Spoken With Love: Week 1 Day 1
1 Samuel 15:1-11
Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
4 So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim—two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand from Judah. 5 Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. 6 Then he said to the Kenites, “Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.
7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.
When reading Scripture like this, it is very easy to have a knee-jerk reaction that dislikes the idea of the complete destruction of a nation ordained by God. There are a few things, however, that are important to help us understand why this had to happen:
The Amalekites were human/child sacrificers who idolized heathen false gods.
“‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live...’” Numbers 33:55.
God has supreme authority, and Saul was not sparing anyone in pursuit of conversion or mercy. He was sparing animals in pursuit of greed and pride, as well as fear of his own soldiers’ opinion of him.
Is this Scripture difficult, absolutely! That does not, however, take away at all from the sinful act of King Saul disobeying God’s command to destroy the nation. Saul disobeyed and had to pay the price to God for his action.