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Go, now, attack Amalek, and put under the ban[a] everything he has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 15:3 Put under the ban: this terminology mandates that all traces of the Amalekites (people, cities, animals, etc.) be exterminated. No plunder could be seized for personal use. In the light of Dt 20:16–18, this injunction would eliminate any tendency toward syncretism. The focus of this chapter is that Saul fails to execute this order.

Saul routed Amalek from Havilah to the approaches of Shur, on the frontier of Egypt.(A)

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This is the remaining land: all Geshur[a] and all the districts of the Philistines (from the stream adjoining Egypt to the boundary of Ekron in the north is reckoned Canaanite territory, though held by the five lords of the Philistines in Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron);

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Footnotes

  1. 13:2 Geshur: not to be confused with the large Aramean district of the same name in Bashan (vv. 11–13; Dt 3:14); here it is a region to the south of the Philistine country, since vv. 2–5 list the unconquered lands along the coast from south to north; cf. also 1 Sm 27:8.