Amalekites. Amalek was a nation described in the Hebrew Bible as a staunch enemy of the Israelites. The name Amalek can refer to the nation's founder, a grandson of Esau; his descendants, the Amalekites; or the territories of Amalek, which they inhabited. In some rabbinical interpretations, Amalek is etymologised as, 'a people who lick ', but most specialists regard the origin to be unknown. According to the Bible, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz and Eliphaz's concubine Timna. Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan. Amalek is described as the chief of Amalek among the chiefs of the sons of Esau, from which it is surmised that he ruled a clan or territory named after him. The Amalekites were considered to be Amalek's descendants through the genealogy of Esau. In the oracle of Balaam, Amalek was called the 'first of the nations'. One modern scholar believes this attests to Amalek's high antiquity, while traditional commentator Rashi states: He came before all of them to make war with Israel. First-century Roman-Jewish scholar and historian Flavius Josephus refers to Amalek as a 'bastard' in a derogatory sense. According to the Bible, the Amalekites inhabited the Negev. They appear to have lived a nomadic or seminomadic lifestyle along the fringes of southern Canaan's agricultural zone. This is probably based on the association of this tribal group with the steppe region of ancient Israel and the area of Kadesh. As a people, the Amalekites were identified as a recurrent enemy of the Israelites. This role appears in several stories: In Exodus 17:8-16, Amalek makes war against Israel in the wilderness. Joshua is ordered by Moses to lead Israel in battle, and Moses watches from a hillside. When Moses' hand is raised, Israel prevails, but when it is lowered, Israel falters. So he keeps his hand raised through the entire battle, even having assistants hold him up, so that the battle will go to Israel. In Deuteronomy 25:17-19, The Israelites are specifically commanded to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven once they have taken possession of the promised land in retribution for what Amalek did to on the way as were coming out of Egypt. Earlier, in Deuteronomy 7:1-16 and Deuteronomy 25:16-18, they are commanded to utterly destroy all the inhabitants of the idolatrous cities in the promised land and their livestock; scripture purports that King Saul ultimately loses favor with Yahweh for failing to kill King Agag and the best livestock of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 in defiance of these commandments. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, Samuel identifies Amalek as the enemy of Israelites, saying Thus says the Lord of hosts: I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. God then commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites. In 1 Samuel 15:33, Samuel identifies king Agag of Amalek as an enemy and killer, saying As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. According to 1 Samuel 30:1-2, the Amalekites invaded the Negev and Ziklag in the Judean / Philistine border area towards the end of the reign of King Saul, burning Ziklag and taking its citizens away into captivity. The future king David led a successful mission against the Amalekites to recover all that the Amalekites had carried away. In 2 Samuel 1:5-10, an Amalekite tells David that he found Saul leaning on his spear after the battle of Gilboa. The Amalekite claims he euthanized Saul, at Saul's request, and removed his crown. David gives orders to his men to kill the Amalekite for killing the anointed king, using his own testimony as reference. In Genesis 14:7, the field of the Amalekites is mentioned, though the person Amalek had not yet been born. Some commentators explain this as a reference to the territory which was later on inhabited by the Amalekites. C. Knight elaborates this concept by making a comparison: one might say Caesar went into France, though Gaul only later became known as France. Alternatively, during the Islamic Golden Age, certain Arabic writings claimed that the Amalekites existed long before Abraham. Some Muslim historians claimed that the Amalekites who fought Joshua were descendants of the inhabitants of North Africa. Ibn-Arabsh�h purported that Amalek was a descendant of Ham, son of Noah. It is, however, possible that the name Amalek may have been given to two different nations. The Arabians mention Imlik, Amalik, or Ameleka among the aborigines of Arabia, the remains of which were mingled with the descendants of Qahtan and Adnan and became Mostarabs or Mocarabes, that is, Arabians mixed with foreigners.