It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.
And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.
Read Chapter 15
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Again, there are some things which are praiseworthy in people but cannot be present in God, such as shame, which is a prominent trapping of the state of sin, as is the fear of God. For not only in the Old Testament books is it praised, but the apostle also says, “perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” none of which is to be found in God. Therefore, just as certain praiseworthy human qualities are not rightly predicated of God, so also are certain contemptible human qualities properly said to be in God, not as they are found in people but only in a very different manner and for different reasons. For shortly after the Lord had said to Samuel, “I repent that I have made Saul king,” Samuel himself said of God to Saul: “He is not like a man, that he should repent.” This clearly demonstrates that even though God said “I repent,” it is not to be taken according to the human sense, as we have already argued at length. - "On Various Questions to Simplician 2.2.5"
Repenteth. God cannot change: but he often acts exteriorly as one who repents. He alters his conduct when men prove rebellious. (St. Justin Martyr, p. 22.)
Grieved. Hebrew, "indignant. "(Calmet)
He was sorry to think that Saul would now lose his temporal, and perhaps his eternal crown. (Salien)
"The choice of Judas and of Saul, do not prove that God is ignorant of future events, but rather that he is a Judge of the present. "(St. Jerome in Ezechiel ii.)
These texts declare that we should not cling stubbornly to our promises, but that they should be tempered by reason and judgment, that what is better should always be chosen and preferred and that we should pass over without any hesitation to whatever is proven to be more beneficial. This invaluable judgment also teaches us above all that, although each person’s end may be known to God before he was born, he so disposes everything with order and reason and, so to say, human feelings, that he determines all things not by his power or in accordance with his ineffable foreknowledge but, based upon the deeds of human beings at the time, either rejects them or draws them or daily pours out grace upon them or turns them away.
The choosing of Saul also demonstrates that this is so. Although, indeed, the foreknowledge of God could not be ignorant of his miserable end, he chose him from among many thousands of Israelites and anointed him king. In doing this he rewarded him for his deserving lif...
Furthermore, with respect to the repentance which occurs in his conduct you interpret it with similar perverseness just as if it were with fickleness and improvidence that he repented, or on the recollection of some wrongdoing; because he actually said, “I repent that I have set up Saul to be king,” very much as if he meant that his repentance savored of an acknowledgment of some evil work or error. Well, this is not always implied. For there occurs even in good works a confession of repentance, as a reproach and condemnation of the man who has proved himself unthankful for a benefit. For instance, in this one case of Saul, the Creator, who had made no mistake in selecting him for the kingdom and endowing him with his Holy Spirit, makes a statement respecting the goodness of his person, how that he had most fitly chosen him as being at that moment the choicest man, so that (as he says) there was not one like him among the children of Israel. Neither was he ignorant how he would afterwa...
