This chapter is one of the decisive chapters in Sefer Shmuel: the Holy One, blessed be He, commands Shaul, through Shmuel the prophet, to wipe out Amalek and to destroy everything, yet Shaul and the people take pity on Agag and on the best of the sheep and cattle. From this pity comes the difficult exchange between Shmuel and Shaul, at the end of which the kingship is torn away from Shaul. We will follow the order of the verses, from the meeting between Shmuel and Shaul after the battle until the end of the chapter, according to the explanation of the Malbim, with the addition of the words of Chazal and the masters of mussar.
וַיָּבֹא שְׁמוּאֵל אֶל־שָׁאוּל, וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ שָׁאוּל: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה לַיהֹוָה, הֲקִימֹתִי אֶת־דְּבַר יְהֹוָה׃ - And Shmuel came to Shaul, and Shaul said to him: Blessed are you to Hashem, I have fulfilled the word of Hashem.
Shaul opens with a blessing and a declaration: you have nothing to worry about, I have fulfilled the word of Hashem. And immediately comes Shmuel's response:
וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל: וּמֶה קוֹל־הַצֹּאן הַזֶּה בְּאָזְנָי, וְקוֹל הַבָּקָר אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי שֹׁמֵעַ׃ - And Shmuel said: Then what is this sound of sheep in my ears, and the sound of the cattle that I hear?
If you have indeed fulfilled the word of Hashem, what is the meaning of these sounds that I hear?
וַיֹּאמֶר שָׁאוּל: מֵעֲמָלֵקִי הֱבִיאוּם, אֲשֶׁר חָמַל הָעָם עַל־מֵיטַב הַצֹּאן וְהַבָּקָר לְמַעַן זְבֹחַ לַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, וְאֶת־הַיּוֹתֵר הֶחֱרַמְנוּ׃ - And Shaul said: They brought them from the Amalekites, for the people took pity on the best of the sheep and cattle in order to sacrifice to Hashem your God, and the rest we utterly destroyed.
Shaul offers two excuses. The first regards the act itself: it was not I, it was the people who took pity. The second regards the intention: this was not a matter of taking spoil but an intention to sacrifice to Hashem, and the proof is that everything unfit for offering we destroyed, and we brought only those fit for sacrifice.
From here we learn what lay at the foundation of Shaul's thinking: intellectually he felt that to kill everything was not proper and not just, and this is that very "pity," and this itself was the sin. Does a person make calculations against the Creator of the world? The Holy One, blessed be He, is the Compassionate and Gracious One, slow to anger and abundant in kindness, and His measure of mercy cannot be contained, and you come to be more merciful than Hashem, may He be blessed?
The Malbim notes a fundamental point: why was Shaul's response not accepted? Because the essence of repentance is regret, and Shaul does not regret and does not confess. He does not say "I erred," but immediately gives explanations, and feels confident in himself. Only when he is pushed to the wall, into the corner, does he admit it. And this is one of the great differences between him and David: when Natan came to David with the parable, David did not argue at all but immediately said "I have sinned to Hashem."
Let us hear a wonderful explanation from the author of "Chanukas HaTorah," Rabbi Reb Heshel. Anything you hear in the name of Chanukas HaTorah, know that it is sharp, incisive, and sweeter than honey. The premise is what we explained: that the Amalekites were sorcerers who would turn themselves into animals, and so they would be taken captive in the form of animals and remain alive.
It is written in Sefer Chassidim that a person who can turn himself into an animal through sorcery can transform his entire body except for one thing: the eyes. The eyeball remains round like a human's and not square like an animal's. And in the Gemara in Tractate Bechoros, among the blemishes that disqualify an animal from being offered on the altar is a round eyeball like a human's. Not necessarily that sorcery is involved, but it is a blemish, and such an animal is not offered on the altar.
Accordingly, Shmuel asks: "And what is this bleating of the sheep in my ears" - I commanded you to kill the flock, so why? Perhaps there are Amalekites among them who turned themselves into animals through sorcery. And to this Shaul answers: "which the people took pity on, the best of the flock... in order to sacrifice to Hashem." If they took them for the purpose of sacrifice, they surely checked that the animals were fit to be offered, and if they checked them, they also checked the eyeball and saw that it was not round like a human's, and if so there is no sorcery here at all.
But of course this is a pilpul explanation and not the plain meaning. The plain meaning is as we explained: there was cleverness here regarding the word of Hashem. And among the additional reasons for which Shaul was held accountable: the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want people to say about this animal "this is an animal that was brought from Amalek," for through this the name of Amalek would be remembered.
וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל אֶל־שָׁאוּל: הֶרֶף וְאַגִּידָה לְּךָ אֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהֹוָה אֵלַי הַלָּיְלָה, וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ דַּבֵּר׃ - And Shmuel said to Shaul: Cease, and let me tell you what Hashem spoke to me tonight; and he said to him: Speak.
Shmuel sees that he is beginning to be clever and offer reasons, and he says to him "Cease" - put your hand over your mouth. For the greatest sin of all is "Behold, I will judge you for saying, I have not sinned." A person may sin, a person is capable of failing, but a person must also know how to say "I have sinned," "I erred." And if it is not enough that he failed, but he further declares that everything is fine with him and what do they want from him, that is the worst of all. Therefore Shmuel immediately stopped him from his excuses, for the excuses are worse than the deed itself.
וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל: הֲלוֹא אִם־קָטֹן אַתָּה בְּעֵינֶיךָ, רֹאשׁ שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אָתָּה, וַיִּמְשָׁחֲךָ יְהֹוָה לְמֶלֶךְ עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ - And Shmuel said: Though you are small in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? And Hashem anointed you king over Israel.
Here Shmuel alludes to his claim of "the people took pity." In our words: small-minded. "What can I do, I am a cog in the system, the people did as they wished." Shmuel says to him: If you are small in your own eyes, you have forgotten one thing - you are the head of the tribes of Israel. Is it not the role of a king to lead and not to be led? All the deeds of the people are attributed to you, the responsibility is yours, you are the one who must determine what the people will do and what they will not do.
And furthermore: "And Hashem anointed you king." It was not just some person who gave you an order. A king who is anointed by the people might think he has an obligation toward the people, but you - the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself anointed you, and you have no obligation except to the Creator, blessed be He, alone. And we further learned above that this matter was a condition in Shaul's kingship: the entire foundation of his kingship is to obey the voice of Hashem. And if he did not obey the voice of Hashem, he is lacking the very foundation, not some detail that is imperfect.
וַיִּשְׁלָחֲךָ יְהֹוָה בְּדָרֶךְ, וַיֹּאמֶר: לֵךְ וְהַחֲרַמְתָּה אֶת־הַחַטָּאִים אֶת־עֲמָלֵק, וְנִלְחַמְתָּ בוֹ עַד כַּלּוֹתָם אֹתָם׃ - And Hashem sent you on a mission, and He said: Go and utterly destroy the sinners, Amalek, and wage war against them until they are wiped out.
Even if the command had been general you would have been obligated to obey it, and all the more so here where "Hashem sent you on the way" - a direct mission from the Holy One, blessed be He. In such a mission there are no clever tricks, no "roughly" and no "almost." One must do exactly as told, for the matter was stated to you explicitly: "until they are wiped out," a complete eradication.
From here the Rav of Brisk derived a hint to the position of the Rambam. The Rambam rules that an Amalekite who accepts upon himself the seven Noahide laws is not put to death. Others disagree and say that Amalek is liable to death in every case and nothing will avail him. The Rav of Brisk points out precisely: why does it say "the sinners, Amalek" in a doubled form, when it would have been enough to say "and you shall utterly destroy Amalek"? Rather, it comes to teach you: Amalek - as long as he is in the category of "sinners." But an Amalekite who has accepted upon himself the seven Noahide laws and accepted the yoke of Heaven, there is no obligation to eradicate him. And there is also a major dispute here as to whether one accepts converts from Amalek or not.
וְלָמָּה לֹא־שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקוֹל יְהֹוָה, וַתַּעַט אֶל־הַשָּׁלָל, וַתַּעַשׂ הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהֹוָה׃ - And why did you not obey the voice of Hashem, but pounced upon the spoil, and did what was evil in the eyes of Hashem?
There are three matters here. The first: "Why did you not obey the voice of Hashem." The Malbim explains that there is a difference between a human command and a divine command. If I told you to carry cabinets up to the fourth floor via the stairwell, and you brought them up with a crane, there is no complaint against you, for the purpose is that the objects reach the apartment, and they are in the apartment. But with a divine command there is no such concept. With the Holy One, blessed be He, we do not say "the main thing is that I reached the goal." The goal never sanctifies the means; if the means are invalid, the goal too is invalid. One cannot say: let us steal a large sum of money, buy cassettes with it, distribute them for free and bring Jews back to Torah observance. That is Robin Hood, there is no such thing in the Torah. You will never reach a holy goal through invalid means.
In fact, in Judaism there is no concept of a "means" at all, for everything is in the category of a goal. The Torah said "and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand" - does it follow that writing the parashiyot and preparing the batim are only a means? No. They themselves are also a mitzvah. The Torah did not say "and you shall build sukkot" but rather "in sukkot you shall dwell seven days," and yet one who toils in building the sukkah fulfills a mitzvah in that very act, and likewise one who exerts himself in acquiring the four species. Moreover, every mitzvah over which a person sweats - building a sukkah, baking matzot and the like - has great power to atone for the sin of the covenant.
If so, with the Holy One, blessed be He, one cannot separate between the goal and the means. If He commanded a particular thing, it must be done specifically in the way He said. Shaul thought: the main thing is to take revenge on Amalek, and I took revenge, the goal has been accomplished. To this he was told: if you did not do it one hundred percent according to the command, you did nothing. A person cannot say I put on tefillin and only the tip of the yud is missing. "Don't be extreme, who is perfect?" - but if you say that 4 plus 4 equals 7.999 from now until the end of all generations, that will be very close to the truth and still an outright falsehood.
Someone met a friend and said to him: yesterday I almost met your father. He asked: how? He replied: your father is a policeman whose serial number is 235, and yesterday I met policeman 234. That is "almost." And in an "almost" there is nothing. And another: someone asked his friend why the absence of the tip of a yud invalidates. He told him: I will send you the answer by email. A week passed and the fellow received nothing. He said to him: I sent it, only without the period after the letter. He said to him: if so it did not reach me at all, it reached someone else. He said to him: here you understand very well that without a dot it does not arrive, so why do you not understand that without the tip of a yud it does not arrive Above? Take a whole device, remove a single transistor from it - it does not work. Without wholeness it does not function.
The second matter: "and you pounced upon the spoil." This is a harsh expression, containing love of gain and lust for money, and it presents the whole deed in a lowly manner.
And the third matter: "and you did what was evil in the eyes of Hashem." Ostensibly he did good, only not perfectly, so why is it called "evil"? The Malbim says a wonderful thing: to fulfill the will of Hashem halfway is sometimes worse than not doing it at all. A person who places three tzitzit on a tallit instead of four - is he better than one who did not place any at all? No. He transgressed "you shall not diminish," while the other committed no transgression. Likewise one who puts on tefillin whose batim contain three parashiyot instead of four is worse than one who did not put them on at all, for he gained no mitzvah and moreover transgressed "you shall not diminish": he will receive punishment both for not putting them on and for diminishing from the mitzvot of Hashem. Therefore Shmuel says to him: in that you did not do it perfectly - "and you did what was evil in the eyes of Hashem."
וַיֹּאמֶר שָׁאוּל אֶל־שְׁמוּאֵל: אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתִּי בְּקוֹל יְהֹוָה, וָאֵלֵךְ בַּדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר־שְׁלָחַנִי יְהֹוָה, וָאָבִיא אֶת־אֲגַג מֶלֶךְ עֲמָלֵק, וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵק הֶחֱרַמְתִּי׃ - And Shaul said to Shmuel: I have obeyed the voice of Hashem, and I went on the way that Hashem sent me, and I brought Agag king of Amalek, and Amalek I destroyed.
Shaul argues: how can you say that I did not fulfill Hashem's command at all? I changed nothing, neither in the means nor in the result. In the means, I went on the way that Hashem sent me. In the result, behold, we were victorious, and I brought Agag, and Amalek I destroyed, and this was the main goal, to kill the people, and I killed them.
וַיִּקַּח הָעָם מֵהַשָּׁלָל צֹאן וּבָקָר רֵאשִׁית הַחֵרֶם, לִזְבֹּחַ לַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בַּגִּלְגָּל׃ - But the people took from the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Hashem your God at Gilgal.
On one point he is willing to admit that there was a problem: the taking of the spoil, which contradicted the command of the ban. Yet even about this he has a twofold excuse. First, "the people took" - do not attach this to me, the people took it. And this is not accurate, for when the prophet describes the event it says "And Shaul and the people had pity on Agag and on the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fatlings," whereas here Shaul omits himself. The prophet explicitly testifies about him that Shaul himself was also involved. Second, to the charge "and you pounced on the spoil," which presents base men who saw property and pounced on it, he responds: "to sacrifice to Hashem your God at Gilgal" - not out of greed, but to offer sacrifices, and not for ourselves.
וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל: הַחֵפֶץ לַיהֹוָה בְּעֹלוֹת וּזְבָחִים כִּשְׁמֹעַ בְּקוֹל יְהֹוָה, הִנֵּה שְׁמֹעַ מִזֶּבַח טוֹב, לְהַקְשִׁיב מֵחֵלֶב אֵילִים׃ - And Shmuel said: Does Hashem delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of Hashem? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams.
To understand the depth of these words one must know the difference between "delight" (chefetz) and "will" (ratzon) in the language of Scripture, as the Malbim explains. "Delight" is an emotional matter, and usually a matter of desire: a person delights in something because he is drawn to it emotionally. "Will" is an intellectual matter: a person wills something because of the perfection, goodness and virtue in it. I will to eat healthy foods, but I delight in ice cream. What one wills is what is good and beneficial to him, and what one delights in is what appeals to him.
Shmuel says: does the Holy One, blessed be He, have a personal inclination and desire for burnt offerings and sacrifices? Does He need them? In what does Hashem truly delight? In a person obeying His voice. The sacrifice is Hashem's will - He wills that you offer, because through the offering the thing in which He delights will come about, that you obey His voice and nullify yourself before Him. A person who brings a sacrifice with no intention of repentance, there is nothing in it, and one who offers with loathing, without self nullification and without a will to do Hashem's will, on the contrary, this is a disgrace: "who asked this of you, to trample My courts." The goal is not that you bring a tribute and leave.
Therefore: "behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams" - one who obeys the voice of Hashem is far preferable to one who merely brings burnt offerings and sacrifices. If so, what are you coming to say, that you brought sacrifices? The sacrifices are not Hashem's delight but His will, and His true delight is that you obey His voice, and that is what you missed. And some explain in another way: "Does Hashem delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices" - if you truly fulfilled Hashem's will, what have you to do with sacrifices? The sacrifice comes to atone for one who did not do Hashem's will. You claim that you did everything properly, if so, why did you need sacrifices? One who obeys the voice of Hashem does not need sacrifices.
כִּי חַטַּאת־קֶסֶם מֶרִי, וְאָוֶן וּתְרָפִים הַפְצַר, יַעַן מָאַסְתָּ אֶת־דְּבַר יְהֹוָה וַיִּמְאָסְךָ מִמֶּלֶךְ׃ - For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of Hashem, He has rejected you from being king.
Shmuel says to him: by continuing to argue and to claim that you did not sin at all and that the people are to blame, you added sin upon transgression and multiplied your iniquity many times over. "For rebellion is as the sin of divination" - the sin of rebellion resembles the sin of divination. In what does the iniquity of one who inquires of sorcerers lie? It is a kind of denial of Hashem, for it says "for these nations that you are dispossessing hearken to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, Hashem your God has not given you so... a prophet from your midst, like me, to him you shall hearken." The diviners do not obey the command of Hashem but seek to see what the divinations and sorceries and forces of impurity will say, without recourse to Hashem. And so too one who rebels against the word of Hashem and says "I have not sinned" - it is as though he is not whole with Hashem, blessed be He.
"וְאָוֶן וּתְרָפִים הַפְצַר" - it is as if the verse said "and iniquity of divination and idols is stubbornness," for the word "divination" carries over both to what precedes it and to what follows. And what is "hafzar" (stubbornness)? To be stubborn (lehaftzir) means to multiply, as in "and the file (hapetzira) had many mouths (pim)" - the file is called this because it has many mouths, and similarly "and he pressed him (vayiftzar bo)" means he spoke with him a great deal. A person who is stubborn, that is, who persists in his opinion and refuses to admit his sin and insists that everything he does is proper, is like one who added to the sin of divination the sins of iniquity and idols: it was not enough that he went to sorcerers, but he added idol worship as well. For by your stubbornness you are, as it were, saying that what Hashem says was a sin is not true and that He is not right. "Because you have rejected the word of Hashem" and you further strengthened yourself in your error - "He has rejected you from being king."
וַיֹּאמֶר שָׁאוּל אֶל־שְׁמוּאֵל: חָטָאתִי כִּי־עָבַרְתִּי אֶת־פִּי יְהֹוָה וְאֶת־דְּבָרֶיךָ, כִּי יָרֵאתִי אֶת־הָעָם וָאֶשְׁמַע בְּקוֹלָם׃ - And Shaul said to Shmuel: I have sinned, for I have transgressed the command of Hashem and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Now, faced with these sharp words, Shaul admits everything. First, the act itself: I transgressed the command of Hashem, who ordered me to kill all of Amalek, and I left the sheep and cattle. And second, he confesses also to the root that brought him to this: "because I feared the people and obeyed their voice," which is itself a grave sin in its own right, and because of it he contradicted the words of the prophet and transgressed the command of Hashem.
וְעַתָּה שָׂא נָא אֶת־חַטָּאתִי, וְשׁוּב עִמִּי וְאֶשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לַיהֹוָה׃ - And now, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may prostrate myself before Hashem.
וַיֹּאמֶר: חָטָאתִי, עַתָּה כַּבְּדֵנִי נָא נֶגֶד זִקְנֵי־עַמִּי וְנֶגֶד יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְשׁוּב עִמִּי וְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֵיתִי לַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ׃ - And he said: I have sinned; honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may prostrate myself before Hashem your God.
Two things were important to Shaul. The first, that the matter should not be a disgrace. A slap given before everyone's eyes rings far harder than a slap given gently and in secret. He asked that they not kick him out of the kingship with a kick, but with a caress.
And the second thing the Chafetz Chaim explains based on a great principle regarding the evil inclination: this is how the Holy One, blessed be He, implanted it in creation, that the evil inclination cannot topple a person in one moment from a high roof to a deep pit. Rather, today it tells him do this, and tomorrow it tells him do this, until finally it tells him go worship idols. First: there is no need to be so particular, you can pray, but who said you must have a minyan. Then: not all three prayers are from the Torah, one prayer a day is enough. Then: is the entire Shacharit from the Torah? Keriat Shema and tefillin are what is from the Torah, all the rest are additions. And then: after all, there is an opinion among the poskim that "one whose scalp never bore tefillin" refers to one who never put them on at all, but one who put them on once in his life has fulfilled the obligation, and I did put them on this week. And so, little by little, a person reaches the deep pit. One cannot take a mitzvah observant, God fearing man and turn him overnight into an idol worshiper.
But, says the Chafetz Chaim, all this applies when a person's life runs along a fixed track without obstacles and without drastic changes. However, when a drastic change befalls a person, he is liable to fall in a single moment from a high roof to a deep pit. And where do we find this? At the time Moshe Rabbeinu ascended to receive the Torah: within a few hours the Satan transformed all of Israel, who had all been God fearing and on the level of prophecy, who had seen the Divine at the revelation at Har Sinai and heard two of the commandments from the mouth of the Almighty, into idol worshipers. How? The Satan showed them the bier of Moshe, "for this man Moshe, we do not know what has become of him," and threw them into confusion. And a person who is in confusion and in a fall, whose every stable foundation has been overturned, is liable to abandon everything in a single moment.
And according to this, Shaul's request becomes understandable. After all, Hashem had rejected him from being king, and this was for him a drastic fall, a mighty blow, a shattering: one who had been the most beloved in Hashem's eyes, of whom it was said "there was none like him in all Israel," head and shoulders above the rest, and suddenly he is told that Hashem has rejected him and does not want him. Such a fall frightened him for himself, lest, God forbid, he even reach idol worship. Therefore he asked: cushion the fall for me, for if it is too hard I fear where I might deteriorate. And Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz remarks on this, that the honor he requested here was not honor of publicity and public relations toward the outside, that they would photograph him for the newspapers walking with Shmuel.
וַיָּשָׁב שְׁמוּאֵל אַחֲרֵי שָׁאוּל, וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ שָׁאוּל לַיהֹוָה׃ - And Shmuel turned back after Shaul, and Shaul prostrated himself before Hashem.
Shmuel relents to him, and they return and bow to Hashem.
וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל: הַגִּישׁוּ אֵלַי אֶת־אֲגַג מֶלֶךְ עֲמָלֵק, וַיֵּלֶךְ אֵלָיו אֲגַג מַעֲדַנֹּת, וַיֹּאמֶר אֲגָג: אָכֵן סָר מַר־הַמָּוֶת׃ - And Shmuel said: Bring me Agag king of Amalek. And Agag came to him maadanot, and Agag said: Surely the bitterness of death has turned away.
Now Agag king of Amalek must be put to death, and Shmuel takes the matter upon himself, so that it be done by the greatest man in Israel. And what is "maadanot"? The Targum explains it from the language of pampering: he walked like one refined, in the manner of kings who do not run but walk with nobility and pride. Others explain it from the language of binding, as in "maadanot Kimah" (the bonds of the Pleiades), meaning he walked bound in chains so that he would not flee. And some say he walked in pleasure and joy, for he preferred death over life.
And what is "sar mar hamavet"? Some explain "sar" from the language of arriving, like "turn aside here" (surah heinah), meaning the bitterness of death has arrived. Others explain that he went joyfully to die, for the bitterness of death had already departed from him: for a dignified person, death is preferable to humiliation, and as long as he was placed in prison at degrading labor it was in his eyes harder than death, and now that has departed.
And the Malbim explains that "mar" here is not from the language of bitterness but from the language of exchange, like "lo yamir" (he shall not exchange): there has now departed from me the thing that is equivalent to death itself, that is, the thing that in my eyes is more severe than death itself - the shame, the disgrace, and the suffering - and now I shall reach death. And some explain further: for kings, the manner of execution is very significant. Saddam Hussein was greatly troubled that he was executed by hanging, for he thought he would be shot with a bullet. Similarly, among those ten who were executed after the Nuremberg trials, one of them said that they had hoped they would at least be spared this disgrace, for they assumed they would be killed by shooting, and behold they were hanged, and hanging is the death of lowly criminals. Therefore Agag said: being killed by a lowly man is a disgrace, but being killed by a dignified man is an honor, and since he was killed by the greatest in Israel, Shmuel the prophet, the bitterness of death departed from him.
וַיֹּאמֶר שְׁמוּאֵל: כַּאֲשֶׁר שִׁכְּלָה נָשִׁים חַרְבֶּךָ, כֵּן־תִּשְׁכַּל מִנָּשִׁים אִמֶּךָ, וַיְשַׁסֵּף שְׁמוּאֵל אֶת־אֲגָג לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה בַּגִּלְגָּל׃ - And Shmuel said: As your sword bereaved women, so shall your mother be bereaved among women. And Shmuel hewed Agag in pieces before Hashem in Gilgal.
You turned women into the bereaved by killing their husbands - and it can also be explained, their sons - therefore measure for measure: your mother will be bereaved more than all those women, for she wants her son to live, and I nevertheless will kill you. And even though he prefers death over a life of disgrace, and there would have been room to leave him alive in the disgrace that is harder in his eyes, nevertheless, because of measure for measure, he is punished in that his mother will be bereaved.
And how did he kill him? Chazal say that he cut him with his sword like one who splits wood, and his flesh he gave as food to the neamim, which are a kind of ostrich, that eat even glass, as the Gemara says. And if they killed all of Amalek and even Agag, how was Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite born? Chazal say that on that night when they left him alive until the morrow, they brought him a maidservant in the prison, apparently through bribery of the officials, and she conceived from him, and from that maidservant eventually came forth Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the source of all the troubles.
וַיֵּלֶךְ שְׁמוּאֵל הָרָמָתָה, וְשָׁאוּל עָלָה אֶל־בֵּיתוֹ גִּבְעַת שָׁאוּל׃ - And Shmuel went to Ramah, and Shaul went up to his house at Givat Shaul.
וְלֹא־יָסַף שְׁמוּאֵל לִרְאוֹת אֶת־שָׁאוּל עַד־יוֹם מוֹתוֹ, כִּי־הִתְאַבֵּל שְׁמוּאֵל אֶל־שָׁאוּל, וַיהֹוָה נִחָם כִּי־הִמְלִיךְ אֶת־שָׁאוּל עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ - And Shmuel did not see Shaul again until the day of his death, for Shmuel mourned over Shaul, and Hashem regretted that He had made Shaul king over Israel.
Shmuel understood that Shaul would never return to his former standing, and the very sight of him would have caused him pain: to see the first king, whom he himself had anointed, and whose kingship had been cut off. Even more, "and Hashem regretted that He had made Shaul king" - the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, had come to terms with the matter, that Shaul was no longer fit to reign and another was needed in his place, and this in particular deepened Shmuel's grief, for he saw that the Holy One, blessed be He, did not grieve over the end of Shaul's kingship. And this itself opens the door to the next chapter.
The chapter teaches a great principle: Shaul's sin was not only in sparing Agag and the best of the flock, but chiefly in that he did not know how to say "I have sinned." Instead of remorse came excuses, and instead of admission came stubbornness, and about this Shmuel said "Cease" - the self justification is graver than the deed, and "rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry." We learned that no person is permitted to be more merciful than the Creator and to make calculations against His command, that the end does not justify the means, and that in the service of Hashem there is no "almost" but only complete wholeness, and that a deficient deed is at times worse than one who did nothing at all. And above all: "Does Hashem delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Hashem? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice"; the true desire of the Holy One, blessed be He, is obedience to His voice, and the offerings are only the means to express this. Shaul, who missed the very foundation of his kingship, lost it, and Shmuel mourned over him all the days of his life.