Strabus [Walafrid Strabo], in the Gloss, wishes [Amalek] to be one of the sons of Ishmael. But Genesis 36 and 1 Paralipomenon [Chronicles] 1 clearly [say that] Amalek is called the grandson of Esau himself, and the son of Eliphaz himself. Nor, however, is that very Amalek [the individual] to be understood here, since he would have had to be more than 260 years old — as is clear from the time at which he could have been born (Genesis 29), and from those things which are said about the sojourn in Egypt (Exodus 12). But neither is [it] the fourth or fifth [in descent] from the posterity of that same Amalek — as Abulensis [Tostatus] thinks (on ch. 17 of Exodus, question 7), who says [it is] probable [that] the Princes of that people were always called “Amalek” from that first head of theirs. Rather, it is the people itself, which from him took the name of “Amalekites” — as is perceived from Numbers 13, “Amalek dwelleth in the south,” and 24, “And when he had seen Amalek”; Judges 6, “There went up Madian and Amalek,” and 7, “Madian and Amalek,” and 10, “The Sidonians also [oppressed them], [and] Amalek and Chanaan.” So [too] 1 Kings [Samuel] 14, 15; 2 Kings [Samuel] 1 and 8; 1 Paralipomenon 18 — just as, indeed, both elsewhere very often, and in this very chapter 17, verse 11, “Israel” signifies not any proper [particular] King or leader, but the people.
But these Amalekites are sometimes called Idumaeans. For so, on 2 Kings [Samuel] 1, in the Traditions [Hebrew Questions], says St. Jerome: “Amalekite and Idumaean are one, since the first-begotten son of Esau was Eliphaz, and the son of this one [was] Amalek.” And they were also afterwards called Arabs — and indeed, for distinction from the other Arabs, “Petraean,” from their royal city Petra. For thus Josephus (book 3, ch. 2) names them; but Philo (book 1 On Moses) [calls them] “Phoenicians.” And Amalek is interpreted, from the Hebrew, “a people licking and lapping” or “devouring,” according to St. Jerome (book 2 on Isaiah); [and] from the Syriac, “a people smiting”; and [on] Numbers 24…
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…[in Numbers 24 Amalek] is called the beginning of the nations — that is, the first of the enemies who set themselves in opposition to the people of God, as Rupert expounds (book 3 On the Trinity, ch. 20), and Abulensis [Tostatus] (on 1 Kings [Samuel], question 3), where he also warns that [it was] not the whole nation of the Idumaeans, but a part; and (Numbers 13, question 69) [treats] more fully of their situation toward Egypt and Chanaan. St. Ambrose (ch. 4, book of the Hexaemeron): “Amalek is taken [to mean] the King of the impious. And the nations are wicked. See lest we take [it to be] the prince of the world — who commands the nations that do his will, whose seed shall perish. But his seed are the impious and the unfaithful, to whom the Lord saith: ‘You are of your father the Devil.’ There is also a mystical beginning, as is that [word]: ‘I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’ And that [word], chiefly, in the Gospel — [when] the Lord, being asked who he was, answered: ‘The Beginning, who also speak to you.’ He who truly, and according to [his] divinity, is the beginning of all things, since none [is] before him; and the end, since none [is] beyond him; and, according to the Gospel, is the beginning of the ways of the Lord in his works: that through him the race of men might learn to follow the ways of the Lord, and to work the works of God. In this beginning, therefore — that is, in CHRIST — God made heaven and earth: because through him all things were made, and without him…*
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…was made nothing. What was made, in him was life: because in him all things consist, and he is the firstborn of every creature — whether [because he is] before every creature, or because [he is] holy (since the firstborn are holy, as the firstborn of Israel): not because [he is] before all, but because holier than the rest. But the Lord [is] holy above every creature, and — according to the assumption of a body — because [he] alone [is] without sin, alone without vanity. But every creature is subject to vanity.” But about the works of the Amalekites [there is] much [in] Josephus, and [in] Judith ch. 4.