Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
8. Then came Amalek. These were the first enemies whom God arrayed against Israel, after having delivered them from Egypt, and having kept them for some time in peace and quietness. It was principally for two reasons that He chose them now to be involved in war, either to punish them for their recent sin, or as a correction of their idleness, lest it should...
Amalek struck from behind at the weakest and most defenseless, a cowardly and malicious attack that defied the God who had just destroyed Egypt. But they struck at a camp guarded and supplied by miracles and knew not what they did.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 17:8-16
Then came Amalek,.... The Amalekites, who were not the posterity of Amalek, a son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, by Timna the concubine of Eliphaz, Gen 36:12 who dwelt in the desert, to the south of Judea, beyond the city Petra, as you go to Aila, as Jerom says (t); and so the Targum of Jonathan describes them as coming from the south; and...