The Life of Samuel Series - Study #6

“Samuel, the Avenging Angel”

1 Samuel 15

Study #6 in The Life of Samuel Series 

INTRODUCTION:

After Adam and Eve sinned against God in Eden they were cast out of the garden and forbidden to return. In Genesis 3:23-24 we read, “So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After He drove the man out, He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim [i.e., powerful angels] and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” This picture has given rise to the concept of the “avenging angel,” sent to right wrongs and take a stand for God, protecting His interests. 

Although not an angel, Samuel was such a man. He lived for God. He spoke for God. He defended God’s honor. He carried God’s message. He was like an avenging angel. 

TRANSITION:

But Samuel did not volunteer for the job. He was pressed into the Lord’s service many years before. He had spent his entire life as the prophet of God, speaking the truth to God’s people, Israel, even when they did not want to hear it. And in response to the selfish, stupid demands of the people God had commanded Samuel to anoint for them a king. God told him to warn the people about what would happen—that it would not turn out well. But despite that, Samuel was optimistic and had high hopes that somehow King Saul would turn out to be a winner, that he would straighten out and become truly a man of God. However, that did not happen. Saul made one stupid decision after another, showing his true colors not only as a man lacking in integrity, but also as a king lacking in many other vital areas. 1 Samuel 15 records the sad story of King Saul’s partial obedience to God’s clear commands and the high price he paid for his stubborn disobedience. Moreover, it is filled with valuable life lessons for us if we will but take heed and learn from his mistakes. 

NOTES on the Text:

Chapter 15 begins with Samuel reminding King Saul that he was the one whom God had sent to anoint him as king over the people of Israel. In verse 1 he went on to say: “Now therefore listen [i.e., pay attention, give heed] to the words of the LORD.” Then God, through His prophet commanded Saul to go and take up arms and go to war against the city of Amalek, one of the major population concentrations of the Amalekite nation.  

Verses 2-3: “This is what the LORD Almighty [LORD Sabaoth = LORD of Hosts, or LORD of the Armies] 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 everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels, and donkeys.’” 

So, who were these Amalekites? And what had they done to have God so mad at them? Answer: They were descendants of Esau. Amalek was the son of Eliphaz, the grandson of Esau, the great-grandson of Isaac. He was the founder and chief of a large clan of fierce nomadic desert warriors known as the Amalekites who bitterly fought the Israelites’ entrance into Canaan and were constant enemies of Israel ever after. (N.B., Amalek’s genealogy is found in Genesis 36:12, 16.) 

In Saul’s day the Amalekites lived in the area to the south of Israel, from the end of the Dead Sea south into the Negev Desert. Their region bordered that of the Amorites to the east, another of Israel’s enemies. They made frequent raids on Israeli towns and villages—killing, raping, stealing, and destroying with impunity. 

We first hear about the Amalekites back in Exodus 17:8-16, which tells of their treachery to the people of God at Rephidim after the children of Israel left Egypt headed for Canaan. In Deuteronomy 25:17-19 Moses recounts the story of what happened and reminds the Israelites of God’s mandate to eventually carry out the Amalekites’ death sentence.

“Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. ¹⁸ When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. ¹⁹ When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land, He is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”         

The Hebrew word in 15:3 of our text translated “totally destroy” is the word herem and means “to devote fully.” God said that the city was “devoted” to Him, meaning that everyone and everything in it was His, and was reserved for judgment as His way of wiping their filthiness from the face of the earth. 

The same concept can be seen back in Joshua 6 in the story of the Battle of Jericho. God told Joshua that they were to take none of the spoils. The city was under God’s curse [ban] and He wanted them destroyed utterly. Joshua 6:17-18 says, “The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD… ¹⁸ But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise, you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.” Of course, you remember what happened. Achan took some of the forbidden items and hid them in a hole under his tent, thinking that no one would ever know except for him and his family members. But God knew, and that story ended with the defeat of the Israelites at Ai and the execution of Achan and his whole family for their disobedience against the clear instructions of God through His prophet. God takes this stuff very seriously! 

1 Samuel 15 is repugnant to many people, even to many Christians. It offends us. It saddens us. It angers us. It perplexes us. We want to read it through the lens of our modern human sensibilities about “right” and “wrong” and “fair.” The word “genocide” quickly comes to mind. We think that there must be some mistake here. Clearly the loving God that we know would never order the slaughter of every man, woman, and child of an entire nation. God would not demand the blood of every innocent animal in their country. The God that we know, and love, would never order His people to utterly wipe out an entire race of people… would He? 

Remember, God sees the beginning and the end. He sees into the heart. He knew the depth of wickedness of these people. He also knew that if they had been permitted to live, they would have caused more trouble in the future than is imaginable. Moreover, we learn later in Esther 3:1 more about why God was so intent on wiping out this race of evil people. Because of Saul’s partial obedience and allowing some of the Amalekites to live, one of the descendants of the royal line of Amalek, Haman, tried to wipe out the Jews entirely, and would have succeeded had not God intervened. His evil plans were thwarted by Queen Esther thanks to God’s intervention. But Haman’s lineage traced back to the king of the Amalekites, the very one Saul failed to kill. How interesting! When we begin to get God’s perspective, we start to understand His orders given to Saul. It is important to keep in mind that since you and I are not God and are not qualified or obligated to make God’s decisions, we have no right to pass judgment upon Him. 

So, God told Saul to exterminate all the Amalekites. However, we will see here that Saul did not finish the job that he started. As a result, a remnant survived for many years, until the time of Hezekiah (cf. 1 Chronicles 4:43), when they were finally destroyed near Mount Seir. But for all those years the Amalekites were a constant thorn in the flesh of the Israelites, and responsible for the deaths of countless Jews, all because Saul failed to do what he was told by the God who sees the end from the beginning. 

In verse 6 we read about another group of people, the Kenites, who were living among the Amalekites. Who were they? Descendants of the Midianites, they were a nomadic tribe of copper and metal smiths. We learn about them in Numbers 10:29-32. Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, was a Kenite and he and his people assisted the Jews greatly in the period of wanderings. Ever after there had always been a friendship between the Kenites and the Jews. These people had accompanied Israel to Jericho and then gone to dwell with the Amalekites in the desert south of Judah. Apparently, Saul found out that there was a community of them living in the city of Amalek, so he sent word to them to get out of Dodge before the shooting started, which they did immediately according to verse 6. 

Verse 7: “Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt.” 

Up through verse 7 Saul was doing OK. He was obeying the Lord. He led his armies to strike the main city of the Amalekites, Amalek, the center of their government and the home of their king. Then they continued the fight southward, wiping out as many of the Amalekites as they could find. So far, so good. 

However, things start to go wrong in verses 8-9: “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.” Saul thought to himself, “What a shame to destroy all this good stuff. Surely the Lord did not mean that, did He? That would not make sense.” 

So, he saved the king of the Amalekites, for what reason I cannot guess. By the way, “Agag” was not the guy’s name, but rather, his title. He was The Agag, the king of the Amalekites, like Caesar was for the Romans, Pharaoh for the Egyptians, and Candace for the Ethiopians. But Saul had no right to spare him any more than he had the right to spare the humblest peasant or soldier among these people. The Amalekites were wholly given to evil and the utter destruction of Israel, and the king, above all others, should have been killed, just as the Lord had declared. Moreover, Saul did not have the right to save the best of the cattle and sheep from destruction. It appears that he made his attack for the purpose of obtaining booty and spoil, and God had expressly forbidden him from doing that. In this case, the Israelites were Almighty God’s hammer for bringing judgment upon the Amalekites. 

Verses 10-11: “Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: ¹¹ ‘I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from Me and has not carried out My instructions.’ Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.” 

God was grieved. Samuel was grieved. This was a sad situation. Twice in this chapter it says that God regretted having made Saul king over Israel. What are we to make of that? Does God really grieve? Yes. Did He not know how this would all turn out? Yes. Does God ever change His mind? No. His repentance is not to be understood as his regretting His action, nor is it a sign of changeableness. Rather, it is an expression of His sorrow over man’s disobedience. Also, we need to keep in mind that His promises and threats are often conditional. For example, in Jeremiah 18:7-10 notice the If-Then statements the LORD makes: “If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, ⁸ and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. ⁹ And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, ¹⁰ and if it does evil in My sight and does not obey Me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.” 

After a sleepless night Samuel got up and went looking for Saul. He found out that Saul had set up yet another monument to himself at Carmel and then headed off to Gilgal. Samuel took off after him. When he caught up with Saul the first thing Saul did was to start lying. In verse 13 Saul said to Samuel, “The LORD bless you! I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.” What a stinkin’ liar! 

But Samuel knew what he knew. He said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?” Seeing that his lie had not worked, in verse 15 Saul switched tactics and tried to shift the blame. He said, “The people brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.” What a spineless, feckless wienie! He accepted no responsibility. 

Samuel was ticked! He stopped Saul in mid-sentence and said to him: “¹⁶ Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night. Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. ¹⁸ And He sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ ¹⁹ Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?”         

Saul responded in verse 20 with a second big lie: “But I did obey the LORD! I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king.” Do you see it? That is a contradiction.         

And in verse 21 we see his second big blame shift, once again trying to weasel out of taking responsibility: “The people took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”         

Verses 22-23 contain perhaps the most important lessons of this whole unfortunate incident. You can hear the pain and sorrow in Samuel’s voice as he says to Saul, “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.  ²³ For rebellion is like the sin of divination [i.e., witchcraft], and arrogance [insubordination] like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.”         

You can see here that God equates disobedience with rebellion. To Him they are the same thing. Moreover, to God the sin of disobedience and rebellion is just as bad as the sin of witchcraft because both are rejections of God’s sovereign right to rule our lives. And he says that insubordination is every bit as sinful as idolatry, because both seek to push God off His throne and put man on it instead. What does this mean? — “to obey is better than sacrifice.” Someone might say, “I thought God liked animal sacrifices. Was it not His idea in the first place?” But the sacrifices were always about love, and devotion, and obedience; never about the sacrifices themselves. They were just a type, a foreshadowing of Jesus, the One who would one day come to be the Sacrificial Lamb. (N.B. To get a better understanding about how God feels about empty religious rituals read Isaiah 1:10-15.)         

At this point Samuel drops the atomic bomb on Saul. He tells him that God has rejected him from being king. Saul already heard this once before, back in 13:14 after he deliberately disobeyed Samuel and offered up a burnt offering sacrifice, which he had no right to do, because he was not a Levite or a priest. 

Saul finally admits a little bit of culpability. In verse 24 he says to Samuel: “I have sinned. I violated [i.e., transgressed] the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people [= Oh poor me, I was afraid, boo hoo.] and so I gave in to them [= what else could I do?]  ²⁵ Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD.” In other words, “I may have crossed the line just a little bit, but really, it’s no big deal, right?” The big phony! He did not care about worshiping the Lord. He just wanted to make nice with Samuel and move on. I do not believe for a minute that this was genuine repentance. There is a big difference between being sorry and sorrowful that you got caught and being genuinely remorseful for the evilness of your sin and rebellion. Look how quickly he changed subjects away from his sin. 

Samuel could see through this deception. He could hear the insincerity in Saul’s voice. As much as he loved Saul personally, he knew that Saul was a lying weasel and was turning out to be a total loser. His response to Saul is in verse 26: “But Samuel said to him, ‘I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!’” 

At this point we can see that Saul is starting to get desperate. Evidently Samuel turned and started to walk away from him. Verse 27 says, “As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore.” Samuel used the opportunity as an object lesson. He said: “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors [i.e., to David, the son of Jesse]—to one better than you. ²⁹ He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind.” 

This brings up an interesting question. Won’t God forgive any sin? If Saul were genuinely repentant and sorry for his sin, would God not forgive Him? The answer is yes; God would have forgiven him. God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we will but confess our sin to Him. But that does not mean that He will go back on His word or release you from the consequences of your sin. God would have personally forgiven Saul, but He would not go back on His decision to remove him from his office. Saul had proven to be incompetent and unworthy and had caused too much damage. 

Besides, it is a moot argument because Saul was not genuinely remorseful. Look at verse 30. Saul pleaded with Samuel: “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD your God.” How strange! He was just worried about how he would look to other people. He was trying to keep up appearances so that the people would still think he was cool. And how strange it is that Samuel obliged his request. I think maybe it was more for the people’s benefit than for Saul’s. 

But there was still some unfinished business, namely the little question of what to do with the king of the Amalekites. Verse 32 says, “Then Samuel said, ‘Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.’ Agag came to him confidently, thinking, ‘Surely the bitterness of death is past.’ ³³ But Samuel said, ‘As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women.’ And Samuel put Agag to death before the LORD at Gilgal.” Did he ever! The translators of the NIV did not have the stomach to translate this literally. What the Hebrew text really says is that “Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the LORD” (cf. NASV, KJV, etc.). Like the old saying goes, “Sometimes when you want a job done right you have to do it yourself.” Samuel got the job done right; the way it should have been done in the first place. 

The chapter ends with Saul and Samuel parting company—with Saul acting as though nothing had happened, and Samuel going home with a broken heart. Verse 35 says, “Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the LORD was grieved that He had made Saul king over Israel.” This is the second time in this chapter that we hear these words. Although God knew everything before it happened, He was still saddened at Saul’s failure and the repercussions it would bring. 

CONCLUSION:

In this chapter we can learn many important lessons:

1. God has a long memory. He remembers His friends (the Kenites), and He remembers His enemies (the Amalekites). When God says He will do something, you can count on it getting done sooner or later.
2. Sin grieves God. It saddens Him. It angers Him. It offends Him. The question is… does it offend, grieve, anger, and sadden us?
3. It does not matter how important or powerful you are, you cannot get away with sin indefinitely. “‘I will repay,’ saith the LORD.”
4. Partial obedience is just as bad as full-blown disobedience. We cannot go halfway and think that will get us off the hook with God. (Dad says, “Today after school, please mow the lawn.” Later, Junior whines, “But Dad, I mowed the back yard. I thought that would be enough.”)
5. Two good deeds do not cancel out one bad deed. You cannot buy God off that way.
6. God does not determine His behavior based on our sensitivity, ideas of fairness, or concept of justice. He is not a tame Lion. He is an awesome, powerful God who hates wickedness and loves righteousness.