1 Samuel 15 tells of the command of God to Saul that he should completely destroy a people called the Amalekites.

What are we to make of this?

Steve McAlpine tackles it as follows (this is a precis):

(a) From a philosophical perspective, the Christian apologist should refuse to allow the discussion to be framed by secular thinking.  Such thinking demands that we not only prove that God exists, but that he/she/it is that kind of god we find believable.  Our starting is not the God we want, but the God who is.  If we are willing to affirm God on the basis of his likeability, we are left with a ‘Stepford god’ (Keller).  See Heb 11:6.

(b) From a theological perspective, we must acknowledge that we are not God.  As creatures – and fallen creatures at that – our attributes are hopelessly compartmentalised, whereas as the attributes of God are indivisible.  His love, mercy and justice, and so on, are not in tension with one another, but in perfect harmony.

(c) From the perspective of Biblical Theology, we learn a number of things about this passage (1 Sam 13-15):

• • It is not the biggest genocide story in the Bible.  The Flood is; and the flood is completely God’s own work.  (Both stories, by the way, represent God as regretting (having created humankind, and having made Saul king).
  • This is not the first interaction between Israel the Amalekites.  The others have been violent, all instigated by the Amalekites, who were intent on wiping out the people of God.  The first occurs back in Ex 17.  In Deut 25 God instructs Israel to do exactly what Saul is instructed to do in 1 Sam 15.
  • The Amalekites are viewed as a threat, not simply to Israel, but to God’s purposes for the world through Israel.  As descendants of Esau they despised the covenant and the covenant people, and they continued to do so (in the book of Esther Haman is an Agagite).
  • The biggest judgment story of all is not found in the OT, but in the book of Revelation.  God may have overlooked sin in the past, but he will no longer do so, Acts 17; Rom 3:21-26.
  • We may therefore understand the OT judgment stories as ‘eschatological intrusions’, in which end-time judgment is sometimes brought forward, as a lesson and a warning to us all.  See the teaching of our Lord in Lk 13 and also the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5.
  • Then we turn to the ultimate eschatological intrusion – the cross of Christ.  There the sinless Saviour takes upon himself the force of divine judgment, thus shielding those who are in Christ from its future effects.  Jesus, the perfect King, does what King Saul failed to do.  And this can be summed up by the word ‘obedience’.  And the perfect and salvific obedience of Christ means that God will never ask us to do what he once commanded Saul to do.  ‘We are, because of Christ, currently in the eschatological period of amnesty awaiting that final judgement.’

(d) From a pastoral perspective several points can be made.

• The main pastoral point of the text is that Jesus is the truly obedient king who takes on himself the consequences of our sin.
• We would have fewer problems with this teaching if was took sin more seriously.  This passage tells us that God takes sin so seriously that he cannot allow it to continue.  And the price he pays for that himself is the death of his Son on the cross.’
• We must therefore put our own sin to death.  We must not give it oxygen.  Saul’s obedience was incomplete, as was David’s.  The consequences were far-reaching.
• Justice is worth fighting for; and the bigger the issue that requires justice, the harder the fight.

In conclusion, let’s stop trying the domesticate God; trying to tame him, make him more manageable.  Let us confess, with Paul:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has first given to God,
that God needs to repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen.

(Rom 11:33-36)