50. B.C. 1059 to 1055

B.C. 1059 to 1055

Chapter III

Timeline View:

1. The mind of Saul was of too coarse a mould to understand that it was possible for David to know his high destinies, and yet abide God’s own time, without taking any questionable measures to advance them. He persuaded himself that David had organized an extensive conspiracy against his life and government; he suspected every one about him of being engaged in this conspiracy, and believed that his son Jonathan had been drawn into it. He was in a most sanguinary mood, and craved for some objects on which to wreak his fury. Unhappily such objects were found in the high-priest and others of the sacerdotal order. One Doeg, an Edomite in the employment of Saul, had been present at Nob when David was there; and he gave an exaggerated report of the assistance which Ahimelech had given to the fugitive. On hearing this, Saul sent for the pontiff, and the rest of the priests then at Nob, and, accusing them of traitorous practices, ordered them to be slain. His guards refused this barbarous office; but Doeg and other strangers executed the king’s order without compunction. Eighty-five of the priestly race perished: nor did this satisfy the sanguinary king, for he sent to Nob, ordering man, woman, child, and every living creature, to be put to the sword. None escaped but Abiathar; and he fled to David, who was greatly shocked at the tidings which he brought. Thus another and almost final step was taken in the completion of that doom which had many years before been pronounced upon the house of Eli. This, however, was no excuse for Saul, whose tenderness towards the Amalekites, whom he was commanded to destroy, is strikingly contrasted with his shocking immolation of the priests of God, whom it was his duty to protect.

2. Meanwhile, David found an opportunity of employing his troop for the benefit of his country, by relieving the town of Keilah from the incursions of the Philistines. He then entered that town; which Saul no sooner heard, than he marched to lay siege to it. But David, being informed by the sacred oracle, which Abiathar, who acted as his priest, consulted for him, that the inhabitants would deliver him up, withdrew into the wild country in the eastern part of Judah, towards the Dead Sea, and found refuge in the wilderness of Ziph. While he was there, Jonathan came to him privately, to encourage him to trust in God, and to renew their covenant of friendship and peace. This was the last time these devoted friends saw each other.

3. Soon after this, some ill-disposed persons of the neighborhood went to Gibeah, and acquainted Saul with the place of David’s retreat. The king immediately marched thither with a sufficient force; but David, being warned of his approach, retreated southward into the wilderness of Maon, before his arrival. Saul followed him thither; and was close upon him, when he was providentially called off to repel an unexpected incursion of the Philistines. This gave David an opportunity of withdrawing to Engedi, among the rocky fastnesses which border the Dead Sea; and to that quarter Saul pursued him with three thousand men, after he had repulsed the Philistines. Here, being one day weary, the king withdrew into a cave to take some rest. In the providence of God, it happened that this was the very cave in whose interior recesses David and his men lay concealed; and whilst Saul slept, David advanced softly, and cut off the skirt of his robe. When the king went out of the cave, David followed him at some distance, and at length called to him, and displayed the skirt in evidence of his innocence. Saul could not but feel that the man who had taken the skirt could quite as easily have taken his life; and struck by this magnanimity, his stern heart was for the time subdued. “Is that thy voice, my son David!” he cried, and then he wept. He acknowledged that he had been foolish and criminal; he admitted that the son of Jesse was worthy of the destinies which awaited him; and he exacted from him a promise, that when he became king he would not root out the family of his predecessor, as eastern kings were wont to do Saul then withdrew: but David had too little confidence in his good resolutions to make any alteration in his own position.

4. The death of Samuel took place shortly after this, in the ninety-second year of his age. He appears to have retained his judicial authority, even after Saul became king; and he was much and deservedly lamented by the people before whom he had acted a public part from his very cradle, with equal credit to himself and benefit to his country. Soon afterwards, David retreated southward into the desert of Paran. The shepherds of southern Israel led their flocks into those distant pastures in the proper season; and the presence of David and his men, at this time, effectually protected them from the Bedouin tribes, by which they were in general much molested. Afterwards returning to the wilderness of Maon, David heard that a rich sheep-master, called Nabal, with whose shepherds his men had been very friendly in the desert, was making great preparations for the entertainment of his people during the shearing of his numerous flocks of sheep. David being in great want of provisions sent a respectful message to solicit a supply from him. Nabal, who was of a churlish disposition, refused the application with insult; at which ungracious return for the protection which had been given to his flocks in the desert, David was so much enraged, that he hastily determined to inflict a severer punishment than the occasion warranted, by bearing fire and sword to the homestead of the brutish sheep-master.

5. Some such resolution on his part was foreseen by such of the shepherds then present as had been out into the desert; but the execution of it was prevented by the prudent conduct of Abigail, the wife of Nabal, a very excellent and beautiful woman, whom David married after Nabal’s death. Here it is right to mention that after David fled from court, Saul, to wound him in the tenderest point, obliged his daughter, Michal, the first wife of David, to marry another husband.

6. David again retreated into the wilderness of Ziph, which coming to the knowledge of Saul, he, notwithstanding his recent convictions, again went in search of him with 3000 men. While the King of Israel lay encamped and surrounded by his troops, during the darkness and stillness of the night, and when all were fast asleep, David, accompanied by his nephew Abishai, penetrated, undiscovered, to the place where the monarch lay, and took away the spear which was stuck in the ground near his head, and the cruse of water which stood by his side. In the morning, he called to the king from the hillside, and displayed these manifest tokens that the king’s life had been completely in his power. His remonstrance was attended with the same result as on the former occasion. Saul was deeply affected, and, having acknowledged that he had acted “foolishly,” returned to Gibeah.

7. The strong faith by which David had been hitherto sustained, now began in some degree to give way under these continued persecutions; and apprehending that, if he remained any longer in the country, he should one day perish by the hand of Saul, he resolved again to seek refuge with the Philistines of Gath. This very questionable step brought him into dangers quite as imminent as those from which he fled, and involved him in much insincere conduct which cannot be contemplated without pain. Achish, the king of Gath, received him and his men with pleasure, probably because he calculated that persons so persecuted by Saul, would render effectual service in the war against him, for which the Philistine states were then making preparations. After being for some time hospitably entertained at Gath, the king gave to David the border town of Ziklag, that he and his men might dwell there with their families and possessions. While at this place, David employed his men from time to time in expeditions against the Amalekites and other nations of the south; and by the spoil thus acquired his men were greatly enriched. But, as these nations were friends and allies of the Philistines, Achish was led to believe that his operations were directed against his own countrymen the Israelites, which gave the king of Gath great satisfaction—in the belief that by thus making himself abhorred in Israel, he had rooted himself in the service of the Philistines. This duplicity, however, soon brought its own punishment; for, when the Philistines were ready for the war against Saul, David found that no ground was left him on which he could decline the invitation of Achish, to go with him against Israel. He was only saved from his difficulty by the jealousy of the princes of the other Philistine states, who, justly suspecting the sincerity of his alleged enmity against his own people, compelled Achish to send him back to Ziklag. On his return, David found that the Amalekites had taken advantage of his absence to burn and pillage the place, and had carried away as captives all the people, chiefly women and children, who had been left there. He immediately pursued after them, and having at length overtaken them, when they deemed themselves in safety, cut them in pieces, and not only recovered all that they had taken, but obtained abundant spoil, which they had collected in other places, and out of which he sent valuable gifts to his friends in Judah.

8. Meanwhile the Philistine army continued its march into the land of Israel, and penetrated to the eastern part of the great battle-field of Esdraelon; by which time Saul had formed an opposing camp on the mountains of Gilboa. When he beheld the vast force which the Philistine states had, by a mighty effort, brought into the field, dire misgiving as to the result. arose in his mind; and now, at last, in this extremity, he sought counsel of God. But the Lord answered him not by any of the usual means—by dreams, by Urim, nor by prophets. Finding himself thus forsaken, he had recourse to a witch at Endor, not far from Gilboa, to whom he repaired by night in disguise, and conjured her to evoke the spirit of Samuel that be might ask counsel of him in this fearful emergency. Accordingly, an aged and mantled figure arose, which Saul took to be the ghost of Samuel, though whether it were really so or not has been much questioned. The king bowed himself reverently, and told the reason for which he had called him from the dead. The figure, in reply, told him that God had taken the crown from his house, and given it to a worthier man; that, on the next day, the Philistines would triumph over Israel; and that he and his sons should be slain in the battle. The king swooned at these heavy tidings, but soon recovered; and having taken some refreshment, returned the same night to the camp.

9. The next morning the two armies engaged, when the Israelites gave way before the Philistines, and maintained a running fight until they had fallen back upon Mount Gilboa, from which they had advanced to meet the enemy. Here they attempted to rally, but in vain: Jonathan and two other of Saul’s sons were killed, and the army was thrown into complete disorder. At length Saul himself was desperately wounded; and fearing that he would fall into the hands of the enemy, and be ignominiously treated by them, he prayed his armour-bearer to thrust him through; and when that faithful follower refused, he took his own sword, fell upon it, and died. This example was followed by the armour-bearer.

10. The next morning, when the Philistines went over the field of battle, they found the bodies of Saul and his sons. They cut off their heads, and sent them, with their armor, into Philistia as trophies of their victory; and the bodies were shamefully gibbeted upon the walls of the neighboring town of Bethshan, near the Jordan. But the people of Jabesh Gilead, on the other side of the river, mindful of their ancient obligations to their king, went over by night and stole away the bodies, which they burned, and then buried the remains under a tree.

11. Three days after his return to Ziklag, the news of this action and its results were first brought to David by an Amalekite. This man, in roaming over the field of battle, had found the body of Saul, which he divested of the royal diadem and armlets, and, in expectation of great rewards, hastened with them to David, whose appointment to the throne appears to have been by this time well known not only to the Israelites but to their neighbors. To enhance his claims of reward, he pretended that the wounded king had fallen by his hand. But he grievously misunderstood the character of David, who rent his clothes in bitter affliction, and ordered the Amalekite to be slain for laying his hands upon “the Lord’s anointed.” David then poured forth his grief for Israel, for Saul, and for Jonathan, his friend, in one of the most beautiful elegiac odes to be found in any language.