Deuteronomy 25:11-19--Miscellaneous Laws

Deuteronomy 25:11-19
English Standard Version

Miscellaneous Laws​
11 “When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, 12 then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.

13 “You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small. 14 You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. 15 A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 16 For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the LORD your God.

17 “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. 19 Therefore when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.

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This first is specific situation that I would guess had actually happened (or at least the LORD knew this exact thing would happen) as they needed a law for it.

The people were only to have honest measures--they were not to have an honest weight and a dishonest weight used to scam someone--such dishonest weights should not be found on their person (in their bag) or stored at their home.  The LORD hates dishonest measurement (this was a form of theft) and all people were to be treated honestly by the LORD's people.

Last here is a promise that the Israelites will eventually have complete and total victory over the people of Amalek (the Amalekites), but until that day came, the LORD did not want the Israelites to forget that they were at war with them perpetually until the LORD brought final judgment on them.  They were not to try to be allies or friends with them because the Amalekites wanted nothing less than the destruction of the LORD's people (as we'll see throughout the Old Testament).

So why ask this offense of theirs to be remembered and not forgiven?  Because there would be a day in the future (mostly in the book of 1 Samuel but the remnant were not destroyed until many years after that as recorded in 1 Chronicles 4:43).  God gave the people of Amalek plenty of time to repent, but He also knew they would not repent.  They showed over and over again that they hostile towards the LORD and the LORD's people and it was more than 300 years after they had first attacked Israel that the LORD commanded King Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites (and he did not follow the LORD's command completely, which is why there was a remnant that needed to be cleaned up years after that).  We see the ultimate defeat of the Amalekites during Purim as Haman was a descendant of Amalek.  God used a pagan nation to fulfill the commandment that His people should have fulfilled much earlier.  While the people of Israel celebrate the feast of Purim to this day and read the book of Esther during Purim, the Israelites cannot take credit for the victory that was clearly provided by the LORD, even though the name of the LORD is not specifically mentioned anywhere in the book of Esther.  So the LORD did fulfil His promise by killing all the descendants of Amalek and it was God's justice that did so because the people of Amalek were a people that had tried multiple times to annihilate the Jews and the LORD must preserve His people for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The same end will come to all people and nations who defy the LORD--their generations will be cut off from the earth and eventually no one will remember them other than that the LORD was victorious over them.