1 Samuel 20

1 Samuel 20:1

Your king - That is, when God was your immediate king and governor, who was both able and willing to deliver you, if you had cried to him, whereof you and your ancestors have had plentiful experience; so that you did not at all need any other king; and your desire of another, was a manifest reproach against God.

1 Samuel 20:2

Ye have chosen - Though God chose him by lot, yet the people are said to chuse him; either generally, because they chose that form of government; or particularly, because they approved of God’s choice, and confirmed it. The Lord - He hath yielded to your inordinate desire.

1 Samuel 20:3

Then, &c. - Heb. then shall - ye - be, (that is, walk, or go) after the Lord; that is, God shall still go before you, as he hath hitherto done, as your leader or governor, to direct, protect, and deliver you; and he will not forsake you, as you have given him just cause to do. Sometimes this phrase of going after the Lord, signifies a man’s obedience to God; but here it is otherwise to be understood, and it notes not a duty to be performed, but a privilege to be received upon the performance of their duty; because it is opposed to a threatening denounced in case of disobedience, in the next verse.

1 Samuel 20:4

Your fathers - Who lived under the judges; and you shall have no advantage by the change of government, nor shall your kings be able to protect you against God’s displeasure. The mistake, if we think we can evade God’s justice, by shaking off his dominion. If we will not let God rule us, yet he will judge us.

1 Samuel 20:6

Wheat - harvest - At which time it was a rare thing in those parts to have thunder or rain; the weather being more constant in its seasons there, than it is with us. Rain - That you may understand that God is displeased with you; and also how foolishly and wickedly you have done in rejecting the government of that God, at whose command are all things both in heaven and in earth.

1 Samuel 20:7

Samuel - Who had such power and favour with God. By this thunder and rain, God shewed them their folly in desiring a king to save them, rather than God or Samuel, expecting more from an arm of flesh than from the arm of God, or from the power of prayer. Could their king thunder with a voice like God? Could their prince command such forces as the prophet could by his prayers? Likewise he intimates, that how serene soever their condition was now, (like the weather in wheat harvest) yet if God pleased, he could soon change the face of their heavens, and persecute them with his storms.

1 Samuel 20:8

Thy God - Whom thou hast so great an interest in, while we are ashamed and afraid to call him our God.

1 Samuel 20:9

Fear not - With a desponding fear, as if there were no hope left for you.

1 Samuel 20:10

Turn aside - After idols; as they had often done before; and, notwithstanding this warning, did afterwards. Vain things - So idols are called, Deuteronomy 32:21 Jeremiah 2:5, and so they are, being mere nothings, having no power in them; no influence upon us, nor use or benefit to us.

1 Samuel 20:11

His name’s sake - That is, for his own honour, which would suffer much among men, if he should not preserve and deliver his people in eminent dangers. And this reason God alledgeth to take them off from all conceit of their own merit; and to assure them, that if they did truly repent of all their sins, and serve God with all their heart; yet even in that case their salvation would not be due to their merits; but the effect of God’s free mercy. To make - Out of his own free grace, without any desert of yours, and therefore he will not forsake you, except you thrust him away.

1 Samuel 20:13

Only, &c. - Otherwise neither my prayer nor counsels will stand you in any stead.

1 Samuel 20:18

Blew - That is, he sent messengers to tell them all what Jonathan had done, and how the Philistines were enraged at it, and therefore what necessity there was of gathering themselves together for their own defence.

1 Samuel 20:19

Saul - Perhaps contrary to some treaty.

1 Samuel 20:20

Thirty thousand chariots, &c. - Most of them, we may suppose, carriages for their baggage, not chariots of war, tho’ all their allies were joined with them.

1 Samuel 20:21

Strait - Notwithstanding their former presumption that if they had a king, they should be free from all such straits. And hereby God intended to teach them the vanity of confidence in men; and that they did not one jot less need the help of God now, than they did when they had no king. And probably they were the more discouraged, because they did not find Samuel with Saul. Sooner or later men will be made to see, that God and his prophets are their best friends.

1 Samuel 20:22

All the people - That is, all that were left.

1 Samuel 20:23

Seven days - Not seven compleat days; for the last day was not finished.

1 Samuel 20:26

Camest not - That is, when the seventh day was come, and a good part of it past, whence I concluded thou wouldst not come that day.

1 Samuel 20:27

Supplication - Thence it appears, that sacrifices were accompanied with solemn prayers. Forced myself - I did it against my own mind and inclination.

1 Samuel 20:28

For ever - The phrase, for ever, in scripture often signifies only a long time. So this had been abundantly verified, if the kingdom had been enjoyed by Saul, and by his son, and by his son’s son; after whom the kingdom might have come to Judah.

1 Samuel 20:29

A man - That is, such a man as will fulfil all the desires of his heart, and not oppose them, as thou dost. Commanded - That is, hath appointed, as the word command is sometimes used: but though God threatened but Saul with the loss of his kingdom for his sin; yet it is not improbable, there was a tacit condition implied, to wit, if he did not repent of this; and of all his sins; for the full, and final, and peremptory sentence of Saul’s rejection, is plainly ascribed to another cause, chap.15:11,23,26,28,29, and ’till that second offence, neither the spirit of the Lord departed from him, nor was David anointed in his stead. “But was it not hard, to punish so little a sin so severely?” It was not little: disobedience to an express command, tho’ in a small matter, is a great provocation. And indeed, there is no little sin, because there is no little god to sin against. In general, what to men seems a small offence, to him who knows the heart may appear a heinous crime. We are taught hereby, how necessary it is, that we wait on our God continually. For Saul is sentenced to lose his kingdom for want of two or three hours patience.

1 Samuel 20:35

Philistines - Not to the land of the Philistines, but to the stations and garrisons which the Philistines retained in several parts of Israel’s land, though Samuel’s authority had so far over - awed them, that they durst not give the Israelites much disturbance. In these, therefore, the Philistines kept all the smiths; and here they allowed them the exercise of their art for the uses following.

1 Samuel 20:37

Sword - It seems restrained to the six hundred that were with Saul and Jonathan; for there were no doubt a considerable number of swords and spears among the Israelites, but they generally hid them, as now they did their persons, from the Philistines. And the Philistines had not yet attained to so great a power over them, as wholly to disarm them, but thought it sufficient to prevent the making of new arms; knowing that the old ones would shortly be decayed, and useless. There were likewise other arms more common in those times and places, than swords and spears; to wit, bows and arrows, and slings and stones.

1 Samuel 20:41

Tarried - In the outworks of the city where he had entrenched himself to observe the motion of the Philistines. In - Or, towards Migron, which was near Gibeah.

1 Samuel 20:42

Ahiah - The same who is called Abimelech, chap.22:9,11,20, the high - priest, who was here to attend upon the ark which was brought thither, ver.18. Ephod - The high - priest’s ephod, wherein the Urim and Thummim was.