Bible Synapse
Did Saul destroy all the Amalekites?
Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
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Saul struck the Amalekites “from Havilah until thou comest to Shur”, took Agag alive and “utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword”.
And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
Samuel told Agag, “as thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women”, and put him to death.
And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
Some years later David raided the Geshurites, the Gezrites and the Amalekites in the land towards Shur and Egypt.
And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt. And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish.
While David was away, the Amalekites raided the south and burned Ziklag.
And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire;
David struck them, and none escaped “save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled”.
And David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled.
An Amalekite told David that he had killed the wounded Saul.
And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. He said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord.
Men of Simeon, apparently in Hezekiah’s day (4:41), “smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped”.
And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to mount Seir, having for their captains Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi. And they smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day.
The objection
1 Samuel 15 says that Saul “utterly destroyed all the people” of Amalek. Yet Agag’s mother is spoken of as still alive, David raids the Amalekites a few years later, an Amalekite army burns Ziklag and four hundred of its men escape, and an Amalekite claims to have killed Saul. Critics ask how a people that had been wiped out kept appearing.
The answer
‘All the people’ in 15:8 means all whom Saul’s army caught in that campaign, and the narrative itself shows it. Saul attacked “a city of Amalek” (15:5) and struck the Amalekites across a wide stretch of desert, “from Havilah until thou comest to Shur” (15:7). The Amalekites were a wandering people spread over the wilderness south of Judah, and many of them could flee. As Keil and Delitzsch observe, it follows from the nature of the case that many escaped, so there is nothing strange in finding Amalekites again later. The book records that even David’s later victory left four hundred survivors on camels (30:17), and Chronicles tells how men of Simeon, probably in Hezekiah’s day, centuries later, “smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped” at Mount Seir (1 Chronicles 4:41–43).
Ancient accounts of war, inside and outside the Bible, commonly describe a crushing defeat in sweeping terms. The writer of Samuel, who tells of surviving Amalekites only a few chapters later, plainly did not mean his ‘all’ to be read as every last person. Agag’s mother is no difficulty either. Samuel’s words in 15:33 are a sentence on Agag: his death would leave his mother childless, as his sword had left other mothers childless. They say nothing about where she was, and imply only that she was not among those killed.
From the classic commentators
"All," i.e., all that fell into the hands of the Israelites. For it follows from the very nature of the case that many escaped, and consequently there is nothing striking in the fact that Amalekites are mentioned again at a later periodKeil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 15
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 15, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 1 Samuel 15 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
- The Pulpit Commentary: 1 Samuel 15, at Bible Hub