Why Amalek Came Four Hundred Parasangs to Attack Israel

(Deuteronomy 25:17:) "Amalek" ('amaleq). A people that licked ('am laq); it spread out like the zachla-locust. Another interpretation: "Amalek" — a people that licks ('am leq), a nation that came to lap up the blood of Israel like a dog. Rabbi Levi said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta: To what was Amalek comparable? To a fly that is greedy after the wound. So was Amalek greedy after Israel like a dog. It was taught in the name of Rabbi Natan: Amalek came four hundred parasangs to wage war with Israel at Rephidim, as it is said (Numbers 13:29): "Amalek dwells in the land of the Negev," and he [dwells] in front of all of them. "On the way as you came out of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 25:17). Rabbi Levi said: He came upon them from the road like a brigand. A parable: to a king who had a vineyard, and he surrounded it with a fence, and the king set within it a biting dog. The king said: Anyone who comes and breaches the fence, the dog will bite him. In time the king's son came and breached the fence, and the dog bit him. Whenever [the king] sought to recall the sin of his son who had breached the vineyard, he would say to him: Do you remember that the dog bit you? So too, whenever the Holy One, blessed be He, seeks to recall the sin of Israel — what they did at Rephidim, when they said (Exodus 17:7), "Is the LORD in our midst or not?" — He says to them: "Remember what Amalek did to you."