In Deuteronomy 25:17-19, God issued a strict command to the Israelites: “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out they cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God.” So, top priority after the Israelites had settled in Canaan, was God’s command: “you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven,” adding for emphasis, “Do not forget.”
The time to “not forget” then came in 1 Samuel 15:1, when Samuel went to king Saul with a message from God: “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt (2). Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; kill all their men, women and children, and all their cattle, sheep, camels and donkeys too” (3).
You can see why God chose Saul for the job, because without hesitation or questioning why God would command such total destruction, Saul set out with an army of 210,000 men (4), clearly meaning to do what he was told. And true to Jacob’s prophecy, the Benjamite “wolf” wasn’t a tad bit squeamish, and by verse 7 he’d “totally destroyed all the Amalekites with the sword.”
But against God’s command, verse 9, “Saul and his army spared Agag the king of the Amalekites and the best of the sheep and cattle….and everything that was good. They were unwilling to destroy completely.” So what was Saul’s reason for disobeying God? Verse 24: “I was afraid of the people (wanting the plunder of the cattle and sheep etc., verse 21) so I gave in to them.”
It was the moment when the Benjamite wolf wasn’t the wolf. He’d cowered in fear instead, betraying what God had given the tribe of Benjamin for the protection of the Israelite people.
Because protection from Amalek was crucial. The Amalekites had “no fear of God” (Deuteronomy 25:18). They’d hit the Israelites at their weakest moments too – on the weary journey out of Egypt, and again at Rephidim in Exodus 17:8, when the Israelites were struggling again, wondering if “the Lord is among us or not” (7). And that made the Amalekites from then on God’s enemy (15), and he wouldn’t forget what they’d done, as we see in his use of two more Benjamites: “Esther and Mordecai”….(next blog)
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