1 Samuel 15:18

_AND THE LORD SENT THEE ON A JOURNEY, AND SAID, GO AND UTTERLY DESTROY THE SINNERS THE AMALEKITES, AND FIGHT AGAINST THEM UNTIL THEY BE CONSUMED._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

10-23 Repentance in God is not a change of mind, as it is in us, but a change of method. The change was in Saul; "He is turned back from following me." Hereby he made God his enemy. Samuel spent a whole night in pleading for Saul. The rejection of sinners is the grief of believers: God delights not in their death, nor should we. Saul boasts to Samuel of his obedience. Thus sinners think, by justifying themselves, to escape being judged of the Lord. The noise the cattle made, like the rust of the silver, James 5:3, witnessed against him. Many boast of obedience to the command of God; but what means then their indulgence of the flesh, their love of the world, their angry and unkind spirit, and their neglect of holy duties, which witness against them? See of what evil covetousness is the root; and see what is the sinfulness of sin, and notice that in it which above any thing else makes it...

THE SINNERS - As though God would justify His commission to destroy them. (Compare Genesis 13:13.)...

FINAL REJECTION OF SAUL (1 Samuel 15:1.) EXPOSITION DIVINE COMMAND TO PUNISH THE AMALEKITES, AND ITS EXECUTION BY SAUL (1 Samuel 15:1). 1 SAMUEL 15:1 SAMUEL ALSO SAID. Better literally, "And Samuel said." There is no note of time, but probably a considerable interval elapsed before this second trial of Saul was made. God does not finally reject a man until, after repeated opportunities for repentance,

AND THE LORD SENT THEE ON A JOURNEY,.... And therefore he ought to have attended to the errand sent upon, and executed the orders given; in vain, therefore, was it to lay the blame on the people: AND SAID, GO, AND UTTERLY DESTROY THE SINNERS, THE AMALEKITES; those notorious sinners, who deserve no mercy at the hands of God or men; who had so highly offended the Lord, and had been so injurious to his people at their first coming out of Egypt. The orders were plain, not to be mistaken, and full and strong for the utter destruction of them without any exception, and therefore nothing could be pleaded in excuse for the violation of them: AND FIGHT AGAINST THEM UNTIL THEY BE CONSUMED; entirely; they were not to be left until an end was made of them; or "until they had consumed them" d, the people of Israel, or the soldiers with Saul. d עד כלותם אתם "donec consumant ipsi eos", Pagninus; so...

8. WAR WITH AMALEK: SAUL'S DISOBEDIENCE AND REJECTION CHAPTER 15 _ 1. The commission to destroy Amalek (1 Samuel 15:1)_ 2. Saul's disobedience and rejection (1 Samuel 15:10) 3. Saul's confession (1 Samuel 15:24) 4. The doom of Agag (1 Samuel 15:32) From verse 48 in the previous chapter we learn that Saul smote the Amalekites. Samuel is sent by Jehovah with a new message to Saul telling him to smite Amalek again and to destroy utterly all that they have. It involves another task for Saul. He had been fully established as king and is therefore called upon to discharge his respo

XV. THE WAR AGAINST AMALEK; SAUL'S DISOBEDIENCE AND DEPOSITION (E). - A section of a secondary narrative; according to the scheme adopted here, the last section of this document was 1 Samuel 3:3 to 1 Samuel 4:1. 1 SAMUEL 15:1. Samuel bids Saul attack Amalek and subject it to the _herem_ (pp. 99, 114), or sacred ban, by which all living creatures were put to death in honour of Yahweh. (_Cf._ the cases of Jericho and Achan, Joshua 6 f.) Saul called a general levy to a rendezvous in the south of Judah the numbers are probably exaggerated and advanced against the city of Amalek, possibly a tribal sanctuary which served as the headquarters of this nomad tribe; and lay in ambush in a neighbouring valley. The

SINNERS. Hebrew. _chata'._ App-44. THEY BE CONSUMED. they have consumed them. Some codices, with Aramaean, Septuagint, and Syriac, read "thou have consumed them"....

Saul's disobedience and its penalty 11. _It repenteth me_ "God's repentance is the change of His dispensation." In the language of the O. T. God is said to repent when a change in the character and conduct of those with whom He is dealing leads to a corresponding change in His plans and purposes towards them. Thus (_a_) upon man's penitence God repents and withdraws a threatened punishment (Exodus 32:14; 2 Samuel 24:16): (_b_) upon man's faithlessness and disobedience He cancels a promise or revokes a blessing which He had given. The opposite is also true, "God is not a man that he should repent" (1 Samuel 15:29). His repentance is not to be understood as though He who foreknows all things reg

_Samuel Delivers the Lord's Message of Condemnation. 1 Samuel 15:10-23_ 10 Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying. 11 It repenteth me that I have set up Saul _to be_ king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night. 12 And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. 13 And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed _be_ thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord. 14 And Samuel said, What _meaneth_ then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 15 And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the