“... Exod 17:8-16 tells how Moses prayed for Israel when watching the battle between Israel and Amalek and how Aaron and Hur had to hold his hands up. Philo deals with the story twice in the third book of Legum allegoriae. In Alleg. Interp. 3,45 the context is that a soul finds in God the spring and aim of its own doings. Moses did find it, and consequently his hands were heavy unlike those of evil men, and he was steadied by "Aaron, the Word, and Hur, which is 'Light.'"168Another view is offered later in the same book (Alleg. Interp. 3,186). Now he pays attention to the fighting nations and compares the battle to ethical life. Philo explains Gen 3:15, interpret­ ing the war between the snake's seed and the woman's seed as the war be­ tween passion's seed (pleasure) and the mind's seed (sense). The story about Amalek follows this pattern; the combatants are no longer two peo­ ples, but mind and passion. The diaeresis in Alleg. Interp. 3,185 follows the pattern described by Christiansen, and the war between the two peoples is only a detail in Philo's interpretations, although this time he also defines Amalek etymologically. "...'Whenever Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed, but when he dropped them, Amalek prevailed', showing that when the mind lifts itself up away from mortal things and is borne aloft, that which sees God, which is Israel, gains strength, but when it has lowered its special powers and grown weak, immediately passion, named 'Amalek', which means 'a people licking out', will become strong: for in very deed it eats up the whole soul and licks it out, leaving behind in it no seed or spark or virtue." ...”