hem superior to other nations; and he made such of
the young men as were remarkable for tallness and comeliness the guards
of his body.

CHAPTER 7. Saul's War With The Amalekites, And Conquest Of Them.

1. Now Samuel came unto Saul, and said to him, that he was sent by God
to put him in mind that God had preferred him before all others, and
ordained him king; that he therefore ought to be obedient to him, and to
submit to his authority, as considering, that though he had the dominion
over the other tribes, yet that God had the dominion over him, and
over all things. That accordingly God said to him, that "because the
Amalekites did the Hebrews a great deal of mischief while they were
in the wilderness, and when, upon their coming out of Egypt, they were
making their way to that country which is now their own, I enjoin thee
to punish the Amalekites, by making war upon them; and when thou hast
subdued them, to leave none of them alive, but to pursue them through
every age, and to slay them, beginning with the women and the infants,
and to require this as a punishment to be inflicted upon them for the
mischief they did to our forefathers; to spare nothing, neither asses
nor other beasts, nor to reserve any of them for your own advantage and
possession, but to devote them universally to God, and, in obedience to
the commands of Moses, to blot out the name of Amalek entirely." [15]

2. So Saul promised to do what he was commanded; and supposing that
his obedience to God would be shown, not only in making war against
the Amalekites, but more fully in the readiness and quickness of his
proceedings, he made no delay, but immediately gathered together all
his forces; and when he had numbered them in Gilgal, he found them to
be about four hundred thousand of the Israelites, besides the tribe of
Judah, for that tribe contained by itself thirty thousand. Accordingly,
Saul made an irruption into the country of the Amalekites, and set many
men in several parties in ambush at the river, that so he might not
only do them a mischief by open fighting, but might fall upon them
unexpectedly in the ways, and might thereby compass them round about,
and kill them. And when he had joined battle with the enemy, he beat
them; and pursuing them as they fled, he destroyed them all. And when
that undertaking had succeeded, according as God had foretold, he set
upon the cities of the Amalekites; he besieged them, and took them by
force, pa