(14) How wast thou not afraid?--David now turns to the Amalekite. It does not matter whether he fully believed his story or not, the man must be judged by his own account of himself. (See 2Samuel 1:16.) Regicide was not in David's eyes merely a political crime; he had showed on more than one occasion of great temptation (1Samuel 24:6; 1Samuel 26:9; 1Samuel 26:11; 1Samuel 26:16) that he considered taking the life of "the Lord's anointed" as a religious offence of the greatest magnitude. It was an especially grievous thing for a foreigner and an Amalekite thus to smite him whom God had appointed as the monarch of Israel.

1:11-16 David was sincere in his mourning for Saul; and all with him humbled themselves under the hand of God, laid so heavily upon Israel by this defeat. The man who brought the tidings, David put to death, as a murderer of his prince. David herein did not do unjustly; the Amalekite confessed the crime. If he did as he said, he deserved to die for treason; and his lying to David, if indeed it were a lie, proved, as sooner or later that sin will prove, lying against himself. Hereby David showed himself zealous for public justice, without regard to his own private interest.And David said unto him, how, wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand,.... By which it should seem that he did more than stand upon him, and press his body, that the spear might pierce through him, but that he drew his sword, and slew him; so David understood him, and is the sense of the phrase in 1 Samuel 17:51,

to destroy the Lord's anointed? a reason why David did not destroy him, when it was in the power of his hands, and which he made use of to dissuade others from it; and here charges it not only as a criminal, but a daring action in this young man, at which he expresses his admiration how he could do it; hereby representing it as a very shocking and detestable action; see 1 Samuel 24:6.