What Does 1 Samuel 15:3 Mean?
Now go and strike Amalek, and devote all that they have to destruction, and do not spare them; but put to death man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
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
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.THE KEY
The command places every life named, from infants to livestock, under one total ban enacted through destruction.
THE MEANING
The words confront you now as an order to kill men, women, infants, and nursing children, and to kill the livestock as well. Nothing in the verse’s list is exempted by age, sex, or kind of animal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the command concerns only armed adults: it explicitly includes women, infants, nursing children, and animals.
THE ROOT
וְהַחֲרַמְתָּ
wəhaḥărāmta
GROWS FROM
חרם
ḥ-r-m
To place under a ban or devote to destruction; here, the command puts everything named under that ban.
“devote all that they have to destruction” in this verse is wəhaḥărāmta. The Hebrew verb gives the killing the form of ḥērem (חֵרֶם, ḥērem), a ban devoted to destruction. The list that follows makes its scope explicit: no age, sex, or kind of animal is outside it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: Something devoted under a ban, here to destruction.
חֵרֶם
This noun names the status behind the command; the verse applies it to people and livestock alike.
heḥĕrîm: To place something under the ban, including by devoting it to destruction.
הֶחֱרִים
This verbal form shares the root of the command and shows how the ban is enacted.
תַּחְמֹל
taḥmōl
GROWS FROM
חמל
ḥ-m-l
To pity or have compassion; by extension, to spare.
“do not spare them” in this verse is taḥmōl. The verb translated “spare” also means to pity or have compassion. The command names the denial of pity before identifying the infants, nursing children, and animals within its reach.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmal: To feel pity or compassion, and thus to spare.
חָמַל
This is the verbal root behind the command not to spare; it exposes the absence of pity in the wording.
ḥemlāh: Pity or compassion.
חֶמְלָה
This noun makes visible the human quality the command explicitly withholds.
THE PATTERN
In scriptural accounts of totalizing violence, children and ordinary life are named among the targets rather than protected exceptions.
But from the cities of these peoples, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall keep alive nothing with breath.And they devoted to destruction all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the mouth of the sword.Then Herod, when he perceived that he had been mocked by the wise men, burned with rage, and sent forth and killed all the children who were in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time he had carefully learned from the wise men.THE THREAD
When the LORD your God gives them before you, you shall strike them and devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them, nor show them favor.Deuteronomy uses the same Hebrew root חרם (ḥ-r-m), meaning “place under a ban; devote to destruction,” rendered “utterly destroy” in both verses. It adds “make no covenant” and “shew no mercy,” making explicit that this total ban excludes both treaty and compassion.
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