Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, Blessed are you by Yahweh: I have performed the commandment of Yahweh.
Samuel proceeded to obey God, as Saul should have, by slaying Agag (1 Samuel 14:32-33). The departure of Samuel and Saul to their respective hometowns pictures them going their separate ways. They had little in common since their allegiance to Yahweh was quite different, so they saw nothing more of each other (1 Samuel 14:35). [Note: See David M. Gunn, The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story, p. 147.] Saul’s attitude toward Yahweh and its resultant judgment grieved the prophet who felt, as God, sorrow over the king’s fate (1 Samuel 15:35; 1 Samuel 16:1). God has feelings about our responses to Him. He is not a machine but a Person. God regretted that He had made Saul king because of Saul’s decisions, not because God thought He had made a mistake by choosing Saul. This is an anthropopathism. God felt about Saul the way we feel when someone whom we have favored greatly disappoints us greatly. Note that God regretted that He had made Saul king, not that He had made Saul one of His children. Saul did not lose his salvation because he failed to obey God completely, but he did lose his opportunity to serve God by ruling over God’s people (cf. Proverbs 25:19; 1 Corinthians 9:27). [Note: See Terence E. Fretheim, "Divine Foreknowledge, Divine Constancy, and the Rejection of Saul’s Kingship," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47:4 (October 1985):597.] 