The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells the story of Amalek's assault at Rephidim with details the plain Hebrew text does not preserve. "And Amalek came from the land of the south and leaped on that night a thousand and six hundred miles" (Exodus 17:8) — a supernatural sprint, covering distances no army could cross in a night, driven by something older than geography.
The Aramaic gives the motive plainly: "on account of the disagreement which had been between Esau and Jakob." Amalek was Esau's grandson. He was the long fuse of a family quarrel that had been smoldering for generations, and the moment Israel stumbled in the wilderness, that fuse caught fire. This was not a random border raid. It was an ancestral grudge cashing in its markers.
And the Targum does not spare Israel either. Amalek "took and killed (some of the) men of the house of Dan; for the cloud did not embrace them, because of the strange worship that was among them." The protective cloud of glory that wrapped the tribes did not cover the tribe of Dan. Idolatry had left them exposed.
Two lessons sit side by side. Old hatreds travel fast when an opportunity opens. And the cloud of protection is not automatic — it follows holiness, and it withdraws from idolatry. The border of the camp was not geography. It was covenant.