I. The impression which Saul makes upon the average reader, at least at first, is beyond all question a favourable impression. He had many of those qualifications which always go to make a man popular. (1) His personal appearance was such as commands admiration from a large number of people in all generations. He was before all things a soldier. (2) To his personal appearance and martial habits Saul added undoubted courage and resolution. (3) He had higher qualities even than these, or he would never have been regarded with the affection he inspired first in Samuel and then in David. He was both modest and generous, and his reign was on the whole, and in the civil or political sense, a benefit to his country.
II. When we turn to the character of David, we find in it dark traits which the Bible makes no attempt to disguise. And yet, in contrast with Saul, he has on him from the first the notes of God's special approval. We must therefore ask, What was especially wanting in Saul? Saul gives no evidence of having upon and within him the permanent influence of religion, of having anything that we could call the fear and love of God in his heart. David, in spite of his grievous faults, had on his heart and conscience continually the impress of the majesty, the tenderness, the encompassing presence, of God. It is better to have our part with David than with Saul, with a loyalty to God that is not always consistent rather than with an outward propriety that is never really loyal.
H. P. Liddon, Family Churchman,July 21st, 1886 (see also Penny Pulpit,No. 1161).
References: 1 Samuel 13:13; 1 Samuel 13:14. Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,3rd series, p. 136; S. Wilberforce, Sermons before the University of Oxford,1863, p. 63; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 352.