When Inigo Montoia (Princess Bride Reference) uttered those words he may have been mistaken. The words COULD have meant - to that person speaking - EXACTLY what he meant for the words to mean - even thought they meant something different to someone else.
3 times in 1 Samuel we find reference to an 'evil spirit from God' tormenting Saul. (16:14, 15, 16, 23; 18:10; 19:9). Before we decide if that means what we think it means let us...
First, know what word(s) we are talking about. Contemporary translations (with a particular worldview about "spirits") translate the Hebrew concept of "rah" as "evil."
According to Dr. Charles Rix, Professor of Old Testament at OC, "It is very important to remember that the world of the Hebrew Bible did not have a concept of a
demonized or
satan-driven evil as we do today. The word there "rah" (no relation to the Egyptian god Ra), means the opposite of good, or simply "bad," and is variously translated as: trouble, distressing, etc. So it isn't "evil" as we understand that word today."
Second, we should understand what
THEY thought that word meant.
The exiles recording these words shared a worldview with their neighbors that "extraordinary states were explained as investments by a divine spirit." (Robert Alter in The David Story) Practically speaking everything good and bad can only come from one place - God (or the gods, depending on your theological conclusions). Thus, God gets credited with all action, even for things that we may conclude come from elsewhere. These story tellers would have been unable to advance their story with anything short of God action, especially anything resembling modern understandings of psychology, brain development, or behavioral analysis.
With these two prerequisites, it seems to me there are 3 ways to understand the existence of this 'bad spirit'.
1) "There is a bad spirit that God allows to torment Saul." (The Heart of The Matter, D6 Adult Curriculum p.63). While God does not author evil, he does use "evil agents to carry out his judgment or accomplish His purposes." Thus, this is a bad spirit may have been put upon Saul from judgment/punishment for his unfaithful leadership. If this is the case, we can resist exporting concerns about this to our own situation. (Note: The bad spirit occurs 3 times. It is not a permanent resident inside Saul.)
2) This is a manifestation of Saul's insecurity/anger/jealousy that we might explain in psychological terms. If so, we might want to note the consequences of the progression in Saul's paranoia. Again Rix helps us here: "Saul could be simply having a "panic attack" or be depressed, or be acting in a bi-polar way, none of which they would have known to identify. I think the text supports the idea that Saul lives in a lot of fear and doesn't know what to do with all that. There is the passage in I Samuel 28:5 when he goes to the medium and his "heart trembles greatly" at the looming confrontation with the Philistines."
A caution: I do not think we should take these two conclusions and apply to other contexts where spirits are mentioned. I do not wish to give the impression that I think all demons in the gospels, for example, are simply psychological manifestations. But it seems here that it could be a possibility that need not exclude the participation of YHWH in the Saul/David story.
Which brings me to a 3rd option.
3) We cannot decisively explain this statement but we know that leadership has now passed from Saul to David. And in the strongest terms possible the author (scholars call him the Deuteronomist) has made that known.
My Conclusion: All three are simultaneously possible and none require that I deny authority to scripture as the testimony of God's movement among his people. It may not mean what I think it means, but it means exactly what it means to mean.
