Christian/Jewish theological buffs, am I missing something in regards to 1 Samuel 15 and the destruction of Amalek?
My translation is the New American Bible revised version, and its footnotes can sometimes be a bit imprecise. At this point and several others it points out that the sacred authors often phrased things as "the Lord said etc etc" when it was actually just a prophet saying it and not a literal proclamation from God, because prophets were seen as being constantly speaking for God and thus there was no difference, as they saw it, between "the Lord said to Israel" and "Samuel said to Israel", for example. This is highlighted in 1 Samuel 15:3 regarding what appears to be a command by God to kill literally everyone in Amalek, man woman and child; the footnote brings back up the substitution of "the Lord" for the prophet in question, pointing out that the supposed command from God was just how semi-nomadic tribes in the region operated at that time(which seems like they wanted to say it was a retroactive justification but weren't allowed to) and that God would never command the slaughter of the innocent.
All well and good, but there then seems to be a contradiction a few verses later, where Samuel rebukes Saul for not destroying livestock and other valuables, as "God" had supposedly told him to destroy absolutely everything. This seems like a textbook case of a prophet abusing their authority, pre-David no less, as Samuel is now saying that God is upset that Saul didn't obey a command that wasn't actually from Him. But the footnotes seem to now operate under the idea that the Lord really had chosen to strip Saul of the crown because of this incident, which makes them contradict themselves on the same page, or at least it seems like it. Am I missing something here? Any theological perspective with knowledge of the text is appreciated, Christian or otherwise. I believe that Samuel is a single book in the Tanakh as opposed to two, if there's any confusion on my numbering.