Jewish Ritual Murder: The Case of the Prophet Samuel in Gilgal (circa 1,000 - 1,100 B.C.)

I have previously talked about the passage in 1 Samuel which covers the mass extermination of the Amalekites – called a ‘Cherem’ (aka an order to exterminate an enemy nation/tribe that comes directly from God) in Judaism – and how it fits into the broader pattern of human sacrifice in both the (Written) Torah (1) as well as the Tanakh (2) within Judaism and that fundamentally Judaism has no actual problem with human sacrifice as long as it is to its god and not to other gods.

Indeed, to this day jews sacrifice chickens as ‘sin offerings’ to their god in the annual ritual of Kapparot (3) – which incidentally is not known before the ninth century A.D. although it is almost certainly a revival of Second Temple Judaism’s practice in Rabbinic Judaism – (4) and have also been seeking to re-introduce mass animal sacrifices – including the famous ‘Red Heifer’ - at the projected ‘Third Temple’ in Jerusalem which is not limited to modernity but is endorsed by the principal sage of Rabbinic Judaism: Maimonides. (5)

With this in mind we can read the famous passage of 1 Samuel concerning the murder of King Agag of the Amalekites at Gilgal by the Prophet Samuel as one of the first documented jewish ritual murders and nor am I the first to point this out. (6)

The passage concerned reads as follows:

‘Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim—two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand from Judah. Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. Then he said to the Kenites, “Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”

When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”

But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”

Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”

“Enough!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”

“Tell me,” Saul replied.

Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”

“But I did obey the Lord,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

But Samuel replied:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as much as in obeying the Lord?

To obey is better than sacrifice,

and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination,

and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,

he has rejected you as king.”

Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord.”

But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel!”

As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore. Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you. He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.”

Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.” So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord.

Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.”

Agag came to him in chains. And he thought, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”

But Samuel said,

“As your sword has made women childless,

so will your mother be childless among women.”

And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal.

Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul. Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.’ (7)

Now the key bits of this text are:

‘Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’

‘Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord.”’

‘Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.” So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord.’

‘Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.”

Agag came to him in chains. And he thought, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”

But Samuel said,

“As your sword has made women childless,

so will your mother be childless among women.”

And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal.

Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul. Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.’

Now when we break this account down to its key parts we can see that the Prophet Samuel is upset with King Saul because he hasn’t murdered every member of the Amalekites – including the women and child as well as every single animal they owned – and has instead brought the finest animals and King Agag to Gilgal (lit. ‘Circle of Stones’) – which was a sacred site that the Israelites had long used as a sacrificial centre – (8) where he intends to sacrifice the ‘best animals’ to the glory of his god.

The text doesn’t make clear if Saul views Agag as one of those ‘best animals’ or not, but it is reasonable to suppose given that Agag is the only surviving Amalekite at this point and as the king ‘is the best of’ the Amalekites; so it makes a lot of sense that Saul’s actual purpose in bringing Agag along with the ‘best animals’ to the sacrificial site of Gilgal was to make him – along with the ‘best animals’ of the Amalekites – a (human) sacrifice to Yahweh.

The Prophet Samuel’s objection to this is not that Agag and the ‘best animals’ of the Amalekites shouldn’t be sacrificed to Yahweh but rather where and the manner of that sacrifice. In that Samuel tells Saul that he has disobeyed Yahweh because he didn’t exterminate the Amalekites and their livestock immediately where he found them as a mass human and animal sacrifice to Yahweh and instead brought Agag and the ‘best animals’ to Gilgal to sacrifice them to Yahweh there.

Hence Saul worshipping Yahweh and then Samuel promptly ‘put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal’: in other words, Agag was a human sacrifice to Yahweh at Gilgal by the Prophet Samuel.

Thus, we can see that we read 1 Samuel 15 carefully and with a bit of Biblical context – and without trying to extract a moral/ethical/theological lesson from it and thus avoid what it is actually describing - we can see that is actually describing one of the first ever jewish ritual murders.

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-human-sacrifice-in-the-written

(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-human-sacrifice-in-the-tanakh

(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/animal-sacrifice-in-judaism-kapparot

(4) Abraham Bloch, 1980, 'The Biblical and Historical Background of Jewish Customs and Ceremonies', 1st Edition, Ktav: New York, p. 159

(5) https://www.thetorah.com/article/on-the-problem-of-sacrifices-maimonides-ladder-of-enlightenment

(6) Hellmut Schramm, 1943, [1941], 'Der Judische Ritualmord Eine historische Untersuchung'‚ 1st Edition, Theodor Fritsch Verlag: Berlin, pp. xi-xvii

(7) 1 Samuel 15 (NIV)

(8) For example: Joshua 4 (NIV); Hosea 9:15; 12:11 (NIV) and possibly also Amos 4:4; 5:5 (NIV)