Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Remember the Amalekites?

They were the first people to attack Israel when they were in the wilderness way back in Exodus 17.

And in Deuteronomy 25, God commanded Israel to

blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. The Israelites were supposed to completely

wipe them out and kill all living things. But that still hasn't happened. So maybe now that Israel

has a king they can pull it off? Samuel charges Saul with the task. Saul and his army win the battle,

but he takes the king alive, as well as a lot of animals. And even though he claims total victory,

we'll see later on in chapter 30 that there are still several hundred people alive among the

Amalekites. So Saul's obedience is far from thorough here. He opts for selective

obedience instead of complete obedience, which serves as further evidence that he's unsuitable as

Israel's king. God speaks to Samuel about Saul's kingship, and a lot of translations use the word

regretted here, saying God regretted making Saul King, but then later in verse

29, we see that God can't regret things, so which is it? The word used can also be translated as

to be grieved, so it's possible to read it as God was grieved over the fact that he made Saul King.

God is not saying he made the wrong choice. He said all along

how this choice would go for Israel, and now he's showing that it went exactly as he said,

and he's grieved over that. Samuel shares God's righteous anger. The next day, Samuel goes to confront

Saul, and he finds out that Saul has set up a monument to himself,

not God. And as Saul is telling Samuel all about what a great job he did obeying God,

there are two noteworthy things happening. First, he keeps referring to Yahweh as your God,

not my God or our God. And second, Samuel can hear animal noises. So he asks Saul about it and Saul doesn't

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