“Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey”‘” (1 Sam 15:1-3).
God’s command to strike down men, women, children, and animals is not an easy pill to swallow. These verses are easily manipulated to make the God of Israel look like Allah (God forbid). These verses can also be twisted out of context to justify blind hatred for all our enemies. But my use of the words “manipulated” and “twisted” are intentionally chosen, since 1 Samuel 15 is not a story unto itself. It is part of a book called “Samuel” (1-2 Samuel is one book), and Samuel is part of a larger story called the Former Prophets (Joshua—Kings), and the Former Prophets have also been intentionally joined to the Torah (Genesis—Deuteronomy) as a theological history which tells the story of God’s choice of Israel in order to redeem the world.
This command to destroy the seed of Amalek, therefore, can only be properly understood from the literary-theological perspective of Genesis 3:14-15, namely, the battle between the spiritual seed of the serpent and the physical seed of the woman (see Gen 6:1-8; 16:7; 25:18-19; Exod 17:14-16; Num 24:7; 1 Sam 15:7-8; 27:8). But this particular story aside, we must never forget that God’s purpose for choosing the collective as well as the individual seed of Abraham was, is, and will always be God’s plan to abolish the curse and bring blessing to Israel and to all the nations of the earth (Gen 12:1-3).
Our use of any verse in the Bible must always take into account the context of that verse within the larger story. In other words, systematic theology must never be done apart from a serious commitment to biblical theology. And biblical theology reflects one’s commitment to see how every verse finds its place in a story that ultimately leads us to every tribe, tongue, and nation standing before God’s throne and praising him for his grace which he lavishes upon all who believe in Israel’s Messiah.
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb'” (Rev 7:9-10).
