But I did!

1 Samuel 15:19-21 - "And he sent you on a mission, saying, 'Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.' Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?"

"But I did obey the LORD, " Saul said. "I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal."

Saul is trying to justify himself to Samuel. I wonder if he really couldn't see the contradiction in his statement about Agag, the Amalekite king. I wonder why he had spared Agag in the first place. The plunder was valuable but not Agag, as far as I can see.

I wonder if Saul's troops heard about Saul trying to use them as a scapegoat. "The soldiers took...." If they did, I wonder if it affected their loyalty to him.