What Does 1 Samuel 15:9 Mean in the King James?
But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verb translated “spared” also means “had pity”: what Saul preserves is what he chooses to pity.
THE MEANING
A judgment of “good” draws the boundary: Agag and the prized animals are spared, while what is called vile and refuse is destroyed utterly. The verse shows how pity can be selective, protecting what is valued while leaving the rest exposed to destruction. That division remains recognizable wherever what one prizes receives an exception.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that preserving what you judge valuable can still count as carrying out the whole command.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחְמֹל
wayyaḥmōl
GROWS FROM
חמל
To pity, show compassion, or spare.
The word translated “spared” carries the sense of pity: preservation here is an act of selective compassion. The same root can name compassion itself, joining the feeling to the choice to let something live.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmal: To pity, have compassion, or spare.
חָמַל
This verb appears in the verse and makes the act of preservation carry the shade of pity.
ḥemlāh: Compassion or pity.
חֶמְלָה
This noun shows that the root names the compassion behind the act, not only the act of sparing.
מִיטַב
miṭṭav haṭṭôv
GROWS FROM
טוב
To be good, pleasing, or beneficial.
“best; good” in this verse is miṭṭav haṭṭôv. The “best” and “good” belong to the same root, making value the passage’s dividing line. What is judged good is retained; what is judged vile or refuse is destroyed.
ALSO GROWS
ṭôv: Good, pleasing, or beneficial.
טוֹב
This is the word behind “good,” the explicit judgment that marks what is preserved.
hêṭîv: To do good or make good.
הֵיטִיב
This verbal branch shows the root extending from a judgment of goodness to an action shaped by it.
ṭôvāh: Goodness or welfare.
טוֹבָה
This form carries the root’s sense of what is regarded as beneficial or desirable.
הֶחֱרִימוּ
heḥĕrîmû
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under the ban; to devote to destruction.
The verb translated “destroyed utterly” carries the sense of setting something apart for destruction. The verse places this total destruction beside the selective sparing of what is judged good.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban, or something devoted under the ban.
חֵרֶם
This noun names the state of being set apart for destruction, the force behind “utterly.”
heḥĕrîm: To devote under the ban or to destruction.
הֶחֱרִים
This verbal form shows the decisive act applied to what the people did not preserve.
THE PATTERN
What is claimed as complete can conceal an exception preserved because it is judged valuable.
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.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.And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.THE THREAD
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.“Spare them not” and “spared Agag” use the same Hebrew root, חמל (ḥāmal), meaning to pity or spare. The later verse repeats the very action the earlier command names, revealing the tension in a single word.
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