Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 15:30

"Then he said, I have sinned: yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship Jehovah thy God." — 1 Samuel 15:30 (ASV)

Yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders. —It was a strange penitence, after all, this sorrow of Saul for his great sin. He was, no doubt, terribly in earnest and in great fear; but his earnestness was based upon a desire to maintain his power and royal state, and his fear sprang from a well-grounded apprehension that if he lost the favor of Samuel the seer, the revered and honoured servant of the Lord, he would probably forfeit his crown. “If Saul had been really penitent, he would pray to have been humble rather than to be honoured” (St. Gregory, quoted by Wordsworth).