Albert Barnes Commentary Exodus 17:16

"And he said, Jehovah hath sworn: Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." — Exodus 17:16 (ASV)

Because the Lord has sworn - This rendering is incorrect. Our translators regard the expression as a solemn asseveration by the throne of God. However, the objections to this are insuperable; it has no parallel in Scriptural usage: God swears by Himself, not by His Throne. As the Hebrew text now stands, the meaning is more satisfactorily given in the margin.

An alteration, slight in form but considerable in meaning, has been proposed with much confidence: namely, to substitute נס (nês)—“standard”—for כסא (kı̂ssê')—“throne.” This substitution would connect the name of the altar with the sentence. Conjectural emendations should not be adopted without necessity, and the obvious a priori probability of such a reading makes it improbable that a much more difficult one would have been substituted for it. One of the surest canons of criticism militates against its reception. As it stands, the text was undoubtedly the one exclusively known to the Targumists, the Samaritan, the Syriac, the Latin, and the Arabic translators. The Septuagint, however, appears to have had a different reading: ἐν χειρὶ κρυφαίᾳ πολεμεῖ (en cheiri kruphē polemeō).