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 would not utterly destroy them: but
every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. (1 Sam 15:9)
The Hebrew reads:
וַיַּחְמֹל֩
שָׁא֙וּל וְהָעָ֜ם עַל־אֲגָ֗ג וְעַל־מֵיטַ֣ב הַצֹּאן֩ וְהַבָּקָ֙ר וְהַמִּשְׁנִ֤ים
וְעַל־הַכָּרִים֙ וְעַל־כָּל־הַטּ֔וֹב וְלֹ֥א אָב֖וּ הַחֲרִימָ֑ם וְכָל־הַמְּלָאכָ֛ה
נְמִבְזָ֥ה וְנָמֵ֖ס אֹתָ֥הּ הֶחֱרִֽימוּ
the fat ones. The
Masoretic Text has mishnim (two-year-olds?), but, in a reversal of
consonants, the Syriac and the Targum reflect shmenim, fat ones. (Robert
Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2019], 2:235)
