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 would not utterly destroy them: but every thing [that was] vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
Ver. 9. And the best of the sheep.] If Saul spare Agag, the people will take liberty to spare the best of the spoil, - Regis ad exemplum, &c., the sins of the great command imitation, and do as seldom go without attendants as their persons, - which they ought not to have done, because together with those spoils, the memory also of the nation remained, which God had decreed utterly to blot out. They should have done as they did once at Jericho. Jos 6:17 But the dust of covetousness had put out their eyes; neither was it godliness, - as they pretended, - but gain, that made them so to fly upon the spoil. 1Sa 15:19