1 Samuel 18:9 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And Saul eyed David. — From the hour on which the king listened to the people’s lilt in honour of the young hero, in Saul’s distempered mind hate alternated with love. He still in his heart longed for the presence of the only human being who could charm away his ever-increasing melancholia, but he dreaded with a fierce jealousy the growing influence of the winning and gifted man whom he had taken from the sheep-folds; and now through the rest of the records of this book we shall see how the hate gradually obscured the old love. All our memories of Saul seem bound up with his life-long murderous pursuit of David.