Kavanot: You Can't Handle the Truth

רוגז has the sense of “trembling”, either from fear or from anger. חז״ל interpret it as fear, as a lesson to us:

Saul mentions לא ענני עוד גם ביד הנביאים גם בחלמות, even though what actually happened was (פסוק ו) ‎לא ענהו ה׳ גם בחלמות גם באורים גם בנביאם. ‎חז״ל see this as a positive thing, that he realized that his failure to be able to use the אורים was his fault:

An old joke:

An avid golfer, thinking about death, found himself wondering whether there were any golf courses in Heaven. He even began to ask the question in his prayers. One day, in answer to his prayers, he received a direct answer from on high.

“Well, I have good news and bad news,” said the Heavenly messenger, “There are many excellent golf courses in Heaven. The greens are always in first class condition, the weather is always perfect and you always get to play with the very nicest people.”

“Oh, thank you,” said the man, “What could possibly be the bad news?”

Replied the messenger, “You’re teeing off with me next Sunday.”

The gemara points out that מוחלין לו על כל עונותיו, even though Saul only acknowledged the one sin of the slaughter of Nob. It was a start to his תשובה:

It should be pointed out that מחילה here does not mean that Saul is not to be punished; he will still die ignominiously in battle. His realization is too little, too late. But it will bring him a sort of celestial atonement; to the extent that תנ״ך talks about reward in the hereafter, Saul will be with Samuel.

Samuel answers למה תשאלני. You know the answer; a נביא won’t tell you anything you don’t already know, at least in terms of moral and halachic advice. The נביא may predict the future for you, but be careful what you wish for.

ער is a rare word that means “enemy”; poetically it contrasts with the רעך of the next pasuk. ה׳ has gone from רע to ער.

The pasuk says ויעש ה׳ לו, not ויעש ה׳ לך.‎ לו refers to ה׳ and His plan, in an allusion to Saul’s first big mistake when Samuel told him (שמואל א יג:יד)‎ ממלכתך לא תקום; בקש ה׳ לו איש כלבבו. Being a king can never be for the sake of power for its own sake; the king has to fulfill רצון ה׳.

The wording here is slightly different from Samuel’s original declaration to Saul (שמואל א טו:כח )‎ קרע ה׳ את ממלכות ישראל מעליך היום; ונתנה לרעך הטוב ממך. The משבצות זהב explains that from Samuel’s point of view now, Saul is already dead. He is no longer king. As an individual, as we have said before, Saul was a צדיק. He failed in his role as king. However, now, Samuel would no longer say that David was טוב ממך.

עסן,עסן, מיין קינד

This denouement of the story is a little odd. The בעלת אוב goes from a spooky necromancer to a stereotypical Jewish grandmother, in terms that evoke the prototypical בעל חסד:

And evokes even more his protégé, Lot:

I think ink this serves to make the point that the בעלת אוב is not being portrayed as a “bad guy” in this story. She is still a בעלת חסד, a descendant of אברהם אבינו. It also emphasizes the point that Saul was loved by the people. We tend to look at him through the eyes of the latter half of ספר שמואל א׳, as the paranoid enemy of David. But he was the king of Israel and lived for his people and they recognized that.