But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and wouldn't utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
Saul had formerly been genuinely humble. He had realistically evaluated himself before his anointing (1 Samuel 14:17; cf. 1 Samuel 9:21). Yet when he became king he viewed himself as the ultimate authority in Israel, a view common among ancient Near Eastern monarchs. This attitude led him to disobey the Law of God. God had sent Saul on a mission (1 Samuel 14:18; cf. Matthew 28:19-20), which involved the total extermination of the Amalekites. The Hebrew word translated "sinners" means habitually wicked people (cf. Psalms 1:1; Psalms 1:5), like the Canaanites.