quote:
Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance. In this broader sense, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile would all be considered types of metaphor.
I have to take a nit picking issue with the above statement. Simile is defined in a way that it is completely distinct in form from metaphor. I have no problem with using metaphor in the broader sense used here, but when we do so, we should be aware that using this broader definition to refute earlier arguments that metaphor, exaggeration, and hyperbole are all metaphors is equivocation.
Although I dislike apologetics..
Apologetics has a negative connotation only because of a fairly recent attempts to pass off creation science and intelligent design as real science. But every person who believes that a miracle as described in the Bible literally occurred must use apologetics when defending his belief.
Since the characters aren't surprised that the Amalekites are still around, I would say that hyperbole does come into play here for the first verse or they didn't take a good body count.
Or maybe the encounter involved some/most but not all of the Amelekites on earth. I don't see how we can apply your principle to this particular text until we rule out at least the most likely possibilities that the text is literal true.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)