What Does 1 Samuel 15:15 Mean?
Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to slaughter to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.THE KEY
Saul assigns the sparing to “the people” but claims the destruction as “we,” dividing responsibility for one choice.
THE MEANING
The verse lays out the choice: the best sheep and oxen are spared for sacrifice, while the rest are destroyed. A sacred purpose colors the explanation, but the wording still shows who is said to have spared and who claims to have destroyed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A religious purpose erases the fact that the best were deliberately kept.
THE ROOT
חָמַל
ḥāmal
GROWS FROM
חמל
To spare, pity, or show compassion.
English separates “spared” here from “merciful” in Genesis 19:16, but both grow from חמל (ḥ-m-l, to spare or show compassion). The shared root brings sparing and mercy into view together, while the different contexts show what is being spared and why.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmal: To spare or have pity.
חָמַל
This verb names the people’s act of keeping the best animals.
ḥemlāh: Compassion or mercy.
חֶמְלָה
This noun appears in Genesis 19:16, where the LORD is described as merciful toward Lot.
הֶחֱרַמְנוּ
heḥĕramnû
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under a ban or devote to destruction.
“devoted to destruction” in this verse is heḥĕramnû. The verb behind “utterly destroyed” carries the sense of placing something under the ban, often by devoting it to destruction. Set beside what is spared, it makes Saul’s account a sharp division between what is kept and what is destroyed.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban, or something devoted to destruction.
חֵרֶם
It shows the force behind Saul’s claim about the remainder.
heḥĕrîm: To place under the ban or devote to destruction.
הֶחֱרִים
This verb form shares the root of Saul’s “we have utterly destroyed.”
זְבֹחַ
zevōaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter for an offering.
“to slaughter to” in this verse is zevōaḥ. The word behind “to sacrifice” carries the act of slaughter within it. The reason Saul gives is therefore concrete: the animals spared are kept for a specific offering, while the rest are destroyed.
ALSO GROWS
zevaḥ: A sacrifice or sacrificial slaughter.
זֶבַח
It names the offering Saul says the spared animals are meant to become.
mizbēaḥ: An altar.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar shares the root of sacrifice, linking the stated purpose to the place where an offering is made.
THE PATTERN
A religious offering cannot cover the gap between stated devotion and the choice actually made.
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.For you do not delight in the slaughtered offering, else I would give it; the rising offering you do not receive.Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the governance of the heavens, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens.THE THREAD
And while he lingered, the men gripped his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, the LORD sparing him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.The Hebrew root חמל (ḥ-m-l, to spare or show compassion) appears here as “merciful” and in Saul’s sentence as “spared.” English gives the two actions different words; the shared root reveals their connection while the verses show different objects and circumstances.
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