1 Samuel 24

24 1 And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi. Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats. And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where was a cave; and Saul went in to cover his feet. Now David and his men were abiding in the innermost parts of the cave. And the men of David said unto him, Behold, the day of which the LORD said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, and thou shalt do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe privily. And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s skirt. And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my lord, the LORD’s anointed, to put forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the LORD’s anointed. So David checked his men with these words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul. And Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way. David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul, saying, My lord the king. And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth, and did obeisance. And David said to Saul, Wherefore hearkenest thou to men’s words, saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the LORD had delivered thee to day into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee: but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my lord; for he is the LORD’s anointed. Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand, and I have not sinned against thee, though thou huntest after my soul to take it. The LORD judge between me and thee, and the LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the ancients, Out of the wicked cometh forth wickedness: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. The LORD therefore be judge; and give sentence between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand. And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept. And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rendered unto me good, whereas I have rendered unto thee evil. And thou hast declared this day how that thou hast dealt well with me: forasmuch as when the LORD had delivered me up into thine hand, thou killedst me not. For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? wherefore the LORD reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day. And now, behold, I know that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand. Swear now therefore unto me by the LORD, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father’s house. And David sware unto Saul. And Saul went home; but David and his men gat them up unto the hold.

1,2. When Saul had repulsed the Philistines, he resumed his designs against David, who had meanwhile retreated into the wilderness of Engedi, and abode “among rocks of the wild goats”—that is among the high rocks and precipices, in which these animals delight. This wilderness is everywhere of limestone formation, with a large mixture of chalk and flint. The surface is broken into conical hills and ridges, from two hundred to four hundred feet in height, and gradually sloping toward the Dead Sea. The country is full of caverns, which might well serve as lurking places for David and his men, as they do for outlaws at the present day. Kd.

3. During his search for David Saul seeks rest in a cavern. In the shadowed sides of an immense cave, unseen by Saul as he enters from

the outside glare, David and his men were already sheltered. Saul’s soldiers were scattered among the cliffs, which rise up one above another for many hundred feet, in a region which, because inaccessible to massed bodies of men, and only frequented by the sure-footed chamois, is here termed “the rocks of the wild goats.” Alone, utterly unprotected, unconscious of the armed outlaws around him, the king sleeps.

4, 5. David’s men vehemently urge him to avail himself of this Providence, and avenge himself upon the sleeping king. They read this opportunity as a Providential intimation that God has delivered his enemy into his hand to be slain by him. David yields to their urgency so far as to cut off the edge of Saul’s cloak, which lay beside the king. But even this seemingly harmless act is instantly regretted. B.—The cut of Saul’s garment did not threaten any touch of the body: yet even the violence offered to a remote garment strikes the heart of David. Tender consciences are moved to regret at those actions which strong hearts pass over with a careless case. It troubled not Saul to seek after the blood of a righteous servant. Bp. H.

We can hardly think of a stronger temptation than that under which David now lay. There was the prospect of getting rid of the weary life he was leading, there was the prospect of wearing the crown and wielding the sceptre of Israel, and there was the voice of his followers urging him to the deed, putting on it a sacred character by ascribing to it a Divine permission and appointment. And still further, there was the suddenness and unexpectedness of the opportunity. Nothing is more critical than a sudden opportunity of indulging an ardent passion; with scarcely a moment for deliberation, one is apt to be hurried blindly along, and at once to commit the deed. W. G. B.—How many in David’s place would have leaped to the throne over the dead body of the king! The histories of ancient empires are dreary catalogues of such bloody usurpations. Goaded by Saul’s cowardly attacks upon his life, David might naturally have found justification in the deed. But such conduct was impossible to David. He was too unselfish and too true to principle to advance himself by deeds of wrong. Monday Club.

6. The cause of David’s trouble of heart, after cutting off Saul’s skirt. His conscience reproached him, because this act was an affront to Saul’s kingly dignity, and so an injury to one anointed of the Lord. Not to Saul, but to God was the act an offence. David not only rejected the interpretation of his men, that God had put Saul in his power that he might slay him, but, with a noble and just intuition, inferred the contrary fact. He rightly thought that God had given him this golden opportunity of proving his loyalty to Him by respecting His anointed, by evincing the godlike principle of forbearance toward an evil-doer, and by practising the Divine precept, which he already understood, Recompense to no man evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. In the spirit of this sublime belief, he regretted even the slight indignity which he had hastily done to Saul, and “suffered not his servants to rise against Saul.” He spared the false, abandoned, blood-guilty man, lying unconscious upon his stony bed, because he was God’s anointed, God’s man, to be dealt with by God alone!

And while this principle in his heart, this reverent reference to God of all judgment and vengeance concerning Saul, while this principle was the sole motive of David, there is a further, most instructive fact to be noted in connection with his conduct here, a fact which together with the principle suggests the chief teaching of the story. It is that the forbearance of David, and his restraint of the natural desire of his men for revenge, was the wisest policy on his own account. Had he proved disloyal, and permitted their disloyalty to Saul, what could he have looked for but that the seed of irreverence and disloyalty, so planted in their minds by his example, would bear fruit in connection with himself in his own after reign! Now, therefore, he has not only done right, acted upon a just and generous principle, but by his grand example has effectually taught them the same high principle, and trained them in the practice of a truer and nobler loyalty for the future. And, we may add, this effect of the wise behavior of David only illustrates, as does every other instance of right action, the common proverb, taken in a comprehensive sense, “Honesty”—i.e., all right acting—“is the best policy.”

7-11. David’s brief interview with Saul, and his prudent and conclusive plea of innocence. All unconscious of his imperilled life, and his deliverance through the magnanimous self-conquest of David, Saul awakes and goes forth from the cave, followed at a distance by David. Suddenly his steps are arrested by the voice of David calling “My lord the King!” As he turns about he sees David prostrating himself with a subject’s wonted homage. And the plea which David instantly utters is in keeping with his outward reverence. In its general spirit we are impressed by a child-like ingenuousness, while there is mature wisdom in its method. “My father, see!” he says, as he holds the rent portion of Saul’s robe toward him. “See, I have not heeded the voice of those with me bidding me kill thee, wherefore hearest thou men’s words against me? I have not sinned against thee, yet thou huntest my soul to take it.” Thus, while conclusively proving his innocence, he impliedly relieves Saul from personal motive in this persecution, by intimating that others had misled him through false charges against David. But then he changes his tone of address to solemn appeal. B.

10. The Lord delivered thee, very surprisingly, to-day into mine hand; whence many a one would have gathered an intimation, that it was the will of God he should now give the determining blow to him whose neck lay so fair for it. When Saul had but a very small advantage against David, he cried out, God has delivered him into my hand (ch. 23 : 7), and resolved to make the best of that advantage; but David did not so. His counsellors and those about him had earnestly put him on to do it. Some bade me kill thee. He had blamed Saul for hearkening to men’s words, and justly; “for,” says he, “if I had done so, thou hadst not been alive now.” H.

12-15. David refers his cause to the judgment of Jehovah. Assuring Saul once and again that his hand should never harm him, referring to himself (under figures of common use among Eastern nations and courts), as an insignificant man, whom Saul need not fear, and whose persecution was unworthy the King’s dignity, David appeals his cause to the Lord’s judgment, transfers to God all avenging work as only His, and commits himself to God as his deliverer from Saul’s pursuit. The appeal is manly and just, as the plea was filial and wise. B.—The speech of David has so much natural eloquence, such warmth and persuasiveness, that it can be read by no one who has any feeling for the simple beauties of the Bible without emotion. The whole situation, moreover, has much of sublimity about it. We see David, standing on the summit of some rock in the wilderness, raising on high the trophy of his magnanimity, while addressing the melancholy Saul, whom he loved as a father, obeyed as king, and honored as the Lord’s anointed, but who nevertheless hated him without reason, and followed him with unremitting energy to put him to death; using his opportunity of touching the heart of his enemy with words hurried, but expressive of his innermost feelings, and showing himself full of humility, oppressed by unutterable sorrows, bowed down by the feeling of his powerlessness, yet inspired by the consciousness of a noble deed. Philippson.

David’s remonstrance is full of wounded affection surviving still, of conscious rectitude, of solemn devout appeal to the judgment of God.

He has no words of reproach for Saul, no weak upbraidings, no sullen anger, no repaying hate with hate. He almost pleads with the unhappy king, and yet there is nothing undignified or feeble in his tone. The whole is full of correspondences, often of verbal identity, with the psalms which we assign to this period. The calumnies which he so often complains of in these are the subject of his first words to Saul, whom he regards as having had his heart poisoned by lies: “Wherefore hearest thou men’s words, saying, Behold! David seeketh thy hurt.” He asserts absolute innocence of anything that warranted the king’s hostility, just as he does so decisively in the psalms. “There is neither evil nor transgression in my hand, and I have not sinned against thee.” As in them he so often compares himself to some wild creature pursued like the goats in the cliffs of Engedi, so he tells Saul, “Thou huntest my life to take it.” And his appeal from earth’s slanders, and misconceptions, and cruelties, to the perfect tribunal of God, is couched in language, every clause of which may be found in his psalms. A. M.

Recent passages of this history have shown more of David’s weakness than of his strength. But here he is again a hero. The fine points of his character shine out—his self-control, his magnanimity, and his reliance on the justice of God to vindicate his integrity. The situation strikes both the imagination and the heart. The young chief stands at the mouth of the cavern, holding up the proof of his generous forbearance, and protesting with picturesque eloquence against Saul’s hot pursuit. The king amazed, ashamed, and subdued; the sternness fading from his face, the haughty anger in his eyes drowned in tears. So evil for the time was overcome by the good. D. F.

16-22. Saul was now convinced of David’s integrity, when he did not take advantage of him in the cave, where he might have securely destroyed him. He was never so confounded with the shame of his own jealousy and malice, as by this act of magnanimity in David; though he had long known that David was anointed, and appointed by God to reign as king after him, yet he did not so thoroughly believe it, till this great instance of the temper of his mind, and of his relying on God’s purpose so entirely, that he would not, by an act of his own, endeavor to bring that honor on himself sooner than the Divine wisdom intended it for him. Clarendon.—Saul could not withstand this instance of generosity in David, but melted and sunk under it; instead of lessening the merit of it with an unrelenting heart, he “lifted up his voice, and wept,” and with his tears acknowledged David’s innocence, and his own guilt; and even prayed to God to reward that very person whom, but the moment before, he was pursuing to destruction. Chandler.

Out of that stone-like heart, for the moment melted under convictions he could not resist, gushed tears of genuine but remorseful regret. Out of that mouth that had for years uttered evil thoughts and malignant passions, that had commanded cruel persecution and merciless slaughter, now came confession of his own wrong and of David’s justification; nay, more, prayer—a double prayer—first, that the Lord would reward good to David for his sparing act that day, and next, that David himself would spare the house of Saul, when God should establish him in the kingdom. With David’s pledge and oath thus to spare, faithfully kept in after days, they separated, to meet again once more, under almost identical circumstances, and with similar results. Soon after that final meeting, Saul’s hate and persecution ceased with his death.

In this whole history, with all his weakness and sin, David yet reveals himself as a man of profound piety. During these trials of outlawry and persecution, in the cave of Adullam, and in the haunts of crag and cavern, his soul was poured out to God in strains of elevated devotion, preserved for us in many a psalm. In this period of discipline he proved himself a man of God, by continually watching for and always obeying the Divine direction, by filial protection of his aged parents against the king’s rage, by his greater heroism in twice sparing Saul than in slaying Goliath, and by his self-denial (1 Chron. 11 : 18) in pouring out as a libation to God the water of Bethlehem, obtained for his gratification at the possible cost of three valuable lives. And this period of severe training served to strengthen and mature his character, to give him a thorough knowledge of men, of their qualities, good and bad, and their needs, and so qualified him for his subsequent great achievement, in compacting and establishing the nation upon a permanent basis of strength and prosperity. B.

Though David’s forbearance drew out a flood of sensibilities from the impetuous Saul, it in the upshot greatly aggravated his condemnation; for while it made quite palpable to him the fidelity of David, and though he knew—for he himself tells us so—of his destination to the throne of Israel, yet in the face of his own virtual promise to David and of the proofs which he had given of his loyalty, as well as in contravention to the will of God, did he soon after resume the guilty attempt of taking away David’s life. T. C.—Saul had only relented for a little while, not really repented of his malignant purpose. Softened feeling is one thing, repentance in mind and purpose another thing. Men have twinges of compunction and gusts of admirable feeling, and so resolve to lead better lives. But there it ends. They mean well, but somehow cannot carry out their intention. It is for want of repentance toward God. D. F.