EXOD275 "Remember....Do not forget!" (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) The rabbinic tradition understands this literally and, one must say, enthusiastically: “’Remember’ means by word, ‘Do not forget’ means in the heart, for it is forbidden to forget to despise and hate him.” B. Megillah 18a and Sifrei Devarim, “Ki Teze,” par. 296; compare M.T. Law of Kings 5:5. In the account of this in the Book of Exodus, it is not only Israel who is not supposed to forget: God Himself "will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages." (Exodus 17:16). In rabbinic and medieval literature, Amalek became the symbol of all oppressors of Israel, and that might account for the particular vilification of Amalek in the Jewish tradition. It is not only Amalek, however, for whom God rules out repentance and reconciliation. Already in God’s promises to Abram, Egypt is to be punished, and the sins of Canaan are to be driven out of their homeland for their sins. “You must doom them to destruction,” the Israelites are later told; “Grant them no terms and give them no quarter.” Genesis 15:13-21 and Deuteronomy 7:1-11. Destroying Amalek and the seven Canaanite nations becomes, in fact, a clearly commanded war, one that, in later Jewish law, requires no consultation of the urim ve’tumim (the High Priest’s oracular breastplate) and no confirmation by the Sanhedrin. M. Sotah 8:7 (44b) and M.T. Law of Kings 5:1-5. The tradition is so determined to avenge these wrongs, that, particularly in the stories of Midian and Amalek, it raises difficult moral questions in regarding the difference between soldiers and civilians. Numbers 31 and 1 Samuel 15.