Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Samuel 1:14

"And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to put forth thy hand to destroy Jehovah`s anointed?" — 2 Samuel 1:14 (ASV)

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 2 Samuel 1:16.) Regicide was not in David’s eyes merely a political crime; he had shown on more than one occasion of great temptation (1 Samuel 24:6; 1 Samuel 26:9; 1 Samuel 26:11; 1 Samuel 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 strike him whom God had appointed as the monarch of Israel.