CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
“Samuel also said to Saul.” “This verse is not to be connected chronologically with chap. 12, but continues the narrative of chaps. 13 and 14. The solemn reminder of Saul’s royal anointing, and of Samuel’s Divine mission to that end, refers not to 1 Samuel 11:15, but to 1 Samuel 9:15; 1 Samuel 10:1, It points to the fact that the following commission is a Divine command communicated by the appointed organ, the prophet of God, and that the bearer of the royal office has here to perform a theocratic mission with unconditional obedience. The me stands first (such is the order of the Hebrew) in order to give prominence to the official authority, as bearer of which Samuel must have felt obliged by Saul’s past conduct to assert himself over against him.” (Erdmann.) “Several years had been passed in unsuccessful military operations against troublesome neighbours, and during these years Saul had been left to act in a great measure at his own discretion as an independent prince. Now a new test is proposed of his possessing the character of a theocratic monarch in Israel; and in announcing the duty required of him, Samuel brought before him his official station as the Lord’s vicegerent, and the peculiar obligation under which he was laid to act in that capacity. He had formerly done wrong, for which a severe rebuke and threatening were administered to him. Now an opportunity was afforded him of retrieving that error.” (Jamieson.)
1 Samuel 15:2. “I remember.” Bather, “I have looked upon” (Keil), or “I have considered, or noted.” (Erdmann.) “Amalek.” The Amalekites were a wild, warlike, desert-people, dwelling south and south-west of Judea, in Arabia Petrea, descended from the same ancestor as the Edomites, and took their name from Esau’s grandson Amalek (Genesis 36:12-16; 1 Chronicles 1:36). God’s command goes back to their first hostilities (Exodus 17), which were often afterwards repeated in their alliance with the Canaanites (Numbers 14:40 s.q.), with the Moabites (Judges 3:13), and with the Midianites (Judges 7:12), the Amalekites, according to 1 Samuel 15:33, having newly made an inroad, with robbery and murder, into the Israelitish territory.” (Erdmann.)
1 Samuel 15:3. “Utterly destroy.” Literally, “put everything under the ban.” “The ban, of which we have here a notable instance, was an old custom, existing probably before Moses, but formulated, regulated, and extended by him. In its simplest form it was the devotion to God of any object, living or dead.… When an Israelite or the whole congregation wished to devote to God anything—man, beast, or field—whether for the honour of God or to get rid of an injurious or accursed thing, it was brought and offered to the priest, and could not then be redeemed (Leviticus 27:28); if living, it must be put to death. A deep consciousness of man’s sin and God’s holiness underlay this law. The wicked thing, contrary to the spiritual theocratic life of God’s people, must be removed, must be committed to him who was ruler and judge of God’s people. And so the custom had a breadth of use as well as of meaning which it never had in other ancient nations.… To spare the devoted thing was a grave offence, calling down the vengeance of God. In later times the ban was, doubtless under prophetic direction, softened, and in the New Testament times the infliction of death had quite ceased.” (Translator of Lange’s Commentary.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Samuel 15:1-3
THE SENTENCE AGAINST AMALEK
I. National sins may bring national retribution long after the individuals who committed the sins have left the world. Both history and revelation teach us that God deals with nations as a whole as well as with men individually, and that the sin of one generation may bring penalty upon another. If a man deals a murderous blow to another and is not brought to justice until long after the crime has been committed, the judge will not overlook the crime because it was not committed yesterday, or a few days or weeks ago—however long the transgressor may go unpunished the penalty of the transgression hangs over him until he has undergone the punishment which it deserves. The words of God in this chapter show that he proceeds on the same principle in relation to nations. Many ages had passed away since “Amalek laid wait for Israel in the way, when he came up out of Egypt,” and the men who were guilty of the deed had long since left the earth. Yet the mention of it here shows that the sentence here passed upon the nation had special reference to that national sin which had been committed so long ago. At the same time we must remember that the Amalekites of the time of Saul were possessed by the same spirit of hatred to Israel as their forefathers were—although no reference is here made to their later attacks upon the Hebrew people, we know from other passages (See critical Notes) that the Amalekites now were no less cruel and murderous in disposition than their forefathers in the days of Moses. If a man was brought to the bar of a human judge for a crime committed in his youth, and it was proven that he has since lived for years the life of a peaceable citizen, it might seem hard to make him now suffer for a deed done so long ago, but if during the intervening years he had been adding crime to crime he will deserve to have all his misdeeds taken into account when the day of reckoning comes. So it was with Amalek at this time. The present character of the nation was such that it fully deserved the sentence here passed upon it even if the ancient sin had not been remembered by God. When our Lord pronounced His terrible woe upon the Jewish nation of His day (Luke 11:47-52), and foretold that “the blood of all the prophets would be required of that generation,” He expressly declares that this terrible retribution would fall upon them because they “allowed the deeds of their fathers,”—in other words, because they were animated by the same spirit and were guilty of the same sins. It was doubtless the same in the case of the Amalekites.
II. The authority from which all national retribution proceeds. “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts.… now go and smite Amalek.” Whoever or whatever may be the instrumental cause of national judgment for national sin, God is the original and first cause. It is He who sets his servants “over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant (Jeremiah 1:10). The executioners of His will may be entirely unconscious that they are carrying out the designs of a Supreme Ruler of the universe in following the devices of their own hearts, but they are doing it as really as if they were knowingly obeying a Divine command. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6). When we hear that a monarch or a government has declared war against a nation, we judge of the righteousness or unrighteousness of the act from what we know of the character of the man or the number of men who are responsible for it. If we know them to be men who are lovers of humanity—if we know that they are pre-eminently just and benevolent, and incapable of being actuated by any unworthy motives, we shall conclude that they have strong and sufficient reasons for the step, and that although it must bring much sorrow and suffering, they believe that it will prevent more misery than it occasions. In this light we ought to look at all the wars which were commanded or sanctioned by Divine authority in the early ages of the world. If a human monarch or human government had given such a command as we here find given to Saul, we should be bound to look at the command through what we knew of his character and disposition, and if we knew him to be a man of integrity and benevolence to conclude that he had good ground for taking such a step. We cannot do less when we read such a sentence as that here issued against Amalek. We know that God loves the creatures whom He has made—that He is a God of peace, and that He desires “peace on earth.” If the men of the ancient world could rest assured that the Judge of all the earth would and could do nothing but right (Genesis 18:25), he who possesses the New Testament record ought not to have the shadow of a doubt that all His dealings with men have at all times been actuated by the purest love and the highest wisdom; and that however stern and terrible some of them seem to us, they are in reality dispensations of mercy. In looking at the acts of the most perfect of human kind, we could not be certain of the perfect purity and wisdom of them all; but the same inspired Book which records these acts of retributive justice reveals to us so much of the Divine character as to make it certain that the final verdict of all His creatures will be—“Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints” (Revelation 15:3).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
There are some particular precepts in Scripture given to particular persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and vicious were it not for such precepts. But it is easy to see that all these are of such a kind as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case, and of the actions, and both constitutes and shows that not to be unjust or immoral which, prior to the precept, must have appeared and really have been so; which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the principles, and act from the spirit of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty, the command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing an external action: for instance, taking away the property or life of any. For men have no right to either life or property, but what arises solely from the grant of God; when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either; and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either.—Bp. Butler.