Saul's Deception Regarding Amalekite Spoil Offering
Saul's deception regarding the Amalekite spoil offering is detailed in 1 Samuel 15, where he claims to have fully obeyed God's command to utterly destroy the Amalekites, their livestock, and their possessions [11]. However, when confronted by the prophet Samuel, Saul attempts to justify his actions by shifting blame to the people and claiming the spared animals were intended for sacrifice to the Lord [4, 10].
God had sent Samuel to remind Saul of his divine appointment as king and to command him to wage war against the Amalekites, who had previously harmed the Israelites [1]. The command was to "utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" [1 Samuel 15:3]. Saul did attack the Amalekites, striking them from Havilah to Shur [5], and Josephus records that he besieged their cities and slew women and children, believing he was not acting barbarously given they were enemies and it was by divine command [3].
Despite this, Saul preserved Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and the people took the best of the sheep and oxen as spoil [2, 12]. When Samuel arrived, Saul greeted him by saying he had performed the commandment of the Lord [1 Samuel 15:13]. Samuel immediately challenged this claim, asking, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" [1 Samuel 15:14, 11]. Saul responded by stating that the people had brought them from the Amalekites, sparing the best to sacrifice to "the Lord thy God" [4].
Commentators note that Saul's statement was a deceptive attempt to excuse his disobedience by placing the blame on the people and by presenting the act as a pious intention to offer sacrifices [7, 8, 10]. This was not the first instance of Saul's disobedience; he had previously offered a sacrifice at Gilgal without waiting for Samuel, which had already drawn a threat that his monarchy would not be perpetual [6, 9]. His actions in the Amalekite war, particularly his partial obedience and subsequent deception, led to his definitive rejection as king by God [6, 11]. The prophet Samuel saw through Saul's hypocrisy, recognizing it as pride and rebellion against God's direct command [7]. Saul's transgression in sparing Agag and taking spoil was a direct violation of God's express command [12].
Sources
- Project Gutenberg “Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, CHAPTER 7, section 1: . Saul's War With The Amalekites, And Conquest Of Them. 1. Now Samuel came unto Saul, and said to him, that he was sent by God to put him in mind that God had preferred him before all others, and ordained him king; that he therefore ought to be obedient to him, and to submit to his authority, as considering, that though he had the dominion over the other tribes, yet that God had the dominion over him, and over all things. That accordingly God said to him, that "because the Amalekites did the Hebrews a great deal of mischief while”
- Project Gutenberg “Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, CHAPTER 7, section 3: home with joy, for the glorious things he had done, and for the conquest of his enemies, as though he had not neglected any thing which the prophet had enjoined him to do when he was going to make war with the Amalekites, and as though he had exactly observed all that he ought to have done. But God was grieved that the king of the Amalekites was preserved alive, and that the multitude had seized on the cattle for a prey, because these things were done without his permission; for he thought it an intolerable thing that they should”
- Project Gutenberg “Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, CHAPTER 7, section 2: as God had foretold, he set upon the cities of the Amalekites; he besieged them, and took them by force, partly by warlike machines, partly by mines dug under ground, and partly by building walls on the outsides. Some they starved out with famine, and some they gained by other methods; and after all, he betook himself to slay the women and the children, and thought he did not act therein either barbarously or inhumanly; first, because they were enemies whom he thus treated, and, in the next place, because it was done by the comma”
- I Samuel “I Samuel 15:15 (Geneva1599) — And Saul answered, They haue brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheepe, and of the oxen to sacrifice them vnto the Lord thy God, and the remnant haue we destroyed.”
- I Samuel “I Samuel 15:7 (Geneva1599) — So Saul smote the Amalekites from Hauilah as thou commest to Shur, that is before Egypt,”
- 1 Samuel (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 15 (introduction): War with Amalek. Saul's Disobedience and Rejection - 1 Samuel 15 As Saul had transgressed the commandment of God which was given to him through Samuel, by the sacrifice which he offered at Gilgal in the war with the Philistines at the very commencement of his reign, and had thereby drawn upon himself the threat that his monarchy should not be continued in perpetuity (Sa1 13:13-14); so his disobedience in the war against the Amalekites was followed by his rejection on the part of God. The Amalekites were the first heathen nation to attack the Isra”
- 1 Samuel (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on 1 Samuel 15:13: Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord--Saul was either blinded by a partial and delusive self-love, or he was, in his declaration to Samuel, acting the part of a bold and artful hypocrite. He professed to have fulfilled the divine command, and that the blame of any defects in the execution lay with the people. Samuel saw the real state of the case, and in discharge of the commission he had received before setting out, proceeded to denounce his conduct as characterized by pride, rebellion, and o”
- 1 Samuel (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 15:14: But the prophet stripped his hypocrisy at once with the question, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears, and a lowing of oxen that I hear?" Saul replied (Sa1 15:15), "They have brought them from the Amalekites, because the people spared the best sheep and oxen, to sacrifice them to the Lord thy God; and the rest we have banned." So that it was not Saul, but the people, who had transgressed the command of the Lord, and that with the most laudable intention, viz., to offer the best of the cattle that had been taken, as a thank-offering to the Lord. T”
- 1 Samuel (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 13:8: Here is, I. Saul's offence in offering sacrifice before Samuel came. Samuel, when he anointed him, had ordered him to tarry for him seven days in Gilgal, promising that, at the end of those days, he would be sure to come to him, and both offer sacrifices for him and direct him what he should do. This we had Sa1 10:8. Perhaps that order, though inserted there, was given him afterwards, or was given him as a general rule to be observed in every public congress at Gilgal, or, as is most probable, though not mentioned again, was lately repeated with reference to thi”
- 1 Samuel (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on 1 Samuel 15:15: And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites,.... That is, the people, laying the blame upon them, as Adam did on his wife, as if he had no concern at all in it, when it is clear from Sa1 15:9 he was the principal one; nor is it probable the people should do this of themselves, without his consent and authority, which was so directly contrary to the express order of God; and then to excuse the people as well as he could, on whom he laid the blame, he observes this was not done for their own private profit and advantage, but for the service and worship ”
- 1 Samuel (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 15 (introduction): In this chapter we have the final rejection of Saul from being king, for his disobedience to God's command in not utterly destroying the Amalekites. By his wars and victories he hoped to magnify and perpetuate his own name and honour, but, by his mismanagement of them, he ruined himself, and laid his honour in the dust. Here is, I. The commission God gave him to destroy the Amalekites, with a command to do it utterly (Sa1 15:1-3). II. Saul's preparation for this expedition (Sa1 15:4-6). III. His success, and partial execution of this commission (Sa1”
- 1 Chronicles (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on 1 Chronicles 10:13: Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord--in having spared the king of the Amalekites and taken the flocks of the people as spoils [Sa1 15:9], as well as in having consulted a pythoness [Sa1 28:7]. Both of these acts were great sins--the first as a violation of God's express and positive command [Sa1 15:3], and the second as contrary to a well-known statute of the kingdom (Lev 19:31).”