15:13-15
Eventually Samuel reaches Saul, and Saul welcomes him, thinking all is well. Saul believes that he has carried out the Lord’s instructions. We are easily deluded. Samuel then asks him why he can hear the bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle. Saul still thinks that he has done right, for he says the soldiers spared the best of the sheep in order to sacrifice them to the Lord. He has put a religious veneer on his disobedience.
15:16-21
Samuel is not impressed and tells Saul what the Lord had said to him. Samuel reminds Saul where he has come from. He was small in his own eyes, yet the Lord anointed him as king over Israel. Yet now Saul was erecting monuments in his own honour. God had told him to “completely destroy the Amalekites”, not just the “despised” ones. Saul had not obeyed the Lord. He had done evil in the eyes of the Lord.
Saul still protests that he has obeyed the Lord. Yet there is a clear contradiction for he says he did completely destroy them and “brought back Agag the king”. So Agag was not destroyed. Sin so easily deludes us. He then again refers to the soldiers bringing back the best of the sheep and cattle in order to sacrifice them to the Lord. Saul was leaning on his own understanding, rather than submitting to the Lord (Prov 3:5,6).
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