Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Amalek was the first of the nations - The most ancient and most powerful of all the nations or states then within the view of Balaam; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever, or his posterity acharitho , shall be destroyed, or shall utterly fail. This oracle began to be fulfilled by Saul, I Samuel 15:7, I Samuel 15:8, who overthrew the Amalekites, and took their king, Agag, prisoner. Afterwards they were nearly destroyed by David, I Samuel 27:8, and they were finally exterminated by the sons of Simeon in the days of Hezekiah, I Chronicles 4:41-43; since that time they have ceased to exist as a people, and now no vestige of them remains on the face of the earth; so completely is their posterity cut off, according to this prophecy. The marginal reading does not appear to give the proper sense.
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