Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

But the prophet stripped his hypocrisy at once with the question, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears, and a lowing of oxen that I hear?" Saul replied (Sa1 15:15), "They have brought them from the Amalekites, because the people spared the best sheep and oxen, to sacrifice them to the Lord thy God; and the rest we have banned." So that it was not Saul, but the people, who had transgressed the command of the Lord, and that with the most laudable intention, viz., to offer the best of the cattle that had been taken, as a thank-offering to the Lord. The falsehood and hypocrisy of these words lay upon the very surface; for even if the cattle spared were really intended as sacrifices to the Lord, not only the people, but Saul also, would have had their own interests in view (vid., Sa1 15:9), since the flesh of thank-offerings was appropriated to sacrificial meals.