What is "amalek"

n. 1 The biblical grandson of Esau 2 The nation said to be descended from him, living mostly in the (w: Negev) and some later migrating to Israel

Amalek occurs in the Old Testament of the Bible and refers to the grandson of Esau, the descendant nation of Amalekites, and the territories of Amalek which they inhabited.

The Old Testament, accepted by Hebrews and Christians, describe the Amalekites as a nomadic tribe which lived in the Negev, in the land called Edom; the Arabu tribes, what the Roman called Arabia Petraea (with Moab and the desert of Sinai), a region depopulated in the XIV BCE (maybe by the Egyptian Akhenaten, who introduced a worship centered in Aten-solar deity) and then occupied by Edomites. The brief Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews that began in 586 BCE opened a minor power vacuum in Judah and as Edomites moved into open Judaean grazing lands, leaving "Nabataean" inscriptions (in 312/311 BC in the Third War of the Diadochi; a Seleucid officer, mentioned the Nabataeans in a battle report). The Nabatean are, in some degree, related to the Nabatu in Arabia, East of Edom. The Arabic alphabet itself developed out of cursive variants of the Nabataean script in the 5th century. The Edomite religion was to a stone cube representation of God. The Arabah Edomite-Nabatean trade route was centered in the Myrrh trade from Yemen towards Egypt (other products were bitumen from the Dead Sea and copper from Moab), from Ma’in-Yemen, to La Mecque (Mecca), Yatrib-Medine, Hegra, Petra, Aqaba and finally to Egypt. Balaam lists Moab, Edom, Seir ( Horites) and Amalek, all were Arabah tribes included in the Roman province of Arabia Petra, west of Arabes Nabatei, a long term confront as described in the Mesha of the Moab of the people of Chemosh. Edom, Moab, Amalkites were for the Roman the Arabah.

According to the Book of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz and the concubine Timna. Timna was a Horite and sister of Lotan. Amalek appears in the genealogy of Esau (Gen. 36:12; 1 Chr. 1:36) who was the chief of an Edomite tribe (Gen. 36:16). Amalek is described as the "chief of Amalek" in Genesis 36:16, in which it is surmised that he ruled a clan or territory named after him. In the chant of Balaam at Numbers, 24:20, Amalek was called the 'first of the nations', attesting to high antiquity. Rashi states: He was the first of all of them (the other nations) to war against Israel (when they came out of Egypt). First-century Roman-Jewish scholar and historian Flavius Josephus refers to Amalek as a 'bastard' (νόθος), though in a derogative sense.

In the Old Testament, the Amalekites were a nomadic, or seminomadic people who inhabited ancient Israel. They are commonly considered to be Amalek's descendants through the genealogy of Esau. This is probably based on the association of this tribal group with the steppe region of the Negev and the area of Kadesh (Genesis 14:7). As a people, the Amalekites are identified as a recurrent enemy of the Israelites.