1 Chronicles 4 · a question people ask
Were the Simeonites told to do what 4:41-43 describes?
The chapter doesn't say they were. It says why they went to Gedor: "to seek pasture for their flocks" (4:39), found the land "wide, and quiet, and peaceful" (4:40), and "struck their tents and the Meunim who were found there", and "lived in their place, because there was pasture there for their flocks" (4:41) (tap destroyed them utterly). Of the Amalekites it says only, "They struck the remnant of the Amalekites who escaped" (4:43). It names no word from the LORD for either, and it doesn't say whether what they did was right. Earlier the LORD had said of Amalek, "I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sky" (Exodus 17:14); 1 Chronicles 4 doesn't cite those words. Christians read the Bible's accounts of war in more than one way, and 1 Samuel 15 and Joshua 6 set out the main readings in their honest questions.
The verses
“The LORD said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sky.””
“The LORD of Armies says, ‘I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way when he came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don’t spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’””
“They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.”