Samuel commenced with the words, “Jehovah sent me to anoint thee to be king over His people, over Israel,” in order to show to Saul the obligation which rested upon him to receive his commission as coming from God, and to proceed at once to fulfil it. The allusion to the anointing points back not to 1Sa 11:15, but to 1Sa 10:1.
Verse 2
“Thus saith the Lord of Zebaoth, I have looked upon what Amalek did to Israel, that it placed itself in his way when he came up out of Egypt” (Exo 17:8). Samuel merely mentions this first outbreak of hostility on the part of Amalek towards the people of Israel, because in this the same disposition was already manifested which now made the people ripe for the judgment of extermination (vid., Exo 17:14). The hostility which they had now displayed, according to 1Sa 15:33, there was no necessity for the prophet to mention particularly, since it was well known to Saul and all Israel. When God looks upon a sin, directs His glance towards it, He must punish it according to His own holiness. This פּקדתּי points at the very outset to the punishment about to be proclaimed.
Verse 3
Saul is to smite and ban everything belonging to it without reserve, i.e., to put to death both man and beast. The last clause וגו is only an explanation and exemplification of וגו והחרמתּם. “From man to woman,” etc., i.e., men and women, children and sucklings, etc.
Saul summoned the people to war, and mustered them (those who were summoned) at Telaim (this was probably the same place as the Telem mentioned in Jos 15:24, and is to be looked for in the eastern portion of the Negeb). “Two hundred thousand foot, and ten thousand of the men of Judah:” this implies that the two hundred thousand were from the other tribes. These numbers are not too large; for a powerful Bedouin nation, such as the Amalekites were, could not possibly be successfully attacked with a small army, but only by raising the whole of the military force of Israel.
Verse 5
He then advanced as far as the city of the Amalekites, the situation of which is altogether unknown, and placed an ambush in the valley. ויּרב does not come from ריב, to fight, i.e., to quarrel, not to give battle, but was understood even by the early translators as a contracted form of ויּארב, the Hiphil of ארב. And modern commentators have generally understood it in the same way; but Olshausen (Hebr. Gramm. p. 572) questions the correctness
