EGW SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 1

Chapter 17

14-16 (1 Samuel 15:2, 3). Amalek Doomed to Destruction—Many years before, God had appointed Amalek to utter destruction. They had lifted up their hands against God, and His throne, and had taken oath by their gods that Israel should be utterly consumed, and the God of Israel brought down so that He would not be able to deliver them out of their hands. 1BC 1102.8

Amalek had made derision of the fears of his people, and made sport of God's wonderful works for the deliverance of Israel performed by the hand of Moses before the Egyptians. They had boasted that their wise men and magicians could perform all those wonders. And if the children of Israel had been their captives, in their power as they were in Pharaoh's, that the God of Israel Himself would not have been able to deliver them out of their hands. They despised Israel, and vowed to plague them until there should not be one left (Spiritual Gifts 4a:72, 73). 1BC 1103.1

God did not wish His people to possess anything which belonged to the Amalekites, for His curse rested upon them and their possessions. He designed that they should have an end, and that His people should not preserve anything for themselves which He had cursed. He also wished the nations to see the end of that people who had defied Him, and to mark that they were destroyed by the very people they had despised. They were not to destroy them to add to their own possessions, or to get glory to themselves, but to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken in regard to Amalek (Spiritual Gifts 4a:75). 1BC 1103.2