2 Samuel 1:11

DAVID'S EXECUTION OF THE LYING AMALEKITE

"Then David took hold of his clothes, and rent them; and so did all the men who were with him; and they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for Israel. And David said to the young man who told him, `Where do you come from'? And he answered, `I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite.' David said to him, `How is it you were not afraid to put forth your hand to destroy the Lords anointed?' Then David called one of the young men and said, `Go fall upon him.' And he smote him so that he died. And David said to him, "Your blood be upon your head; for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, `I have slain the Lord's anointed ...'"

"And David said, `Go fall upon him'" (2 Samuel 1:15). As Willis noted, "Some scholars see a contradiction between what is said here and 2 Samuel 4:10, where it is implied that David slew the Amalekite."[9] But, as Dr. DeHoff said, "Some commentaries on the Bible could well be entitled, `How to keep from believing what the Lord has said.'"[10] It seems nearly incredible that any scholar should be ignorant of the truth that whatever a man commands a servant to do, when done, may also be said to have been done by the one who commanded it. This principle is clearly spelled out in the New Testament. "Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples" (John 4:1-2).

There were very good reasons behind David's execution of the Amalekite.

(1) His tale of having killed Saul was a lie on the face of it. No man could fall on a spear that was eight feet long!

(2) The Amalekite's claim of being "the son of a sojourner," had it been the truth would have meant that he knew it was a great sin to kill the "Lord's anointed." The fact that he did not know this indicated emphatically the falsehood of his claim.

(3) And then there is the fact pointed out by Young that, "This just punishment of the Amalekite once and for all precluded any untrue accusations of David's enemies that he might have had a part, directly or indirectly, in the death of Saul."[11]

We should not overlook the possibility that during that long day of David's mourning, the passage of that much time might have brought David an accurate report of Saul's death from a more dependable source. For whatever reason, David had no doubt of the Amalekite's guilt.