Bible Strands
2 Samuel 1:8
‘Who are you?’ he asked. So I told him, ‘I am an Amalekite.’
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — David questions a wounded man on the battlefield who has just reported Saul and Jonathan's deaths. The speaker is the Amalekite survivor responding to David’s inquiry about his identity.
The words — The Amalekite uses עֲמָלֵקִי ('a.mal.Ki) to identify himself as belonging to the Amalekite tribe. This term directly links his lineage to the descendants of Esau’s son.
The thread — The text places the speaker within a historically condemned group, echoing the command in 1 Samuel 15:3 to devote them to destruction. This lineage is contrasted with the Egyptian slave questioned in 1 Samuel 30:13 and the Amalekite forces struck down in 1 Samuel 30:17.
Why it lands — The verse records a factual self-identification that places the speaker within a historically condemned group. It requires the reader to recognize how a claimed lineage intersects with divine judgment and historical consequence.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 30:13 Then David asked him, “To whom do you belong, and where are you from?” “I am an Egyptian,” he replied, “the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me three days ago when I fell ill.
- 1 Samuel 30:17 And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man escaped, except four hundred young men who fled, riding off on camels.
- 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
- 1 Samuel 30:1 On the third day David and his men arrived in Ziklag, and the Amalekites had raided the Negev, attacked Ziklag, and burned it down.
- Genesis 14:7 Then they turned back to invade En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who lived in Hazazon-tamar.
- Exodus 17:8 After this, the Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim.
- Numbers 24:20 Then Balaam saw Amalek and lifted up an oracle, saying: “Amalek was first among the nations, but his end is destruction.”
- Deuteronomy 25:17 Remember what the Amalekites did to you along your way from Egypt,
- 1 Samuel 27:8 Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these people had inhabited the land extending to Shur and Egypt.)