Rabbi Elazar Hamodai posed a question that pointed toward the end of history itself: When will the name of Amalek finally be erased from the earth?
The answer was not tied to any battle, any king, or any military campaign. Amalek's name would vanish when idolatry was uprooted from the world — "it and its servants." As long as false worship existed anywhere on earth, the spiritual force that Amalek represented would persist. The two were linked. Amalek was not just a nation but a manifestation of everything that stood against the recognition of God's sovereignty.
When would that day come? When "the Lord will be One in the world, and His kingdom will endure forever and ever." Rabbi Elazar cited two verses from Zechariah to anchor the prophecy: "The Lord will go out and He will war against those nations" (Zechariah 14:3) and "the Lord will be King over all the land" (Zechariah 14:9).
This teaching transforms the war against Amalek from a historical conflict into an eschatological one. The physical nation of Amalek could be defeated in battle, but the name of Amalek — what it represented — could only be erased when the conditions for its existence disappeared entirely. As long as any corner of the world rejected God's kingship, Amalek endured in some form. Only the arrival of the messianic age, when all nations recognized God as One, would finally and permanently wipe the name from memory. The erasure of Amalek and the redemption of the world were the same event.