My Bible study group has spent the last few weeks looking at the book of Esther. It's a fascinating story about how a young Jewish girl becomes the queen of Babylon in what amounts to a beauty contest. Without delving into all the details and recounting every element of the studies and discussion I wanted to take a quick look at one of the tangents we discussed this morning - the fate of the Amalekites.

In the book ot Exodus, chapter 17 tells us that:

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands."

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. 11 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 12 When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Several hundred years later, we learn a little more about the Amalekites and, in particular, their King Agag. From 1 Samuel 15:

When Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

Deuteronomy 20 describes the rules of warfare and tells the Hebrews that they are to "annihilate them" and to not let anything that breathes remain alive". It's very strong stuff. However, we know that Saul spares King Agag.

In the story of Esther, the main protagonist is a guy called Haman. Haman has a vendetta gainst the Jews and, as it turns out, is a direct descendent of King Agag (see Esther 9: 24). It's taken over 1000 years for the ultimate destruction of the Amalekites to complete as it's through the intervention of God in the story of Esther that the last of Amalekites, Haman and his ten sons, are destroyed.

All of this tells me that I have a long way to go in my study of the Bible. It's pretty incredible to find threads like this and, in my view, lends support to the veracity of the Bible as a historically accurate text. But that's an argument for another day.