1 Samuel 16:14 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul— Or, as the word might have been rendered, had departed from Saul. But what spirit? Not the prophetic spirit which he received according to Samuel's prediction, which ceased instantly when his prophesying was ended: not the spirit to render him incapable of transgressing; for that he never had, and therefore could never lose it. No: God was no longer with him, to prosper and guide him; but left him, as the effect of his disobedience, to that evil, melancholy, jealous, envious, malicious, murderous spirit, which afterwards possessed him, and seems never wholly to have left him. And this evil spirit of jealousy, hatred, and cruelty, will in the nature of things banish the spirit of a sound mind, moderation, equity, and every princely virtue, introduce an almost perpetual gloom, and dispose those who are under the unhappy influence of it, to the most unwarrantable and criminal excesses.