“In Gilgal,” be it noted, in that place above all others, it was proposed to offer the fruit of self-will to God. It was Israel's camping ground at the first, the spot where the sharp knives of circumcision were used, abiding lesson of the supreme importance of self-judgment on the part of all who would have to do with God. The people later, as insensible of the significance of the place as their earliest king, made Gilgal one of the chief centers of their transgression against God (Hosea 4:15; Amos 4:4-5). Samuel's faithful words produced no repentance in Saul. It is true he said, “I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and thy words”; but the emptiness of the acknowledgment was shown in that he said immediately, “Honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel.” The truly contrite heart is willing to take the lowest possible place before God. It is inconceivable that honor before men should enter into the mind of one who truly feels his sin. No one could think worse of him at such a time than he thinks of himself. David in Psalm 51 after being rebuked by another prophet, presents a great and instructive contrast to Saul in 1 Samuel 15.
The truth is that an uncomfortable position had been created by the intervention of Samuel, and Saul would end it with the minimum of delay. The lesson of the two shavings on the third day and on the seventh day, as in Numbers 6:9, were unknown to him. It is observable that twice he speaks to Samuel of “The Lord thy God” (vss. 21, 30). All sense of relationship to God, and of having to do with Him for himself, seems to have departed from him. Unhappy man.