1 Samuel 26

26 1 And the Zipbites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert? Then Saul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul pitched in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert, by the way. But David abode in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness. David therefore sent out spies, and understood that Saul was come of a certainty. And David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched : and David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his host : and Saul lay within the place of the wagons, and the people pitched round about him. Then answered David and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab, saying, Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down with thee. So David and Abishai came to the people by night : and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head : and Abner and the people lay round about him. Then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered up thine enemy into thine hand this day : now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not smite him the second time. And David said to Abishai, Destroy him not : for who can put forth his hand against the LORD’s anointed, and be guiltless? And David said, As the LORD liveth, the LORD shall smite him : or his day shall come to die ; or he shall go down into battle, and perish. The LORD forbid that I should put forth mine hand against the LORD’s anointed : but now take, I pray thee, the spear that is at his head, and the cruse of water, and let us go. So David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul’s head ; and they gat them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither did any awake : for they were all asleep ; because a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen upon them. Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of the mountain afar off ; a great space being between them : and David cried to the people, and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, Answerest thou not, Abner? Then Abner answered and said, Who are thou that criest to the king? And David said to Abner, Art not thou a valiant man? and who is like to thee in Israel? wherefore then hast thou not kept watch over thy lord the king? for there came one of the people in to destroy the king thy lord. This thing is not good that thou hast done. As the LORD liveth, ye are worthy to die, because ye have not kept watch over your lord, the LORD’s anointed. And now, see, where the king’s spear is, and the cruse of water that was at his head. And Saul knew David’s voice, and said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And David said, It is my voice, my lord, O king. And he said, Wherefore doth my lord pursue after his servant? for what have I done? or what evil is in mine hand? Now therefore, I pray thee, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it be the LORD that hath stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering : but if it be the children of men, cursed be they before the LORD ; for they have driven me out this day that I should not cleave unto the inheritance of the LORD, saying, Go, serve other gods. Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the LORD : for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains. Then said Saul, I have sinned : return, my son David : for I will no more do thee harm, because my life was precious in thine eyes this day : behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly. And David answered and said, Behold the spear, O king ! let then one of the young men come over and fetch it. And the LORD shall render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness : forasmuch as the LORD delivered thee into my hand to-day, and I would not put forth mine hand against the LORD’s anointed. And, behold, as thy life was much set by this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the LORD, and let him deliver me out of all tribulation. Then Saul said to David, Blessed be thou, my son David : thou shalt both do mightily, and shalt surely prevail. So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place.

David’s temptation to disloyalty toward Saul and toward God, with the people’s sympathy on his side against the king, and especially the opportunity twice given to take the king’s life, he steadfastly resists. In this whole period of Providential discipline, through which he ultimately acquired the passive graces of fortitude and patient waiting upon God, we find the active virtues of fidelity to Saul and obedience to God in unwavering exercise and control. And in recording the weak points of David’s character side by side with the strong ones, be it noted in passing, this narrative shows the same evidence of truthfulness we have often observed in the record by the Evangelists of their own weaknesses. B.

2. Then Saul arose. The inconstancy, falseness, and implacable rage of this prince, are really inconceivable. Not long before he had been indebted to David for his life, had acknowledged his own error, and made David swear he would be kind to his posterity: yet here he openly declares himself his enemy again, and seeks to take his life. Patrick.

After an uncertain interval of time, during which occurred the affair with Nabal, we find the king again upon the track of David, in a different part of the wild regions toward the Dead Sea. This relapse of Saul into his old inveteracy, this forgetfulness of that noble forbearance which had once so deeply impressed him, would have thrown many men—even right-minded men, off their guard of patience and moderation. It was a hard test, but David stood it. He lost not one jot of heart or hope; and would not consent that the wrong of Saul should make him wrong also. An opportunity was again afforded him of showing the invincible truth of his character, and his immeasurable superiority to the man who hunted his life through the mountains. Kit.

7. At all the encampments which we passed the sheikh’s tent was distinguished from the rest by a tall spear stuck upright in the ground in front of it; and it is the custom when a party halt to rest that the spot where the chief reclines or sleeps is thus designated. So Saul, when he lay sleeping, had his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster, and Abner and the people lay round about him. Thompson.—Our Arab’s preparation for the night recalled a scene in Saul’s mad pursuit of David. First our guard built a slight semicircular stone wall to protect himself from the wind. His long spear was stuck in the ground at his head; his saddle served for “bolster;” his horse was picketed near by, and a “cruse of water” was within his reach. Thus, wrapped in his mantle, he slept as Saul had slept on these hills, farther to the south. As you journey through Palestine the people and the land constantly reproduce Bible life and bear witness to the truthfulness of Bible story. Dulles.

10. And David said, Nay, but Jehovah shall strike him. The person of the anointed king is inviolable: his life is in Jehovah’s hands. It may be ended either by a sudden stroke, such as that which smote Nabal; or by a natural death; or by death in battle; but violent hands may not be laid upon him with impunity. A. F. K.—The discipline of David’s spirit at this time must have been exceedingly admirable. The purpose of God in all these trials to train him to self-government was beautifully fulfilled. Not only was he enabled to restrain himself, but also to restrain his ardent and impetuous followers. He would neither strike his artless enemy, nor suffer another to strike him. The first time he spared Saul, it might be with a lingering hope that his forbearance would turn Saul’s heart, and disarm his hostility. On the second occasion, he could have no hope of the kind. It was pure regard to sacred duty that swayed him. He acted in utter contempt of all that was personal and selfish, and in deepest reverence for what was holy and Divine. W. G. B.

12. How invincible is the charity and loyalty of an honest heart! The same hand that spared Saul in the cave spares him sleeping in the field: the same hand that cut away the lap of his master’s garment carried away his spear; that spear, which might as well have carried away the life of the owner, is only borne away for a proof of the fidelity of the bearer. Bp. H.

13-16. A great space being between them. At Engedi Saul was alone, and had placed himself in David’s power; he therefore had followed him closely. Here Saul had his army round him, and David had entered his camp by stealth. It is not, therefore, till he had placed an ample interval between them that he calls to Abner, and asks in derision, Art thou not a man? R. P. S.—What a strange sensation must have run through the camp as David’s voice rang out these cutting taunts from the top of the hill! But David was perfectly safe, and there are thousands of ravines where the whole scene could be enacted, every word be heard, and yet the speaker be quite beyond the reach of his enemies. Thompson.

19. In David’s speech we read—“If the Lord have stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering.” David’s meaning is—If thou hast provoked the Lord to give thee up to such madness of passion, repent and conciliate him with sacrifice and offering. H. C.—His sense of the wrong done to him is very keen, and his repudiation of the accusations brought against him becomingly warm and indignant. His faith does not require him to lie passive under injurious imputations. He will do all that becomes him to clear his character, but he will not be over-anxious respecting the result, knowing that his character is in God’s keeping, and that a great day of unclouding is coming, when his righteousness shall in these matters be made manifest to men and angels. Kit.

21. Saul’s answer here is very different from that in ch. 24 : 17-21, where the main idea was wonder that David should with such magnanimity spare the life of an enemy so manifestly delivered into his hand. Here a sense of vexation seems uppermost, and of annoyance, not merely because his purpose was frustrated, but because his own military arrangements had been so unsoldier-like. R. P. S.—Saul was ready again to confess his fault and to promise abandonment of his unnatural and unjust pursuit of David, but we hear nothing of tears. There is a ring of vexation rather than of contrition about his confession : “I have sinned. I have played the fool.” Cases of superficial repentance leading to relapse and deterioration are not rare. Emotion fades away ; and some temptation is sure to come, as the Ziphites came to Saul and induced him to resume what he had renounced. D. F.

23. The Lord shall render.** In 24 : 19 the equivalent of these words is put into Saul’s mouth. David is not sounding his own praises, but as before (24 : 12) declaring his confidence that God will eventually recompense him for his upright and loyal behavior. A. F. K.

25. Again the hard heart melted, and again the king himself is compelled to prophesy good things for David : “Blessed be thou, my son David. Thou shalt do great things, and shalt still prevail.” With this prophecy, the king sounded his last retreat. The Philistines would next call him out to defeat and death. Kaoz.—David could have destroyed Saul, but he would not ; Saul would have destroyed David, but he could not ; he was under the dominion of a depraved will, even when he expressed his determination to abandon his evil designs, and seemed to himself and others sincerely penitent. B. D.—He turned back from the pursuit, as he had done before, but he did not reinstate his son-in-law in the honor to which he was entitled, or relieve him of the harassing sense of insecurity. It is one thing to recognize and applaud what is good, another thing to do it. How many admire great and generous characters in history, poetry, and romance, and yet themselves remain small-minded and ungenerous ! How many applaud good men and kind actions, and yet continue in their own bad habits and selfish lines of conduct, without any vigorous effort to follow what they praise ! After all, a man is himself, and not another, and as his heart is so will his action be. Unless the tree be made good from the root, it is vain to expect good fruit on its branches. D. F.

Saul would not be controlled or dictated to—not even by God. He would not bow his spirit to the heavenly yoke ; he would not have Jehovah to rule over him. Like all the ungoverned children of impulse, he was not only the sport, he was the prey of his own passions—of wounded pride, of disappointed vanity, of gnawing envy, of bitter and vengeful hate. These were the avenging furies into whose hands the punishment of his high offence was committed, and well did they do their work. Let the misery that Saul brought thus upon himself remind us what a magazine of self-torture every human spirit contains. There is not the smallest nerve of the human body that cannot be made to quiver all through with agony. And there is not a single disposition or affection of the human spirit—no, not even the best and purest—that in some way or other, by overstraining or misdirection, by disappointment and laceration, may not become a source of inward misery ; while lying in the dark corners of the soul, brooding, sleeping, or kept in cheek, there lie those vulture-passions, pride and lust, and ambition and covetousness, and jealousy and malice, any one of which, if once let fully loose, once suffered to rage and riot, could make of any heart a hell of wildest disorder and ever-dripping woe. Think, then, of Saul, as originally a man not worse than others,—morally, perhaps, as well as physically, above the level of his tribe and times. Think of the amount of mischief that the yielding to the passion that he cherished toward David inflicted upon him : how it blinded him, how it hardened him, how it stifled all the kindly affections of his nature, how it quenched even parental love, how it dyed his hands in the blood of the priesthood, how, linking itself with all the wilfulness and recklessness and ungodliness of his nature, it lashed him on and on, as an avenging fury, itself its punishment : and then say what capacities of self-torture lie folded up within every human soul. Hanna.

Saul’s history shows how one man “played the fool and erred exceedingly;” that self-will is the root of disobedience, self-seeking and God-rejecting are its fruits; that disobedience in the face of instruction and warning, ends it, the utter forfeiture of God’s favor. It shows that God will have obedience before all other things. For it He accepts no substitute, not even proffered worship. It shows that there is a Satan, “an evil spirit” permitted of God to present evil motive—in this sense only “from the Lord”—through which motive he actuates those that are hopelessly evil. Furthermore we learn that every human life is profoundly influenced by the Spirit of God or this “evil spirit,” and that every human heart has, in this way of motive and appeal, a prompter to good and to evil. It shows that sin inevitably produces a deterioration of character and faculty, ceasing not until the man becomes a fiend; and that its course is downward with accelerating speed until the man is swept into the abyss of the second death!

David’s history thus far shows the high advantages of wisdom blended with faith, in securing the presence and help of God, and, as well, the favor of man. And it shows that where faith is balanced by wisdom, prosperity may be enjoyed without self-elation or pride. It reveals the might of a self-ruled spirit, in banishing resentment under the severest provocation, and, with opportunity of avenging sore wrong, twice overcoming evil with good. It shows that patient waiting and looking to know the will of God is always rewarded; that the knowledge is given, and the way of daily walking is made clear. And it shows that in the shaping of the believer’s life by the joint working of God’s providence and spirit, the believer’s prayers are all answered in the best way, and with the best results. B.

DAVID FLEES AGAIN TO THE PHILISTINE KING, WHO GIVES HIM ZIKLAG, WHERE HE ABIDES FOR SIXTEEN MONTHS. HE RAIDS THE AMALEKITES AND OTHERS, AND DECEIVES ACHISH. HE IS RELEASED FROM MILITARY SERVICE AGAINST SAUL BY THE PROTEST OF THE PHILISTINE PRINCES.