messiah on behalf of lost humanity is an inexpressible demonstration of love beyond comprehension. Yet, it cannot be adequately appreciated unless it’s presented against the backdrop of God’s hatred of evil. Saul/Paul effectively expressed the proper biblical balance in his first recorded sermon to an entirely non-Jewish audience in Athens:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).

Judgment is coming. What happened to the Amalekites should motivate everyone everywhere to repent before it’s too late.

Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version