Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a spirit of distress from the LORD began to torment him.
We have here Saul falling and David rising. I. Here is Saul made a terror to himself (Sa1 16:14): The Spirit of the Lord departed from him. He having forsaken God and his duty, God, in a way of righteous judgment, withdrew from him those assistances of the good Spirit with which he was directed, animated, and encouraged in his government and wars. He lost all his good qualities.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 16:14-23
But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul,.... As a spirit of prophecy as at first, as a spirit of wisdom and prudence in civil government, and as a spirit of fortitude and courage, as the Targum: and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him; the reverse of the former, which by the permission of God, and as a punishment to him for...
The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him--His own gloomy reflections, the consciousness that he had not acted up to the character of an Israelitish king, the loss of his throne, and the extinction of his royal house, made him jealous, irritable, vindictive, and subject to fits of morbid melancholy.