What does 1 Samuel 15:21 mean?
King Saul has been confronted with sin and is making excuses. In the previous verse (1 Samuel 15:20), all his statements about what he did right, according to him, began with the pronoun "I." He said, in essence, "I have obeyed. I have almost the Amalekites to destruction."Now, Saul shifts the focus to the wrong choices of the people. "They" took the spoil, the best sheep and oxen, instead of devoting them to destruction as the Lord commanded. "They" had the idea to bring them back here to Gilgal to sacrifice to the Lord instead of killing them all on the spot. The good things, Saul claims, while the disobedient things he blames on the soldiers.
Yet Saul is king (1 Samuel 15:17). The narrative has already implicated Saul in this decision to retain the spoil (1 Samuel 15:9). But even if the choice was the soldiers' idea, Saul knew about it and failed to act. He abdicated his role and responsibility as leader by knowingly permitting his troops to disobey a direct command from the Lord.
Perhaps attempting to justify himself or stand up for his followers, Saul says they reserved the best of the plunder "to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal." He seems to be trying to convince Samuel that the reservation of the spoils was done with good intent (1 Samuel 15:15). It's interesting that Saul refers to Samuel's God, not his or even the people's. In short, Saul first blames his followers and then says they didn't do anything wrong to begin with.
All these responses miss the point: Saul was given authority and a directive from God (1 Samuel 15:3), and he chose not to complete the mission (1 Samuel 15:9). Denial, deflection, and blame-shifting are the common tools of politics and misbehaving children, but they come easily to all people (Romans 3:23). The Lord cannot be fooled into accepting what is not true, no matter how sincere our objections are.
As Samuel will explain, God doesn't want His people to choose when to obey, thinking we can do better that His commands. He wants trusting obedience—anything else is self-worship and sin (1 Samuel 15:22–23).
