If you have not done so already, read the full chapter.
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.”
1 Samuel 15:2 is the event spoken of in Exodus 17:8. The Amalekites ambushed the Israelites. God’s command to Saul (1 Samuel 15:3) was God’s execution of his just nature (Isaiah 30:18). If this incident were not tied to the Judeo-Christian God, the concept of sowing and reaping (what some people would rather call Karma) is easily acceptable. Why the double standard?
Towards the end of 1 Samuel 15, we can see that Agag, king of the Amalekites (and those related to him) clearly was not an innocent man.
“32 Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.”
Agag came to him in chains. And he thought, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”
33 But Samuel said,
“As your sword has made women childless,
so will your mother be childless among women.”
And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal.”
He also happened to be Haman’s ancestor (son of Hammedatha, the Agagite). Haman plotted the annihilation of the Jews (Esther 8:5).
God knows the future. If Saul would have obeyed God’s command in 1 Samuel 15:3, the plot to kill all the Jews during the reign of Xerxes/Ahasuerus never would have happened.
“This is what the Lord says—
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God.
Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.
Let him declare and lay out before me
what has happened since I established my ancient people,
and what is yet to come—
yes, let them foretell what will come.”
Isaiah 44:6-7
This post is to address a comment that I received from another post today.
I would hope that this commenter does not support the slaughter of defenseless women, little children and babies. But, since he supports Liberal politicians (seen in his comment here) who promote the slaughter of innocent women (Leftist politicians promote Islam whose radical adherents happen to kill women who reject their marriage proposals) and they also promote abortion, his objection is a clear display of feigned morality.
If you find yourself to be in the same position as this man, it is never too late to repent.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32
Hi Caeli,
You read the bible wrongly because you don’t use a Marxist sociological analysis instrumentally to understand the political, economic and social context of the ancient world in which barbaric commands (alleged to be from God came. You need to do a socio-economic analysis of the ancient world to understand the text in its context, and then a socio-economic analysis of the modern world before applying the text.
You need to do liberation theology, otherwise you will fail to understand the text in its original context and apply it wrongly to the modern context.
“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Colossians 2:8
I love how the NLT renders it- empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking. This perfectly describes the Marxist sociological analysis you’re suggesting.
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