But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and wouldn't utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
      III. Saul hereupon musters his forces, and makes a descent upon the country of Amalek. It was an immense army that he brought into the field (1 Samuel 15:4; 1 Samuel 15:4): 200,000 footmen. When he came to engage the Philistines, and the success was hazardous, he had but 600 attending him, 1 Samuel 13:15; 1 Samuel 13:15. But now that he was to attack the Amalekites by express order from heaven, in which he was sure of victory, he had thousands at his call. But, whatever it was at other times, it was not now for the honour of Judah that their forces were numbered by themselves, for their quota was scandalously short (whatever was the reason), but a twentieth part of the whole, for they were by 10,000, when the other ten tribes (for I except Levi) brought into the field 200,000. The day of Judah's honour drew near, but had not yet come. Saul numbered them in Telaim, which signifies lambs. He numbered then like lambs (so the vulgar Latin), numbered them by the paschal lambs (so the Chaldee), allowing ten to a lamb, a way of numbering used by the Jews in the later times of their nation. Saul drew all his forces to the city of Amalek, that city that was their metropolis (1 Samuel 15:5; 1 Samuel 15:5), that he might provoke them to give him battle.