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1 Samuel
Chapter Eighteen
1 Samuel 18
Chapter Contents
Jonathan's friendship for David. (1-5) Saul seeks to kill
David. (6-11) Saul's fear of David. (12-30)
Commentary on 1 Samuel 18:1-5
(Read 1 Samuel 18:1-5)
The friendship of David and Jonathan was the effect of
Divine grace, which produces in true believers one heart and one soul, and
causes them to love each other. This union of souls is from partaking in the
Spirit of Christ. Where God unites hearts, carnal matters are too weak to
separate them. Those who love Christ as their own souls, will be willing to
join themselves to him in an everlasting covenant. It was certainly a great
proof of the power of God's grace in David, that he was able to bear all this
respect and honour, without being lifted up above measure.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 18:6-11
(Read 1 Samuel 18:6-11)
David's troubles not only immediately follow his
triumphs, but arise from them; such is the vanity of that which seems greatest
in this world. It is a sign that the Spirit of God is departed from men, if,
like Saul, they are peevish, envious, suspicious, and ill-natured. Compare
David, with his harp in his hand, aiming to serve Saul, and Saul, with his
javelin in his hand, aiming to slay David; and observe the sweetness and
usefulness of God's persecuted people, and the barbarity of their persecutors.
But David's safety must be ascribed to God's providence.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 18:12-30
(Read 1 Samuel 18:12-30)
For a long time David was kept in continual apprehension
of falling by the hand of Saul, yet he persevered in meek and respectful
behaviour towards his persecutor. How uncommon is such prudence and discretion,
especially under insults and provocations! Let us inquire if we imitate this
part of the exemplary character before us. Are we behaving wisely in all our
ways? Is there no sinful omission, no rashness of spirit, nothing wrong in our
conduct? Opposition and perverseness in others, will not excuse wrong tempers
in us, but should increase our care, and attention to the duties of our
station. Consider Him that endured contradiction of sinners against himself,
lest ye be weary and faint in your minds, Hebrews 12:3. If David magnified the honour of
being son-in-law to king Saul, how should we magnify the honour of being sons
to the King of kings!
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 1 Samuel》
1 Samuel 18
Verse 1
[1] And
it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul
of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own
soul.
Loved him —
For his excellent virtues and endowments, which shone forth both in his
speeches and actions; for the service he had done to God and to his people; and
for the similitude of their age and qualities.
Verse 2
[2] And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his
father's house.
Took him, … — By
which it appears, that before this David had not his constant residence at
court.
Verse 5
[5] And
David went out whithersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and
Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the
people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants.
Went —
Upon military expeditions, of which that word is often used.
Verse 10
[10] And
it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul,
and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as
at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand.
The evil spirit, … —
His fits of frenzy returned upon him. The very next day after he conceived envy
at David, the evil spirit was permitted by God to seize him again. Such is the
fruit of envy and uncharitableness.
Prophesied —
That is, he used uncouth gestures, and signs, as the prophets often did.
Verse 11
[11] And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the
wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.
And Saul cast the javelin — Being now quite under the power of that evil spirit.
Twice —
Once now, and another time upon a like occasion, chap. 19:10.
Verse 12
[12] And
Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him, and was departed from
Saul.
Afraid —
Lest as he had gained the favour of God and of all the people, he should also
take away his kingdom.
Verse 13
[13]
Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand;
and he went out and came in before the people.
Removed him from him — From his presence and court; which he did, because he feared lest David
should find an opportunity to kill him, as he had designed to kill David;
because his presence now made him more sad than ever his musick made him
chearful: and principally, that hereby he might expose him to the greatest
hazards.
Verse 18
[18] And
David said unto Saul, Who am I? and what is my life, or my father's family in
Israel, that I should be son in law to the king?
What is my life —
How little is my life worth, that by the exposing of that to some hazard, I
should purchase a king's daughter! In these expressions David sheweth not only
his humility, but also his wisdom, in discovering so deep a sense of his own
meanness, that Saul might see how far he was from aspiring at the kingdom.
Verse 19
[19] But
it came to pass at the time when Merab Saul's daughter should have been given
to David, that she was given unto Adriel the Meholathite to wife.
Adriel —
The son of Bar-zillai, as he is called, 2 Samuel 21:8. This was an act of great
injustice; and accordingly this marriage was accursed by God, and the children
begotten in it, were, by God's appointment cut off, 2 Samuel 21:8,9.
Verse 26
[26] And
when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the
king's son in law: and the days were not expired.
The days —
That is, the time allowed by Saul to David for the execution of this exploit.
Verse 27
[27]
Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two
hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale
to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal
his daughter to wife.
Two hundred — He
doubled the number required; to oblige Saul the more to the performance of his
promise; and to shew his great respect and affection to Saul's daughter.
Verse 30
[30] Then
the princes of the Philistines went forth: and it came to pass, after they went
forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul; so
that his name was much set by.
Went forth — To
war against the Israelites, being provoked by their former losses, and
especially by that act of David's.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 1 Samuel》
18 Chapter 18
Verses 1-30
Verses 1-4
The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
The story of a great love
True Christianity consists in devotion to a Person, not in the
acceptance of a series of doctrines or theories, nor even in the adoption of a
certain line of conduct. Doctrines have their proper place, and conduct which
is pure and godlike will necessarily flow from it; but the essence of true
Christianity consists, as I have said, in the devotion of the human heart to a
Person--a personal God revealed in Jesus Christ. Without this our religion is
but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; we are devoid of that which is
absolutely essential to a truly Christian life. How strange a thing it is that
we are able to love One whom we have never seen, whose voice we have never
heard, with whose form we have never been brought into contact! This is
altogether at variance with ordinary human experience. For a great man who
lives at a distance we may be able to feel a certain amount of enthusiastic
admiration; he may be the leader of some great cause in which we are deeply
interested, or his personal talents and character may command our respect; but
can we truly say that we love him? We ere living in an age in which not a few
remarkable men have attracted public attention, and some of these, like the
great Italian patriot, Garibaldi, have stirred our hearts to their inmost
depths by their exploits; but while we have admired such persons, could we with
any degree of truth have said that we loved them? No; to love them we need to
be brought into some kind of direct personal contact with them. But here is One
whom having not seen men yet have loved with a greater love than any earthly
object. Truly a wonderful thing is the love of God in the heart of man! Indeed,
no less can be said of it than that it is a miracle, a thing that cannot be
naturally produced, a thing that belongs not to earth, and that can only exist
here when it is brought down from heaven by the Spirit of Love, and planted,
like a precious exotic, in our heart, a flower of Paradise on the soil of
earth. In considering the story of this most remarkable instance of unselfish
devotion, we shall find ourselves supplied with a very striking illustration of
that higher affection of which I have been speaking, and from this we shall be
in a position to learn some important lessons with respect to that life of love
which should bind together the true disciple and his Divine Master.
1. And first we observe that the love of Jonathan for David seems to
have been caused in the first instance by the act of heroism on the part of
David which brought life and liberty to the thousands of Israel. Jonathan had
sat by his father’s tent, and washed the single combat on which the destinies
of two nations might be said to hang. He had seen the gigantic champion of Gath
march down with stately stride into the valley, and his youthful antagonist
advance to meet him, and all the chivalrous enthusiasm of his nature seems to
have been stirred at the sight. David has been brought into the presence of
Saul with the head of Goliath in his hand, and the king proceeds to enquire his
parentage, in order that he may mete out the reward promised to the victor.
While the conversation is going on between Saul and David, Jonathan, Saul’s
son, is standing by, all eyes and ears. Interested from the first in this
remarkable young man, he now feels his interest ripen into affection. He
admired him at first; he loves him now. Consider the elements of this
affection. There was an overpowering sense of gratitude. They were all saved,
and David was the saviour. He himself, more than almost anyone else, was under
the deepest obligation to the youthful hero; for his life and his honour and
his crown had been redeemed. Had David been overthrown, and Goliath victorious,
never would he have filled the throne of his father, and reigned over his
people. Israel would have become a nation of serfs. Here we have our first
lesson, which may serve to show us what it is that first kindles the love of
God in the heart of man. We begin to love when we apprehend the first great
deliverance which Christ has wrought out for us, and gaze with adoring
gratitude upon the Deliverer. We may be interested in the character of Christ,
even as David no doubt had excited the interest of Jonathan before the
deliverance was wrought; we may admire the Christ as Jonathan did David, when he
went forth to meet the Philistine; but love does not spring into life till the
moment of deliverance, or of apprehension of deliverance. And even so is it
with our Deliverer. The birth of love takes place in the apprehension of that
which his love has wrought for us. But here much must depend upon the line of
conduct that we assume towards the Deliverer. It is possible to check love at
its very birth by averting our inward gaze from Him who has so loved us, and I
fear too many believers make a false start here. I fear it is so with many of
us who have taken Christ for our Saviour. We needed a deliverer, and we found
one in Jesus. The revelation of the cross brought us peace and joy, and set our
fears at rest. We rejoiced in the deliverance; but did we cling to the
Deliverer? We raised the shout of triumph; we welcomed the happiness and the
security and the immunity from condemnation, the freedom from fear, the hope of
heaven. But what then? Did we turn from the gifts to the Giver, and fix our
adoring gaze of loving gratitude on Him till all our heart flowed out towards
Him, and our soul was knit unto Him, and we “loved Him as our own soul”? Or did
we go our way, well pleased to reap the benefit of His work, but forgetful of
the obligation under which we rested, and of the debt we owed? It is no use
trying to make ourselves love God. All love that deserves the name must be
spontaneous, and such love can never be generated by an effort of the will,
still less by a process of moral analyses and introspection. Love grows by
acquaintance with the loved object. Christ will become more to us than
Deliverer. We shall love Him because of what He is, as well as because of what
He has done, and our souls will be knit unto Him, and we shall love Him as our
own soul.
2. Proceeding with the narrative, we observe the immediate results of
the establishment of this affection. The first thing that follows is the making
of a covenant between the two friends--a covenant involving reciprocal
obligations, and binding each to be true to the other in all the various
changes and chances of life. Not dissimilar to this is the order of events in
the life of love between thy soul and its Lord. The act of Baptism, which in
the case of the adult believer would naturally follow immediately on the
acceptance of the great deliverance, brings the soul within the bonds of a
spiritual covenant, involving reciprocal obligations. Remember, too, that the
covenant involves reciprocal obligation.
3. We pass on to the next incident in the story of this great love,
and we read that Jonathan stripped himself of his robe, and also his garment,
even to his sword, and his bow, and his girdle. It is only in the school of
grace, and under the influence of love, that we learn to divert ourselves of
all that we naturally prided ourselves upon, and to present all, cheerfully and
with an enthusiasm of devotion, to Another. Nor is this all. Jonathan makes
over to David, what must always be dear to the warrior’s heart, “his sword, and
his bow, and his girdle.” The very weapons which he had carried on many a
hard-fought field--weapons with which he had performed already notable and
splendid exploits. What is there you most naturally pride yourself upon, or if
you do not pride yourself upon it, what faculty or quality are you most
conscious of possessing in a special degree? Is it your intellect? Has God
given you a strong head, and a clear judgment? Put the bow and the sword into
David’s hands. He won’t despise the gift, but use it for his own glory. Has God
bestowed on you the gift of language, fluency and readiness in speech? You are
quick at repartee; or perhaps you possess a lively humour, and the dangerous
gift of wit, and those qualities you were wont to exercise in order to gratify
your vanity, or to make yourself highly acceptable to society. Let those lips
of yours be anointed with the holy unction of the blessed Spirit, so that
through Him you may speak as the oracles of God. Give Him the bow, give Him the
sword. Has He given you wealth? Remember it is all His already; but He gives
you the privilege of giving it back to Him. Lay it at His feet. Has He given
you influence? Consecrate that influence to Him, it belongs to Him. Do not let
Him have to ask you for it twice. Give it to Him because you love Him. Whatever
it is, my friend, that belongs to you in an extraordinary and unusual degree,
these are the special presents that you are privileged to make to Him to whom
your hearts are already given, and whom having not seen you have begun to love.
(W. H. M. H. Aitkin, M. A.)
Love story of David and Jonathan
Now it is my purpose to use this beautiful love scene between
David and Jonathan as an illustration of the love which Christ offers to us.
1. In the first place, it truly suggests that Christ, the Prince of
Heaven, comes seeking a compact with us. Christ sees something in man, at his
worst, that He loves, and that seems to Him worth living and dying to save.
2. There is another suggestion that is very comforting, and that is
that as Jonathan’s love prompted him to give his own clothes to David, so that
his humble friend might look as much the prince as himself, Christ comes
offering to clothe us in his own beautiful garments of purity and
righteousness. It is the glory of Christians that Christ helps them to become
like Himself. Our ragged clothing of sin and of evil habit is to be east off,
and we are to be clothed with goodness and gentleness and meekness and love and
hope. That is the most glorious thing about Christianity. It is not that a man
may be simply saved from sorrow and despair and punishment on account of his
sins, but the sinner’s nature may be transformed and he may become a prince of
God’s realm, a holy man. The drunkard may put on sobriety. And the promise is
that this robing of the soul, this beautifying of the character, shall go on
until, when we awake in heaven, we shall awake in the likeness of Jesus Christ.
3. There is one other suggestion here which we find also fulfilled in
Christ’s treatment of the sinner: Jonathan bestowed upon David, not only his
own clothing, but he gave him his own armour and weapons. So Christ equips us
with the very weapons with which He battled in this world when He was tempted
in all points like as we are and yet came off victorious without sin. He gives
us the girdle of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness; on our feet He
puts shoes made of the preparation of the Gospel of peace; on the left arm we
carry the shield of faith--a wonderful shield that is able to stop every fiery
dart of the wicked one. (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
Friendship
I. The choice of
friends. The commonest advice given to young men on this subject is to choose
their friends well. But do we really choose our friends? Like love, friendship
may kindle at first sight. The instant you see a man, something within you may
say, “This is the man for me. This is the man who is going to be the other half
of my soul.” “My friends,” says Emerson, “have come to me unsought. The great
God gave them to me,” and I expect some of us could say that too. Although in
the initial stages friendship seems to be more a matter of good luck than of
choice, or, rather, let me say a matter of God’s kind Providence, there are
subsequent stages when friendship does need to be cultivated. For instance,
when friends separate in Providence to live in different towns or in different
countries, unless friendship is to lapse it must be cultivated by
correspondence, and letters long unanswered are very apt to cool the heart of a
friend. Or when other ties are formed friendship is apt to be sacrificed to
them, as, when a man is married, he is apt to drop his friends; but that is a
great mistake, because the home is enriched with the visits of friends if they
are good ones. What is a man to do if he has been unfortunate enough to
contract a friendship which is injurious? There may be such friendships. There
are more instances than one of this kind, for example, in the life of Robert
Burns, the poet, but one of them was especially influential in determining his
moral history. One winter, chancing to be at the town of Irvine, learning flax
dressing, a detail of farming in those days, he fell in with a young man rather
older than himself, and much more versed in the ways of the world, for whom he
instantly contracted a romantic attachment. “I loved and admired him,” says he
himself, “to a degree of enthusiasm, and, of course, strove be imitate him. His
mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue, but he
spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded
with horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief.” And the mischief turned
out to be more lasting and decisive than, even at the time when writing this
sentence, Burns himself had any conception of. Is there not something horrible
in the name of friendship being attached to a relationship which is undermining
the character and threatening the whole future of one who is engaged in it.
II. The gains of
friendship. The prime gain of friendship is just the knowledge of a noble soul.
That was what Jonathan felt. It is the man who has most in himself to give who
gives most, not the man who has most of what is external to give. No counter
gifts can altogether balance those which an opulent nature bestows when it
gives itself. That, then, is the first gain of friendship, simply to know a
noble nature.
2. The second gain of friendship is that it develops the powers of
those engaged in it. History contains many striking instances of how friends
have stimulated one another to the highest intellectual attainment. For
instance, Goethe and Schiller, the two greatest chiefs of German literature,
though differing widely in genius and disposition, both produced their grandest
works when living in the same town and daily enjoying each other’s
conversation. And German history has a still more striking example. Just as
Goethe and Schiller lived together at Weimar, so Martin Luther and Philip
Melancthon lived together at Wittenburg, and their friendship did a great deal
to stamp its character on the Reformation. It is perfectly delightful to hear
Luther and Melancthon speaking about each other. For instance, Luther says on
one occasion, “Philip is a wonder to us all. If the Lord will, he will beat
many Martins as the mightiest enemy to the devil and scholasticism. I am the
rough woodman who has to make a path; but Philip goes quietly and peaceably
along it, builds and plants, sows and waters.” On the other hand, the younger
man said on one occasion, “Luther supplies the place of all my friends. He is
greater and more admirable in my sight than I dare express.”
3. Then a third gain of friendship is that a friend can often speak a
good word for his friend, and otherwise promote his advantage. Flattery is the
poison of friendship, because it is false, and it has always been counted one
of the greatest gains of friendship that cane friend can, without offence, tell
the other his faults. An ancient Chinese philosopher says about this close
friendship, “The heaven-ordained relationship, on which depends the correction
of one’s character”; and a very ancient Indian poet expresses this still more
beautifully in these words:
The
words which from a stranger’s lips offend
Are
honey-sweet if spoken by a friend,
As
when the smoke of common wood we spurn,
But
call it perfume sweet when fragrant aloes burn;
and the Scripture clinches this matter by saying, “Faithful are
the wounds of a friend.”
III. The
qualifications for friendship. Philosophers are too apt to speak as if
friendship were possible only to philosophers, or men of genius. Thus Sir
Thomas Browne says, “This noble affection falls not on vulgar or common
constituents, but on such as are marked for virtue.” La Bruyere, the French
philosopher, says, “Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior
nature can never taste”; and Charles Kingsley says, “It is only the
great-hearted who can be true friends; the mean and cowardly can never know
what true friendship means.” If a man only be genuine he is quite fit for this
relationship, and if in addition he be tender and unselfish he can give the
highest pleasure in this relationship. It was part of the low estimate of women
universal in the ancient world that the ancient philosophers deny that women
could be friends. Christianity, however, has corrected this, as so much else,
and we know that women are not only as capable as men of being friends to one
another, but of being friends to men. I might quote such historical examples as
St. Francis and St. Clara, or as between the poet Cowper and Mrs. Unwin. Is the
highest friendship possible without religion? One of the most obvious and
inalienable qualities of friendship is this, that friends talk confidentially
to each other on important subjects. They exchange with each other their
deepest subjects. Now, if the deepest subject of all is excluded--if religion
is kept out of the conversation--must we not pronounce the friendship to be
imperfect and mutilated? The most elementary dictate about friendship is that
one friend must do the other as much good as he can. (J. Stalker, D. D.)
Friendship, a circumstance of holy youth
There have been certain proverbial friendships stereotyped on the
social history of the world; those of Pylades and Creates, Nisus and Euryalus,
Jonathan and David. Certain similar features marked them all, they were in all
cases the friendships of youth, of self-sacrifice, of heroic generosity, and of
perseverance to death. Another feature distinguished them. The friendship wag
in each case vowed upon the altar of boyish devotion. The boy did not mistake
the character of his own disposition or the friend whom he selected; and the
experience of after life confirmed and verified the choice of youth. There are
many occasions in life in which the boy is not the best decider upon truth, and
in which the decisions of early days and first choices are not confirmed by the
experience of riper years. It is happily not the case with friendship. There,
often, he whom we have chosen as the depository of our first conscious
feelings, the chosen companion of the long walk on the school holiday, the
friend to whom we have applied in the difficulty of the lesson, is the
companion of the sore struggle of after days, the accepted friend of the wife
of our choice, and sometimes our kind and tender comforter when we are mourners
over the grave of the wife or of the child. In the advance of onward years, the
friend of boyhood sits by us when we are dying, follows us to the grave, places
the tablet in the church or the inscription on the tombstone, and is steadfast
at the last hour, as he was in the schoolroom, by the river’s bank, on the
playground and on the holiday. The love of David and Jonathan was singularly
beautiful and true.
1. All boys have a natural tendency towards forming friendships. Such
friendships tend to bring out the character; without them the powers of a boy
will very often lie dormant and undeveloped through his future life. Up to a
certain age a youth, though full of affection towards those who are the
relations of his life, may be unconscious of them. For his friend at school, in
connection with whom none of those relationships exist he is able to realise
love and regard, and in connection with him first becomes conscious of the
power of love at all. The knowledge of this fact alone expands and invigorates
the whole disposition.
2. The friendship of youth frequently ends in important results of
usefulness in after life. There is something striking in the altered
circumstances which in turn affected the sons of Kish and Jesse; and it was in
these very adversities that each was so invaluable to the other. It is very
hard to tell what our lot may be in future life. Vicissitudes, as untoward as
that which lost Jonathan his throne, may affect us in our onward career; and
fortune, as unexpected as that which fell to David’s lot, may fall to our
share. Many a boy is flushed with high birth or illustrious parentage, or has
some bright promise of future position, which will elevate him above his
fellows; but the possibility of a future change in the position of boyhood is
strongly brought to mind by the story of Jonathan and David. But while this
covenant was thus acted upon in after days, the covenant itself was a very
striking and beautiful circumstance. Two young men, each of them full of high
energies; ambitious, brave, and noble; were, nevertheless, so deeply conscious
of their dependence upon God and the necessity of serving Him, as to bind
themselves by an agreement of a distinctly religious character; thus evincing
their piety and showing that the claims of God infinitely transcend the highest
earthly employment. Such a thing is rare.
3. And again, there is something very grand in the long pause in the
personal communications between David and Jonathan. They loved each other as
boys and as youths. When David walked forth fresh and ruddy from the wilderness
of Bethlehem, and Jonathan shone in all the lustre of the son of a great king,
the prince and the shepherd boy loved each other. They took delight in telling
their love one for the other, and made their covenant before God in the field
of Ezel, and their souls were satisfied. They saw each other no more in the
passage of years. Indeed, David’s eye rested not on the countenance of his
friend until it was brought a corpse from the streets of Bethsban. Trouble of
all kinds marked the interval. Nevertheless, all this sufficed not to shake the
foundations of Jonathan’s love for David. It is a very poor and narrow view, to
imagine that real friendship should need constant expression. It is a deep,
wide, lasting thing, whose seed is sown, as in some eases, in the period of
boyhood, and may spring up into a plant which may shadow a long-after day,
though the interval that elapses between the ratification of that friendship
and the hour of death, may be marked by a long suspension of intercourse: aye!
and even by circumstances.
4. Another lesson that we learn from the friendship of these two
youths is, that true friendship exists in a desire to discover points of beauty
and nobility in everything, however otherwise defective or polluted. Through the
outward circumstance of a lineage opposed to the present and future interest of
David, he was able to perceive, to value, end to love the noble qualities of
Jonathan. While in the shepherd boy, whose destiny had been already declared by
an unerring voice to be one which would finally eclipse the house of Saul,
Jonathan was able to see the lustre of those qualities which eventually made
David “the sweet psalmist of Israel” and “the man after God’s own heart;” and
seeing them, he had the disinterestedness to love them, and to ally himself to
them. (E. Monro.)
Friendship
How dreary would this world be if there were no friendships in it,
if no heart union between man and man, husband and wife, parent and child,
young man and maiden. How narrow must be the soul of that man who has never
known what it is to be absorbed in someone else, so absorbed, that the mention
of the name of that one will cause a peculiar thrill of joy. How sad to care
only for oneself. How woeful to be uncared for. Miserable the state of one
represented as saying, “There’s not much to live for. I don’t suppose I have a
friend in all the world.” Still sadder to me is the one who replied, “If you
have no friend, you have nobody to borrow money of you; nobody to call when you
are in the middle of an interesting book; nobody to tell stories about you to
other people; nobody, in short, to bore you before your face and abuse you
behind your back.” That was a cynical view of a selfish man, of one who never
could have tasted the sweets of a real friendship or the magnetic power of
love. David drew Jonathan and held him as the magnet does steel filings. You
cannot see the subtle power that attracts, but it is there. It is a mystery in
evidence.
I. Friendship
through respect. Love blazed up towards David very suddenly. Still, it was
love, founded on respect. With some love may be more slowly kindled, but may
die very hardly. Love at first sight is a possibility, and a constantly-renewed
experience in this old world. Thank God that romance is not yet banished from
the earth. In some nations affections are more kept under control than in
England; marriages are made to depend on the amount of the dowry. Harmony of
taste and principle characterised the friendship of the son of Saul and the son
of Jesse. There was true piety in both. There is little prospect of happiness
in any union without piety. First impressions are not always right. We may not
always follow them. Reciprocal was the affection between Israel’s prince and
its future “sweet singer.” Sometimes a man may care for one who cares nothing
for him. Many a maiden, too, has given affection to one who may not really have
had a serious thought about returning it. Imagination can throw round another a
glamour of qualities he or she may not possess. People do not always meet with
a return of affection. And yet some are as greedy of it as the eucalyptus is of
water. Affection should beget affection, but it is not always successful in the
transfer. Even when Christ loved with an infinite and Divine love it has not
always found a response in souls.
II. Discriminating
friendship. Seneca tells of a distinguished citizen of Rome who introduced the
fashion of separating his visitors. Some were left in hall or court, others
were admitted to the antechamber, and others were led into the boudoir of
privacy and rest. Today some are acquaintances of the street, others of the
church, and others of the home. A sensible man will know how to discriminate.
He will not carry his “heart on his sleeve.” He will not be like bill distributors
who thrust their papers into anybody’s hands. He will find an intensified
interest in the special affection he has for one of like mind to himself.
1. Unreservedness and unsuspiciousness will be found in a true
friendship. A Jonathan will pour out his admiration and affection to a David.
He will have nothing to hide. There will be free interchange of feeling. When
danger threatens one the other will be alive to it. Faithfulness in a friend is
promoted by absolute trust. But let me here say that this absolute trust should
not lead to presumings. Some are always ready to act as if the surest signs of
friendship were found in free comments on conduct.
2. Disinterested and ready to bestow will be the attitude of a true
friend. A Jonathan gives his bow and his robes to David. For him he foregoes
his claim to a kingdom. He esteems the friendship of David of greater worth
than a crown. How suggestive of that Divine love that gave up majesty, glory,
heaven’s rest, for reviling, rejection, mocking, scourging, loneliness, and
death, even the death of the cross for sinners such as ourselves.
3. Unchangeable and unwavering to the end will a true friendship be.
Some friendships are like the strings of musical instruments that snap so
easily when there is an alteration in the temperature.
III. The test of
friendship. Adversity is a test of faithfulness. When a man is prosperous he
will have many friends. They will flock around, bend heads, and bow bodies. Let
the tide of prosperity, however, turn, and many will rapidly fade from vision,
having wind and tide in their favour as they speed away. One said, “Early
fruits rot soon,” so friendships too rapidly ripened. Gushing protestations are
often followed by tantalising flirtations and bitter and cruel estrangements.
Trifling is the death of friendship. Not so was it with David and Jonathan.
What misery can be wrought into hearts and homes by those who are unfaithful,
and who are not worthy the sacred name of friend! Such bitter experiences were
unknown to David and Jonathan. They were faithful to each other right to the
end. David would have readily died for Jonathan if he could. (F. Hastings.)
Jonathan
In heaven’s vault there are what are known as binary stars, each
probably a son, with its attendant train of worlds, revolving around a common
centre, but blending their rays so that they reach the watcher’s eye as one
clear beam of light. So do twin souls find the centre of their orbit in each
other; and there is nothing in the annals of human affection nobler than the
bond of such a love between two pure, high-minded and noble men, whose love
passes that of women. Such love was celebrated in ancient classic story, and
has made the names of Damon and Pythias proverbial. It has also enriched the
literature of modern days in the love of a Hallam and a Tennyson. But nowhere
is it more fragrant than on the pages that contain the memorials of the love of
Jonathan and David.
I. Consider the
qualities of this friend whom Jehovah chose for the moulding of the character
of his beloved; and then be prepared to surrender to his care the choice of
your most intimate associates. He knows what your temperament needs, and where
to find the companion who shall strengthen you when weak, and develop latent
unknown qualities.
1. He was every inch a man. In true friendship there must be a
similarity of tastes and interests. The prime condition of two men walking
together is that they should be agreed. And the bond of a common manliness knit
these twin souls from the first. Jonathan was every inch a man; as dexterous
with the bow as his friend with the sling.
2. He was withal very sensitive and tender. It is the fashion in some
quarters to emphasise the qualities supposed to be specially characteristic of
men--those of strength, courage, endurance--to the undervaluing of the tenderer
graces more often associated with women. But in every true man there must be a
touch of woman, as there was in the ideal Man, the Lord Jesus. There should be
strength and sweetness, courage and sympathy; the oak and the vine, the rock
and the moss that covers it with its soft green mantle.
3. Jonathan had a marvellous power of affection. He loved David as
himself; he was prepared to surrender without a pang his succession to his
father’s throne, if only he might be next to his friend; his was the love that
expresses itself in tender embraces and tears, that must have response from the
object of its choice. We judge a man by his friends, and the admiration he
excites in them. Much is said of the union of opposites, and it is well when
one is rich where the other is poor; but the deepest love must be between those
whose natures are close akin.
4. He was distinctly religious. He must be strong who would
strengthen another; he must have God, and be in God, who would give the
consolations of God to his brother; and we can easily understand how the
anguish of Jonathan’s soul, torn before filial devotion to his father and his
love to his friend, must have driven him back to those resources of the Divine
nature, which are the only solace of men whose lives have been cast in the same
fiery crucible.
II. Consider the
conflict of Jonathan’s life. He was devoted to his father. He was always found
associated with that strange dark character, melancholy to madness, the prey of
evil spirits, and yet so keenly susceptible to music, and so quick to respond
to the appeal of chivalry, patriotism, and generous feeling; resembling some
mountain lake, alternately mirroring mountains and skies, and swept by dark
storms. Father and son were together in life, as they were “undivided in
death.” When he woke up to find how truly he loved David, a new difficulty
entered his life. Not outwardly, because, though Saul eyed David with jealousy,
there was no open rupture. David went in and out of the palace, was in a
position of trust, and was constantly at hand for the intercourse for which
each yearned. But when the flames of hostility, long smouldering in Saul’s
heart, broke forth, the true anguish of his life began. On the one hand, his
duty as son and subject held him to his father, though he knew his father was
doomed, and that union with him meant disaster to himself; on the other hand,
all his heart cried out for David. His love for David made him eager to promote
reconciliation between his father and his friend. It was only when repeated
failure had proved the fruitlessness of his dream that he abandoned it; and
then the thought must have suggested itself to him: Why not extricate yourself
from this sinking ship while there is time? Why not join your fortunes with his
whom God hath chosen? The new fair kingdom of the future is growing up around
him--identify yourself with it, though it, be against your father. The
temptation was specious and masterful, but it fell blunt and ineffectual at his
feet. Stronger than the ties of human love were those of duty, sonship, loyalty
to God’s anointed king; and in some supreme moment he turned his back on the
appeal of his heart, and elected to stand beside his father. From that choice
be never flinched. When David departed whither he would, Jonathan went back to
the city. It was one of the grandest exhibitions of the triumph of principle
over passion, of duty over inclination, that the annals of history record.
Jonathan died as a hero; not only because of his prowess in battle with his
country’s foes, but because of his victory over the strongest passion of the
human heart, the love of a strong man, in which were blended the strands of a
common religion, a common enthusiasm for all that was good and right. (F. B.
Meyer, B. A.)
The attachment of Jonathan and David
I. The first
particular belonging to this remarkable and most interesting attachment, was
its sudden formation. It was from predisposition that this friendship so
suddenly arose; from the possession and exhibition of modesty, piety, and
courage, that it derived its strength and ardour, and finally its permanence.
And all this will, in a great degree, account for the otherwise strange
mutability, which we observe in human affections. History, poetry, society, are
all eloquent in praise of friendship; yet when we look for such an affection,
and tax memory and observation on the question, all we have is an account of
sudden or violent attachment, formed upon fancy, and not upon predisposition;
of friendships as rapidly dissolved as they are raised; oftentimes converted
into animosity and hatred; more frequently wasting and decaying into
indifference from their first enthusiasm, and seldom durable except when
self-interest was largely and deeply involved. This is no slander upon worldly
amity, for every man’s experience will corroborate the truth of the account.
II. The admiration
of Jonathan terminated in his affection for David, but the affection became
mutual. The friendship of the world, in its best form, seems to be rather
favouritism or partiality, than mutual and equal attachment, something more
like parental regard or patronage, than that which the word friendship properly
expresses. This one-sided regard, this favouritism, has in it none of the
advantages of friendship. He who has a friend, as old writers say, has got a
second self, doubled powers, for good or for evil. In friendships, and we speak
only of religious friendships, how many advantages arise to both parties! Their
equality and freedom lead to the communication and increase of piety; to the
correction of errors in judgment, and errors of infirmity in moral disposition
and practice; to a greater facility of approach to God, and a steadier advance
through life to his kingdom.
III. It will be well
to thine a little on the means used for its preservation and permanence. These
were pious exercises. Thus we read, that Jonathan and David entered into a
solemn league and covenant of friendship, with every appeal to heaven to bless
their mutual regard, and promote its effects to the advantage of their
descendants.
IV. There is one
friend to be found, one true heart, one faithful soul, well tried in the
furnace of afflictions and temptations, whose proffered regard, with all its
enduring and imperishable benefits and excellences, men too frequently
overlook. That friend, who, in Scripture language, is said to stick closer than
a brother, and is a brother born for adversity, you anticipate me by naming,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Jonathan, captivated with David, stripped himself of all his robes
of honour, in order to array him with these, as a proof of his affection--the
overture of a covenant attachment, never to be violated. So did Christ.
2. Again we are prompted to consider from this narrative the abiding
mercies of the Redeemer. Our first acquaintance with Him (if we possess any)
arose from His own gracious condescension.
3. On every occasion of intimacy we read that Jonathan failed not “to
encourage David’s hand in God.” This was the part of a holy friend, one who saw
the value of better things than this world contained, and knew the value of
such consolations and encouragements as religion--the true religion alone can
give in our times of weakness, and depression, and suffering. Has it not ever
been so between Christ and the believer?
4. Finally, we learn that it was never in David’s power to requite
the fidelity of Jonathan, save only in the person of his child, Mephibosheth.
Yet him he sought out diligently, and to him repaid, as far as possible, the
kindness of his departed friend. Oh! is not this a stirring appeal to us in
behalf of Christian gratitude and Christian benevolence. Our friend is removed
from us, departed to make way for our inheritance to kingly honour. We cannot
even pour out our tears upon his grave, or embalm his sacred remains with
ceremonious sorrow. Nevertheless his children are amongst us, the poor ones of
his flock--the despised and forgotten of the world. Seek them out, feed them,
clothe them, comfort them, cheer them; this tribute, and this tribute only,
will be accepted. “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, My
brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” (C. M. Fleury, A. M.)
Jonathan the friend
The absence of friends makes the busiest place a solitude; nor is
there any vacuum Nature abhors more than that. She teaches us to seek a heart
that beats in unison with our own; looks of sympathy and kindness; a bosom into
which we can pour the secrets of our souls; when burdens press heavy, an arm to
lean on; when our back is at the wall, an ally to stand fighting by our side;
in our difficulties a counsellor to advise with; in our sorrows one to divine,
and in our joys one to double them. This is so natural, and to possess such a
friend is both so delightful and profitable, that, whether his home be a castle
or a cabin, and he himself a king or a beggar, oven though he was rich with the
wealth of banks, and filled the earth with his fame, for a man to want friends,
true friends, according to Lord Bacon, is to find this world a wilderness. The
value which all ages and countries have set on friendship may be estimated by
the honours they have paid to it, and the care they have taken to embalm the
memory of those whose lives have afforded remarkable illustrations of what
friendships could dare, and bear, and do. We have an example of this in the
beautiful story of Damon and Pythias, where we see how it has filled the worst
of men with admiration, disarming the hand and quenching the rage of tyrants.
The first, a Pythagorean philosopher, was condemned to death by Dionysius; the
execution of the sentence, however, being suspended in consequence of his
obtaining leave to go home to settle his domestic affairs--a favour which the
tyrant granted on condition of his returning by a stated day to suffer the
penalty of death. The promise was given, but not reckoned sufficient. He dies
on the spot, unless he finds a hostage--a friend who will pledge himself to die
in his room. At this juncture Pythias steps forward; and delivering himself up
to the hands of the tyrant, becomes Damon’s surety--to wait his friend’s
return, or suffer in his stead. At length the day arrives and the hour; but no
Damon. Pythias must be his substitute; and he is ready. Thanking the gods for
the adverse winds that retarded the ship in which Damon sailed, he prepares to
die, a sacrifice on the altar of friendship. And had fallen, but that before
the blow descends, Damon rushes panting on the scene. Now the strange and
friendly strife begins. Each is eager to die for the other; and each, appealing
to Dionysius, claims the bloody sword as his right and privilege. Though inured
to scenes of cruelty, the tyrant cannot look unmoved on such a scene as this.
Touched by this rare exhibition of affection, be is melted: nor only remits the
punishment, but entreats them to permit him hereafter to share their friendship
and enjoy their confidence. What an honour it were to the Gospel were there
many instances of such friendship among its professors! Why should there not?
Has not Jesus laid this injunction on us all, “Love one another, even as I have
loved you?” There is another, and almost equally remarkable, example of
friendship told of such as never heard of Him who is the friend of sinners. It
is so remarkable indeed that it procured Divine honours to Orestes and Pylades
from the Scythians--a race so bloody, rude, and savage that they are said to
have fed on human flesh, and made drinking cups of their enemies’ skulls.
Engaged in an arduous enterprise, Orestes and Pylades, two sworn friends,
landed on the shores of the Chersonesus to find themselves in the dominions and
power of a king whose practice was to seize on all strangers and sacrifice them
at the shrine of Diana. The travellers were arrested. They were carried before
the tyrant; and, doomed to death, were delivered over to Iphigenia, who, as
priestess of Diana’s temple, had to immolate the victims. Her knife is buried
in their bosoms, but that she learns before the blow is struck that they are
Greeks--natives of her own native country. Anxious to open up a communication
with the land of her birth, she offers to spare one of the two, on condition
that the survivor will become her messenger, and carry a letter to her friends
in Greece. But which shall live, and which shall die? That is the question. The
friendship which had endured for years, in travels, and courts, end
battlefields is now put to a strain it never bore before. And nobly it bears
it. Neither will accept the office of messenger, leaving his fellow to the
stroke of death. Each implores the priestess to select him for the sacrifice;
and let the other go. While they contend for the pleasure and honour of dying,
Iphigenia discovers in one of them her own brother. She embraces him; and
sparing both flees with them from that cruel shore. Both are saved; and the
story, borne on the wings of fame, flies abroad, fills the world with wonder,
and carried to distant regions, excited such admiration among the barbarous
Scythians, that they paid Divine honours to Orestes and Pylades, and deifying
these heroes, erected temples to their worship. But to illustrate what a friend
has been, and friends should be, we haves yet brighter example and more
certainly truthful story in that of Jonathan--at once so touching and so
tragic. It finds its type in those rivers, the Rhine and Rhone for instance,
which, fed by exhaustless snows, and springing into light in lofty regions,
high above the sea to whose distant shores their waters wend, are rivers at
their birth; bursting from the icy caverns of Alpine glaciers in full,
impetuous flood. It has its origin in a very memorable event, and on one of the
most notable days in the whole history of Israel.
1. The friendships are few that survive years of separation; the
shock of conflicting interests; the drain made on our old affections by new
claims; the trials they are put to by infirmities of temper, by plain dealing
with faults, by a manly independence, by requests refused, by favours
unrequited, by the rivalries of business, by the partisanship that springs from
creeds or politics, and by a thousand other nameless circumstances. Fragile as
the flowers the winter frost traces on our windows, there are friendships that
a breath will melt away. It may be very wrong and very pitiful, but, as the
wise man says, “a whisper separateth chief friends;” and who lives long lives
to see so many, like leaves the frost has nipped, fall off, and the ties which
friendship had formed, so often and sometimes so easily dissolved, that he
comes to read with little astonishment, and no great sense of exaggeration, the
words of one who, describing his relationships, said, “Though the church would
not hold my acquaintances, the pulpit is large enough to bold all my friends.”
Happily, there are friendships that stand the test of time and the severest
strain; but among these, what poet or panegyrist has recorded with glowing pen
one to be compared with Jonathan’s? It is quite unique; remarkable as his
father’s stature. The words of the poet may be justly applied to Jonathan--
“None
but himself could be his parallel.”
For example, men will praise their friends, but how few are
generous enough without jealousy to hear others praise them, at their expense,
in eulogiums they feel to be disparaging to themselves.
2. Then see what severe trials this friendship endured; and enduring,
triumphed overse Saul’s gloomy eye fixed on David, the javelin he hurled to pin
him to the wall, the cry of his soldiers echoing from the rocks as they hunted
the fugitive from cave to cave, and hill to hill, not more illustrating the
words, “Jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire,”
than the friendship of Jonathan did those which follow, “Many waters cannot
quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” The reed that bends its head to a
breath of wind, and the old grey rock which withstands the hurricane that
strews the plain with trees and the foaming shore with wrecks, are not more
unlike than Jonathan where his own interests, and the same Jonathan where
David’s interests were concerned. Such was the depth and power of his affection
for his friend. Here neither Saul’s entreaties, nor anger, nor violence could
move him. He would part with life to please his father, but not with his love
for David.
3. If piety is shown by a regard to God and a Child-like submission
to His sovereign will, by taking up our cross and denying ourselves daily that
we may follow Christ, by saying, like Jesus Himself, as He book the bitter cup
of our sorrows from His Father’s hand, “Father, not My wilt, but Thine be
done,” what finer example of this grace than Jonathan? David is to supplant
him; David is to enter on the honours and fortune he expected to enjoy; and out
of the ruins of Saul’s house, David is to build his own; yet Jonathan ceases
not to regard him with unabated and the tenderest affection. Tender as a woman,
and yet true as steel, overflowing with generous kindness, utterly devoid of
selfishness, trusting as much as he wad trusted, with a heart that reflected
David’s as face answereth to face in water, Jonathan was the paragon and
perfect pattern of a friend.
4. To make some practical use of this matter, I remark--
David and Jonathan
Goliath’s death day was the birthday of the beautiful, memorable
friendship between David and Jonathan.
I. Theirs was the
friendship of godly men. Enter into no friendship that is displeasing to Christ
and that is incompatible with friendship with Him. And in reference to that
closest of earthly attachments--which unites for good or ill two lives “till
death them do part,” let young Christian people see to it that they “walk
circumspectly, not as fools but as wise.”
II. Unselfish was
the friendship between David and Jonathan. The favour of princes has too often
been secured by the designing and depraved; men who pandered to vice, and made
more tempting “the primrose path” to perdition. Unsought, unselfish, was
Jonathan’s friendship to David. Here is a valid test for friendship. Is it
unselfish? Free from rivalry? Able to rejoice at the growing prosperity of the
other even while adversity is darkening round itself? Cheerfully willing to
pass down from first to second that the other may pass up from second to first?
How much of Jonathan’s spirit is in it? The friendship that claims
congratulations but is slow to congratulate, that looks for sympathy, but is
reluctant to sympathise, or falls away altogether from the friend in his “dark
and cloudy day”--such may be the friendship of the world. But how unlike the
virtue that ennobled Jonathan, the memory of which keeps his name green and
beautiful from age to age.
III. Severely tested
by adversity was the friendship between David and Jonathan. True friendship can
stand the test of adversity. It can not only live in the sunshine but can also
illumine our darkness. When sorrows come; when all things seem against us; when
men speak evil of us falsely, then we need a friend. A brother is born for
adversity; and such a friend as David called “my brother Jonathan.”
IV. Mutually
valuable was the friendship between David and Jonathan. (G. T. Coster.)
David and Jonathan
After the death of Goliath all would seem to go well with David.
The admired of all admirers, high in favour, beloved of Jonathan, and living
with the king--whose state is so enviable as his? Yet let no one be sure of
anything in this world, that is, of anything capable of vicissitude. David’s
sufferings and persecutions are beginning now when, to the outward eye, all
seems brilliant and prosperous. God, who saw the evil coming, gave him the
animating support of dear friend. You will often see how a compensating element
is blended with great calamity, and neutralises much of its virus.
1. Put asunder by Saul’s malignant envy, yet I suppose that the
remembrance of that great surpassing love of Jonathan’s must have been a
presence and a power to David. There is no influence on a feeling mind stronger
than the sense of being loved; nothing more elevating, more securing to the
inner life. We are dearer to ourselves when we are dear to someone else.
Danger, of a very subtle and fatal kind, lurks in the feeling, “No man careth
for my soul.” This is, indeed, the fruitful source of suicide. Youths are
steadied when away from home by the confidence they have of a mighty love felt
for them by their mothers. Is it not Jeremy Taylor who says, “He who loves is
happy, but he who is loved is safe!” See how in the constitution of the family,
in marriage, in children, in friendship, God has provided a shield for our
weakness in the love borne to us. Jonathan saw himself magnified and improved
in David, who was his better self. Read the fourteenth chapter to discern the
valorous soul of Jonathan. Look at him, with one attendant likeminded with
himself, “climbing up upon his hands and upon his feet” into the garrison of
the Philistines. “And they fell before Jonathan,” and there was trembling in
the host: “and that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armour bearer made,
was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of
oxen might plough.” Here was David’s adventurous spirit: Jonathan had seen
Goliath for forty days defying Israel, and had not dared to meet him, but he
saw David kill him. He loved that which went beyond his own spirit, yet was of
the same heroic order. He saw in David a higher and greater Jonathan, the ideal
of his own actual life, himself transfigured and perfected. What he had dreamt
he might be, he beheld in David.
2. Now, let us turn to the father. Was Saul ever like his son? David,
in his song, unites them in a very beautiful harmony: “Saul and Jonathan were
lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided:
they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.” And when we look
at Saul’s early history, there gleams on us a ray of his son’s noble spirit.
When “the children of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they
despised him, and brought him no presents,” it is added, “but he held his
peace.” That faculty of self-control stands in terrible contrast with the utter
loss of self-respect and self-government which he afterwards evinced. Moreover,
the grief of Samuel at the Divine rejection of Saul (“it grieved Samuel, and he
cried unto the Lord all night”) is a touching proof of the truth that Saul was
lovely in the early part of his career. Here was a noble nature ruined; but we
must confess that his was a situation of such extraordinary difficulty that,
while he could have retained his uprightness had he remained in favour with
God, yet when we think of his constitutional malady, and of the human and
almost necessary vexation which the song of the women must have occasioned;
when we think that the praise of higher prowess was bestowed on one who was
known to be the aspirant to the throne, as we learn from Jonathan’s words to
David, we cannot wonder that jealousy caused his ruin.
There is no habit so easily acquired, so hardly cast off, as
jealousy or envy.
1. We may safely affirm that, if you prize communion with God as your
greatest blessing, you will be a stranger to envy. It is the presence of God
with us which shuts out the base passions, or keeps them from having dominion
over us. And let this be a touchstone to us all. When we feel the rising of
envious emotion, let us alarm ourselves, let us be sure we are going back; we
are descending to a lower level of the Christian life; we are satisfied to pass
the day without a hearty effort to realise God’s presence, and therefore has
this evil come upon us. Cleave to the Lord, and all virtue, all goodness, all
excellence in people whom you meet will be dear to you, because they are His
gifts whom you prize higher than all gifts. Envy the gifts! How is that
possible when the Giver is yours. Of the Giver “of every good and perfect
gift,” you can say, “He is my God.”
2. This is the first great rule to show us how we may shun envy.
3. But, after this, get into the way of admiring worth, independence,
and all moral excellence in whomsoever you see it. Love it in an enemy, and
then you cannot have one. Sometimes we are slow to recognise high qualities in
people who differ from us; but rid yourselves of this meanness, and delight
yourselves in the discovery of nobleness, of generosity, of moral worth in
books or men. Wordsworth says--
“My
heart leaps up when I behold
A
rainbow in the sky;”
but what is God’s bow in the clouds for beauty compared to God’s
gift of genius, of wisdom, of disinterestedness, of charity, when in our human
life they arch heaven and earth with a glory “that fadeth not away?” The
nobility of Jonathan’s character cannot easily be over-estimated. (B. Kent,
M. A.)
Our social relationships
I. The intimate
friendships of life.
1. Friendships spring up often, we can hardly explain why, but they
are most real, most helpful, very precious, and frequently lasting. It is an
unspeakably blessed thing to have a true friend in whose wisdom you can
confide, in whose strength you can shelter your weakness, whose sympathy
understands the ever-varying moods of your soul.
2. Advice as to how to obtain and to retain friendship could not be
more forcibly given than in the words, “A man that hath friends must show
himself friendly.” All expressions of confidence and affection are not to be on
one side only; they must be mutual.
3. Our companionships bear testimony to our natures end our
convictions. For friendship as I understand it does not consist in the
perpetual interchange of compliments and sweet flatteries, but in the endeavour
to increase the goodness and the happiness of each other, and sometimes this
can be done only by gentle reproof and warning. It is a delicate task, and not
unfrequently a most painful and hazardous one. Yet, as one truly says, the best
of friends are “they that deny themselves of pleasure for the sake of making me
better; they that incur the risk of anger and dislocation of friendship for the
sake of telling me a truth that nobody else dares to tell me, and that I die
for the want of hearing; they that are more choice of my soul’s interior and
essential good than they are of my satisfaction with the pride and the vanities
of life, and seek to be physician of my soul, they are my best friends.”
4. The other characteristics of friendships are expressions of love
and faithfulness in adversity. Do not, expect to get all and give nothing--to
have affection and confidence lavished upon you as though it were your right,
and return none. Not so will you acquire and keep friendship.
II. Social
acquaintances. “Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to
edification.” (Romans 15:2.) Beyond those
dear and gracious ties we form with souls with whom ours are knit we are
compelled to enlarge the circle of our associations, and we make acquaintances
in a variety of ways, who never become our friends. Either because we know
little about them, or are unattracted by what we do know, our intercourse is
limited to those few occasions when we meet in social life, our conversation to
those superficial topics which may be called the useful but not valuable
counters that serve instead of anything more real or worthy. How many of such
acquaintances most people can boast. We are familiar with their names, with
some facts of their history, and we encounter them at houses where we visit, or
are on tolerable visiting terms with them, but they never show us their hearts,
and we are equally reserved. That is not altogether unnatural or undesirable.
We cannot, take the oaths of true friendship with everybody. The society in
which we move is not to be lowered in its tone by our laxity in fashion or in
speech. We are not to descend to the level of the standards which satisfy
irreligious people, and sometimes are accepted by those who profess to be
religious, but we must follow what is right even if it looks ideal. Those
around us are gathering from our conduct what is true and pure and good. We
mingle amongst various people, and our influence may be felt. What is wanted is
a more intelligent conviction of the duties we owe to society, of its need of a
constant purifying influence, and that we Christian men and women have a
mission to raise its tone and elevate its life. It will be of little avail to
stand sway in isolated carelessness, or in a spirit of indignant asceticism
from the world’s life, raising an angry protest against its evil; we must
resolutely carry the influence of our own principles into its life, and strive
by all means in our power to transform and regenerate it. We are to be “in the
world,”--as salt to save it from corruption, as light to guide, to beautify, to
increase the true joy of it--yet we may not be of the world. (W. Braden.)
Verse 4
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and
gave it to David.
David invested with royal robes
From the days of Homer and the Trojan wars downwards, this has
been the method employed by Orientals to denote the bestowment of dignity and
distinction. Not more eagerly coveted is the Order of the Garter, or Bath, or
Thistle among ourselves than in ancient times was the gift of royal robes. Any
portion, indeed, of a king’s wardrobe or jewel box was greatly prized; but the
voluntary donation of dress, and more particularly in the act of being worn,
rendered the tribute doubly valuable. Whenever this latter occurred the
cherished memento was transmitted as an heirloom from sire to son. It was
equivalent to a patent of nobility. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
We find in Homer a minute enumeration of the armour Ulysses
received in a gift from Meriones, and in the story of Nisus and Euryalus, in
the IX OEneid of Virgil, there occurs a duplicate picture of that presented to
us in the tent of Saul. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Verses 9-30
And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.
David’s enemy-Saul
It is the enmity of Saul which we are to consider--its beginning,
its rapid growth, its deadly purpose. The excitement of the war being over, the
king has time to think of himself, and he is filled with thoughts of his
dethronement; and the envy of David eats into his heart so greedily that his
old frenzy is brought on again. On the very next day his heart grew malicious
toward David; the evil spirit seized him once more. “Whether this was a
diabolical possession or a mere mental malady the learned are not agreed. It
seems to have partaken of both. There is too much of apparent nature in it to
permit us to believe it was all spiritual, and there was too much of apparent
spiritual in it to suffer us to believe it was all natural.” This we know from
the plain record: “The Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul,” and “an evil
spirit from the Lord troubled him.” So that, negatively and positively, the
hand of the Lord was in it. And yet he was eating the fruit of his own
doings--“given over,” as Paul says, “to a reprobate mind.” But Saul’s hate has
not abated with the passage of the frenzy. The direct assault has failed, but
there are surer methods in reserve. Men are cheap now to the king, who sees his
crown in danger, and ten thousand slain or captured will not be missed if David
but goes down with them. Yet again he fails. David can wield a thousand men as
skilfully as he can swing his sling, and the king grows bitterer still. Saul
learns that his other daughter loves this brilliant young captain, and it is
surmised that her passion was returned, else the spirited soldier had not
submitted so tamely to his twice winning and twice losing Merab. Not to gratify
the heart of either does Saul give his consent now; he hopes that Michal
“may be a snare to him” and the hand of the Philistine may be against him. He
slyly mentions a dower--not directly, but through his courtiers--such as a
“poor man,” skilled in fight, might give to a king, the procuring of which he
surely thought would bring him his death. And his heart must have been filled
with malignant joy as he heard that “he and his men” (his two or three
attendants, not his ten hundred) bad sallied forth to slay one hundred men. But
“before the days were expired” back be comes, bringing the designated trophies
in double tale. But why pursue the disgraceful story further? Each defeat but
fans the flame to greater fury, and Saul soon throws off the thin disguise with
which he has marked his deadly purpose, and openly “spake to Jonathan, his sons
and to all his servants that they should kill David” (1 Samuel 19:1.) At
length the sad end came. The life that bad begun in such brilliant promise was
closed by self-destruction. His enmity was fruitless, except in bitterness to
himself and trouble to Israel. It could not set aside the plans of the
Almighty: “His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure.” These are
the practical lessons which the unrelenting enmity of Saul suggests.
The wicked jealous of the good
The incident teaches three things respecting good and bad men.
I. The wicked are
often jealous of a good man’s popularity. “And Saul was very wroth, and the
saying displeased him.” Saul’s behaviour to David reveals the progress of
jealousy in four stages.
1. There is anger. “He was wroth.”
2. There is envy. “And Saul eyed him from that day.”
3. There is madness. “The evil spirit from God came upon him.”
4. There is murder. “And Saul east the javelin: for he said, I will
smite David even to the wall.”
It is a sure sign that the Spirit of God has left a man when he is
jealous of his benefactor. Jealousy is a foolish passion, and inflicts
self-injury. Jealousy is a wicked passion, and displeasing to God. Jealousy is
a dangerous passion, and leads to the most fatal issues. “Wrath is cruel, and
anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand against envy?”
II. The wicked are
often terrified by a good man’s security. “And Saul was afraid of David,
because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul.” Sin makes a man a
coward. “‘Tis doing wrong creates such fears as these, renders us jealous, and
destroys our peace.” Saul’s fear led to the adoption of the most desperate measures
to ruin David.
1. Saul resolves to dismiss David. “Therefore Saul removed David from
him, and made him his captain over a thousand.” Saul wished to prevent David
from gaining the affections of the courtiers, and also to excite against him
the envy of his subordinates. In both intentions he was disappointed; “for all
Israel loved David.”
2. Saul endeavours to provoke David. Saul’s change of purpose in
giving his daughter to Adriel was designed to wound David’s honour, and excite
his resentment. David had just cause of complaint, but he did not utter a word
of reproach against the glaring injustice.
3. Saul determines to kill David. Jealousy extorts the most costly
sacrifices--gratitude, honour, affection. A bad man will barter away his own
child to accomplish his ends. Under the promise of preferment there may lurk
the most deadly designs. Fair words may proceed from a foul heart. The face may
beam with the light of heaven, while the heart is inflamed with the passions of
hell.
III. The wicked are
often defeated by a good man’s valour.
1. In this encounter David fulfils the king’s stipulation.
2. In this encounter David thwarts the king’s purpose.
3. In this encounter David wins the king’s daughter. God can make the
impediments that are thrown in the way of His children aids to their progress.
The subtle and deadly designs of our enemies are among the ordained purposes of
God. (J. T. Woodhouse.)
Saul’s evil eye
I. Saul’s envy.
Selfishness, that “root of bitterness” filled him. And from it there sprang the
baleful poison-breathing blossom, envy. What a sin is this! Men “enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season,” but no pleasure in this--of all sins the most
hateful. It is vexed at another’s good. It sickens to hear another praised.
Base, it
“Withers
at another’s joy,
And
hates the excellence it cannot reach.”
“Envy hath no holidays.” Where it enters it poisons life. “It is a
very hell above ground.” Let us beware. Let us not in this thing give place to
the devil, but resist him. This Book has solemn warnings enough against this
abominable sin. The first death in our world was brought about by it, when
Cain, “the devil’s patriarch,” as an old wrier calls him, “laid his cruel club
on the innocent head of his brother Abel.” It was the sin of Joseph’s brethren.
“The patriarchs,” says St. Stephen, “moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt.”
It was the sin of Korah, who envied Moses, and of Ahab, who envied Naboth. And
the crowning crime of history is put to its account, for the Pharisees for envy
delivered our Lord to death.
II. Michael’s
deception. There was no need for the deception. It showed her distrust of God.
It was wrong, and it led to a lie against the very man she loved. Better to die
than to lie. You might as well steal from the rich to help the poor, as to seek
by lies to help another. Trust in God and do the right and speak the right. Men
may extenuate their falsehoods and call them white lies and “grey fibs.” But
God frowns away the epithets. He will not acknowledge them. He bids us speak
truth one to another. He declares that lying lips are an abomination to Him;
that “a lying tongue is but for a moment;” that “all liars” will be excluded
from the Heavenly and Eternal City of Truth and Glory.
III. David’s
preservation.
1. From bodily peril he was preserved. As captain of a thousand
guarding the frontier--a dangerous service; as proving his worthiness, by deeds
of valour, of the hand of Merab. As escaping again and again and again, the
hurled javelin that sought to pin him in death to the wall. As watched for by
Saul’s assassins; how imperilled, how preserved was David! Not by miracle.
Human friendship helped him. Beautiful, magnanimous the pleading of Jonathan
with Saul on his behalf. There was a true friend who worked for him with the
patience and meekness of wisdom. And who, “with word in season,” shamed the
king from his murderous purpose. “So far did Jonathan’s oratory and David’s
innocency together triumph in Saul’s conscience.” Thus, for a little while, a
debtor to friendship and its successful plea, David had peace. Wifely love
helped him. Michal refused to be, as Saul had hoped, a snare to her husband.
She warned him of the men of blood that lay in wait for him. She let him “down
through a window,” and he escaped.
4. His own valour helped him. Great had been his victory over
Goliath. But more than this was needed. His alert and constant watchfulness
helped him. When he struck his harp he was never so absorbed in the song as to
be heedless of the king. On that javelin sceptre his eye indeed needed to be fixed!
6. Yet the Lord preserved him. For these were but the means by which
worked for him the Almighty Preserver of men; the God who had set His love upon
him.
7. He was preserved from spiritual peril. He was unharmed by
prosperity. With much to flatter him into forgetfulness of his lowly origin, to
tempt him into the airs and assumptions of pride, he walked humbly because he
walked with God. (G. T. Coster.)
The discipline of an anointed man
Keep in mind the undoubted anointing of David, and then see what
untoward and heartbreaking experiences may befall men whom God has sealed as
the special objects of His favour and the high ministers of His empire. Given,
a man called of God to a great work, and qualified for its execution, to find
the providences which will distinguish his course. A child might answer the
easy problem: His career will be brilliant--his path will be lined with choice
flowers--he will be courted, blessed, honoured on every hand. Look at the
history of David for a contradiction of this answer. We shall find persecution,
hatred, difficulty, hunger, cold, loneliness, danger upon danger; yet he who
endures them all is an anointed man--a favourite of heaven. The history, so far
as we shall be able to trace it, shows four things respecting the discipline of
an anointed man:--
I. That great
honours are often followed by great trials. These trials not to be looked at in
themselves, but in their relation to the honours which went before. Imagine a
garden discussing the year as if it were all winter. Look at the temptation
assailing David, in the fact that he alone had slain the enemy of Israel.
Something was needed on the other side to chasten his feeling. Men must be
taught their weakness as well as their power.
II. That great
trials generally bring unexpected alleviations. “The soul of Jonathan was knit
with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” The love of
one true soul may keep us from despair. Love is fertile and energetic in
device, See what Jonathan did. Love is more than a match for mere power. Love
is most valued under such circumstances as David’s. “There is a friend that
sticketh closer than a brother.”
III. That no outward
trials can compare in severity with the self-torment of wicked men. We are apt
to think that Saul did all the mischief, and David suffered it. That is an
incomplete view of the case, Saul was himself the victim of the cruellest
torment.
IV. That great
trials, though calling for self-scrutiny, may not call for self-accusation.
This is a point which should be put with great delicacy, because we are too apt
to exempt ourselves from self-reproach. The question which the tried man
generally asks himself is, What have I done? Days of misery have been spent in
brooding ever that inquiry. The question is only good so far as it goes. It
should be succeeded by another--What is God doing? Imagine the silver in the
refining fire asking, What have I done?--not knowing that it is being prepared
to adorn the table of a king! Imagine the field asking, What have I done, that
the plough should cut me up? We are strong only so far as we see a Divine
purpose in the discipline of our life. “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth and
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” “Let patience have her perfect work.”
We are polished by sharp friction. We are refined by Divine fire. Sorrow gives
the deepest, and sweetest tone to our sympathy. We should be driven mad by
uninterrupted, ever-augmenting prosperity. Over every jealous soul the hand of
the Lord is omnipotent. Look at Saul, and the case of David is hopeless: look
beyond him, and see how by a way that he knew not the shepherd was being
trained to be mighty among kings, and chief of all who sing the praises of God.
(J. Parker, D. D.)
The great persecution
The king of Israel has fairly entered on a course of stern
hostility to David. With the history of this ruling purpose his whole
subsequent career is darkened.
1. The deadly nature of Saul’s enmity. A less thorough tyrant would
at the most have deemed confinement retribution stern enough for the crimes of
personal bravery, prudent conduct, a happy successfulness given by God, and a
high popularity with the people. But Saul’s enmity, once kindled, could be
quenched only by blood. “Jealousy is cruel as the grave.” With Saul, as with all
tyrants in whom conscience is not quite dead, and fear is keenly alive, it was
felt as a desperate necessity that he should proceed to extremities. And so he
sought the life of David. Nothing lower would content him. And from that inner
hall where the jealous monarch nursed his wrath, the password went that David
be destroyed. The persevering obstinacy of it. The proofs of this are
mournfully abundant. It may be measured by the plans it contrived, the time
during which it lasted, and the obstacles which it overcame.
2. The plans which it contrived. A device to make him fall by the
sword of the Philistines. But how sad is the picture of an unnatural father
sacrificing the domestic affections at the shrine of his kingly jealousy!
Making a daughter’s love the vehicle of vengeance on its object! A state
alliance for mere political purposes is bad enough; but to make holiest
feelings the slaves, not of public interest, but of private resentment, is
immeasurably worse. He assails him again with his own hand, and sends secret
agents to his house to slay him. He escaped to Samuel. Two companies of
messengers were despatched in pursuit. Yes, from the very horns of the altar
the relentless king would drag his victim. But a mighty interposition came from
the invisible to shield the innocent.
3. The time during which it lasted. The usual calculations make it
eight or nine years. This surely is too brief a period to admit of occurrences
so important, numerous, and varied as the history contains. But assuming the
accuracy of the estimate, how tenacious must have been the life of a resentment
which reigned so long! Time, the great soother of strife, lost here its
mellowing charm. The dark passion seems to have wrapped his soul in perpetual
gloom, and to have become to him a second nature.
4. The obstacles it surmounted. The monitions of his own conscience;
the high character and deserved popularity of David; the immense and ceaseless
trouble, and the neglect of grave public duties, involved in pursuing the
fugitive. How stern and settled that resentment which so quickly quenched all
soft emotion, and craved still for the blood of the brave, forbearing, and
generous youth. We shudder at a passion, so fierce, sullen, and enduring. We
cannot help discerning in it the malevolent working of hellish inspiration.
Saul’s forfeiture of the kingdom was absolute and irreparable. It was
emphatically pronounced, more than once, by Him who cannot lie. And yet this
poor worm of the dust dares to plant himself in the way, dares to conceive deliberately
the design of arresting that series of events, thereby to defeat the purpose of
Him who is “great in counsel and mighty in work,” and throw upon the majesty of
heaven the ignominy of a conspicuous failure. Amazing fact! Language cannot
express the enormity. By what name shall we call it? Infatuation? Madness?
Impiety? It is all three in one. To attempt plucking the stars from their
seats, or stopping the tidal flow, were not greater madness than to strike at
him who is shielded by omnipotence. To blaspheme in words the sacred name of
God. Were not more daring impiety than to offer proud and obstinate resistance
to His will. To profane and prostitute thus the time, faculties, and privileges
He has given is to make life one great oath. (P. Richardson. B. A.)
Looking for the black side
And Saul eyed David--that is to say, cast an askance vision at
him; thought mean things of him; was sure there was a black side in him, and
steadily looked for it. Saul allowed this looking for the black side in David
to become a settled habit of his life. How sad the habit! And the seat of it
was a mean, miserable envy. Remember those wise words which the wise Lord Bacon
said of envy: “Envy is the worst of all passions, and feedeth upon the spirits,
and they again upon the body; and so much more because it is perpetual, and, as
it is said, keepeth no holidays.” And this looking upon the black side is not
an altogether ancient failing. Some people steadily look for the black side in
other people. This, as we have just been saying, became Saul’s way. Saul
therefore perpetually misinterpreted David. One is pretty apt to see what one
is bound to see. “I have been in India for many a year, and I never saw a
native Christian the whole time.” So spoke a colonel on board a steamer going
to Bombay. Some days afterward the same colonel was telling of his bunting
experience, and said that thirty tigers had fallen to his rifle. “Did I
understand you to say thirty, colonel?” asked a missionary at the table. “Yes,
sir, thirty,” replied the officer. “Because,” pursued the missionary, “I
thought perhaps you meant three.” “No, sir, thirty.” “Well, now, that is
strange; I have been in India twenty-five years and I never saw a wild live
tiger all the while.” “Very likely not, sir,” said the colonel, “but that is
because you did not look for them.” “Perhaps it is so,” admitted the
missionary; “but was not that the reason you never saw a native convert?” So it
is, one sees pretty generally what one is bound to see, tigers or Christians;
and if one is bound to see a tiger, even though there may be no tigers in his
country, he can imagine one easily enough, and that, so far as be is concerned,
amounts to the same thing. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)
Pride of rivalry
Cicero’s natural place was at Caesar’s side; but to Caesar alone
of his contemporaries be was conscious of an inferiority which was intolerable
to him. In his own eyes he was always the first person. He had been made
unhappy by the thought that posterity might rate Pompey above himself. Closer
acquaintance had reassured him about Pompey, but in Caesar he was conscious of
a higher presence, and he rebelled against the humiliating acknowledgment. (Froude’s
Caesar.)
Jealousy denies justice to others
Napoleon the First absolutely detracted from the merits of his
bravest marshals, and was as jealous of fame as a woman or a poet; whilst
Oliver Goldsmith used to fume and fret, nay, would ridiculously interrupt the
company when he found the praises and attention lavished on his friend, Dr.
Johnson, were too strong for his jealous heart. (H. O. Mackay.)
Cruelty of envy
Dionysius the tyrant, out, of envy, punished Philoxinius the
musician because he could sing, and Plato, the philosopher, because he could
dispute better than himself. (Plutarch.)
Tyranny of self
The friendly biographer of the artist Gustave Dore says of him:
“He never heard of any other artist’s success without brooding over it
jealously and unhappily. He was ever on the qui vive of envious
excitement, and lived with the constant fear gnawing his vitals that any day
someone might come to the front and eclipse him.” So the sin of selfishness
always in the end punishes the soul that indulges it. It comes like Herodias, a
dazzling creature, yet intent on blood. There is no cruelty like the cruelty of
sin even to the sinner himself. (H. O. Mackay.)
Envy the parent of crime
Cambyses, king of Persia, slew his brother because the latter
could draw a stronger bow than himself; and Caligula, the Roman emperor, put
his brother to death because he was specially handsome.
Verse 10-11
And David played with his hand as at other times, and there was a
javelin in Saul’s hand.
Harp and javelin
What a contrast! David with a harp and enraged Saul with a
javelin. Who would not rather play the one than fling the other? But that was
not the only time in the world’s history that harp and javelin met. Where their
birthplace was, I cannot declare. It is said that the lyre was first suggested
by the tight drawing of the sinews of a tortoise across its shell, and that the
flute was first suggested by the blowing of the wind across a bed of roods, and
that the ratio of musical intervals was first suggested to Pythagoras by the
different hammers on the anvil of the smithy; but the harp seems to me to have
dropped out of the sky and the javelin to have been thrown up from the pit.
Other instruments have louder voice, and may be better for a battle charge, but
what exquisite sweetness slumbers between the harp springs, waking at the first
touch of the tips of the fingers! It can weep. It can plead. It can soothe. It
can pray. The flute is more mellow, the trumpet is more startling, the organ is
more majestic, the cymbals are more festive, the drum is more resounding, but
the harp has a richness of its own, and will continua its mission through all
time and then take part in celestial symphonies, for St. John says he beard in
heaven the harps of God. But the javelin of my text is just as old. It is about
five feet and a half long, with wooden handle and steel point, keen and sharp.
It belongs to the great family of death-dealers, and is brother to sword and
spear and bayonet, and first cousin to all the implements that wound and slay.
1. It suggests to me music as a medicine for physical and mental
disorders. David took hold of the musical instrument which he best knew how to
play and evoked from it sounds which were for King Saul’s diversion and
medicament. Why was it a failure? Saul refused to take the medicine. A whole
apothecary shop of curative drugs will do nothing toward healing your illnesses
if you refuse to take the medicine. It was not the fault of David’s
prescription, but the fault of Soul’s obstinacy. Music is the mightiest force
in all therapeutics. Its results may not be seen as suddenly as other forms of
cure, but it is just as wonderful. You will never know how much suffering and
sorrow music has assuaged and healed. A soldier in the United States Army said
that on the days the regimental band played near the hospitals all the sick and
wounded revived, and men who were so lame they could not walk before got up and
went, out and sat in the sunshine, and those so dispirited that they never
expected to get home began to pack their baggage and ask about timetables on
steamboat and rail train. Theodosius, the Emperor, wrathful at the behaviour of
the people of Antioch, who, on some sudden provocation, tore down the statues
of Emperor and Empress, resolved severely to punish them, but the Bishop,
knowing that the Emperor had a group of boys sing to him while eating at the
table, taught the boys a plaintive song in which the people lamented their bad
behaviour, and the king, under the pathos of the music, cried out: “The city of
Antioch is forgiven.” The rage of Achilles was assuaged by a harp. Asclepiades
swayed rebellious multitudes by a harp. After the battle of Yorktown, when a
musician was to suffer amputation, and before the days of anaesthetics, the
wounded artist called for a musical instrument and lost not a note during the
forty minutes of amputation. Filippo Palmo, the great musician, confronted by
an angry creditor, played so enchantingly before him that the creditor forgave
the debt and gave the debtor ten guineas more to appease other creditors. Over
what keys of piano or organ consolation has walked! Yea, in church one hymn has
rolled peace over a thousand of the worried, perplexed, and agonised. At the
foot of the Tower of Babel language was split into fragments never to be again
put together, but one language was not hurt, and that is music, and it is the
same all the world overse It is a universal language, and so good for universal
cure. When my dear friend Dio Lewis (gone to rest all too soon) conducted a
campaign against drunkenness at the West, and marshalled thousands of the
noblest women of the land in that magnificent campaign, and whole
neighbourhoods and villages and cities shut up their grog shops, do you know
the chief weapon used? It was the song:
“Nearer,
my God, to Thee,
Nearer
to Thee.”
They sang it at the doors of hundreds of liquor saloons which had
been open for years, and either at the first charge of the campaign or the
second the saloon shut, up. At the first verse of “Nearer, my God, to Thee,”
the liquor dealers laughed; at the second verse they looked solemn; at the
third verse they began to cry; and at the fourth verse they got down on their
knees. You say they opened their saloons again. Yes, some of them did. But it
is a great thing to have hell shut up if only for a week. Give full swing to a
good Gospel hymn and it would take the whole world for God!
2. But when in my text I see Saul declining this medicine of rhythm
and cadence and actually hurling a javelin at the heart of David the harpist, I
bethink myself of the fact that sin would like to kill sacred music. It is a
fact that sin has a javelin for sacred sounds. In many churches the javelin of
criticism has killed the music, javelin flung from organ loft or from adjoining
pew of the supersensitive. Soul’s javelin aimed at David’s harp. Thousands of
people so afraid they may not sing scientifically they will not sing at all, or
sing with such low tone that no one hears them. In many a Church the javelin of
criticism has crippled the harp of worship. If Satan could silence all the
Sunday school songs and the hymns of Christian worship, he would gain his
greatest achievement. When the millennial song shall rise (and it is being made
ready) there will be such a roll of voices, such a concerted power of stringed
and wind instruments, such majesty, such unanimity, such continental and
hemispheric and planetary acclamation, that it will be impossible to know whore
earth stops and heaven begins. Roll on, roll in, roll up, thou millennial
harmony!
3. See also in my subject a rejected opportunity of revenge. Why did
not David pick up Soul’s javelin and hurl it back again? Oh, David, now is your
chance! No, no. Men and women with power of tongue or pen or hand to reply be
an embittered antagonist, better imitate David, and let the javelin lie at your
feet and keep the harp in your hand. Do not strike back. Do not play the game
of tit-for-tat, Gibbon, in his history, tells of Bajazet, the great Moslem
general, who was brought a captive to the tent of Timur. He bad attempted the
massacre of Timur and his men. Timur said to him: “Had you vanquished us, I am
not ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself and my troops, but I
disdain to retaliate. Your life and honour are secure, and I shall express my
gratitude to God by my clemency to man.” Beautiful! Revenge on Christian’s
tongue or pen or hand is inapt, and more damage to the one who employs it than
the one against whom it is employed. What! A javelin hurled at you and fallen
at your feet, and you not hurl it back again? Yes. The best thing you can do
with a javelin hurled at you is to let it lie where it dropped, or hang it up
in your museum as a curiosity. The deepest wound made by a javelin is not by
the sharp edge, but at the dull end of the handle to him who wields it. I leave
it to you to say which get the best of that fight in the palace--Saul or David.
4. See also in my subject that the face that a man avoids danger is
not against his courage. When the javelin was flung he stepped out of its
direction or bent this way or that--in other words, he avoided it. David had
faults, but cowardice was not one of them. What a lesson this is to those who
go into useless danger and expose their lives or their reputations or their
usefulness unnecessarily! When duty demands, go ahead, though all earth and
hell oppose. Budge not one inch from the right position. But when nothing is
involved, step back or step aside. Why stand in the way of perils that you can
avoid? Go not into Quixotic battles to fight windmills. You will be of more use
to the world and the Church as an active Christian man than as a target for
javelins. There are Christians always in a fight. If they go into churches they
fight there. If they go into presbyteries or conferences or associations, they
fight there. My advice to you is, if nothing is to be gained for God or the
truth, stand out of the way of the javelins.
5. See also in my subject the unreasonable attitude of javelin
towards harp. What had that harp in David’s hand done to the javelin in Saul’s
hand? Had the vibrating strings of the one hurt the keen edge of the other? Was
there an old grudge between the two families of sweet sound and sharp cut? Had
the triangle ever insulted the polished shaft? Why the deadly aim of the
destroying weapon against the instrument of soothing, calming, healing sound,
Well, I will answer that if you will tell me why the hostility of so many to
the Gospel, why the virulent attacks against the Christian religion, why the
angry antipathy of so many to the most genial, most inviting, most salutary
influence under all the heavens? Why will men give their lives to writing and
speaking and warring against Christ and the Gospel? Why the javelin of the
world’s hatred and rage against the harp of heavenly love? What has the
Christian religion done that it should be so assailed? Whom hath it bitten and
left with hydrophobiac virus in their veins that it should sometimes be chased
as though it were a maddened canine? Javelin of wit, javelin of irony, javelin
of scurrility, javelin of sophistry, javelin of human and diabolic hostility,
have been flying for hundreds of years, and are flying new. But aimed at what?
At something that has come to devastate the world? At something chat slays
nations? At something that would maul and trample under foot and excruciate and
crush the human race? No, aimed at the Gospel harp. Oh, I like the idea of that
old monument in the ancient church at Ullard, near Kilkenny, Ireland. The
sculpture on that monument, though chiselled more than a thousand years ago, as
appropriate today as then, the sculpture representing a harp upon a cross.
That, is where I hang it now, that is where you had better hang it. Let the
javelin be forever buried, the sharp edge down, but hang the harp upon the
cross. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Anger leads to crime
Peter the Great of Russia passed a law that any noble who beat his
serfs should be put under restraint, and treated as a minor or a lunatic. Yet
one day in a passion he struck his own gardener, who took it so to heart that
he died. “Alas!” cried the emperor, “I have civilised my own subjects; I have
conquered other nations; yet I have not been able to civilise or conquer
myself!” On the other hand, the successes achieved by Marlborough were due in
no small degree to his perfect self-control--a temper that nothing seemed to
ruffle, whether the cause of irritation were in a military ally or a servant in
the house.
Verses 12-30
And Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and
was departed from Saul.
David’s jeopardy
Saul was afraid of David. This is most remarkable, for was not
Saul the king, and David but the servant? There must be some explanation of
this remarkable fear. What is it? It is the mystery of spiritual character, and
that in very deed is the explanation of all the deadliest fear which paralyses
the spirit of tyranny and oppression. It is in this direction that we should
look for the greatest and best influences of society. What are weapons of war,
or mere strength of arms, or largeness of wealth, or the whole pomp and
circumstances of monarchy? When the wise man ceases out of the land the power
of the land is dead; schools, churches, institutions devoted to the culture of
knowledge and the promotion of wisdom, these are the strongest bulwarks and
defences of any nation. Righteousness not only exalteth a nation in certain
moral senses, but it throws upon the observing enemy all the force of a
spiritual fear, because, in striking at such a nation he feels that he is
striking at the supreme power and sensitiveness of the universe.
1. A new idea appears to have occurred to Saul, and one which would
seem to be inspired by magnanimity. Saul now takes the course up, according to
David military promotion. The object was to get David out of the way by sending
him to some distant part of the kingdom on any pretence that might arise. The
method is a common one today. No matter what honour is given to an enemy if the
honour only take him away from sight, and break up his immediate local
influence. Men should look into the motives of their honours, for possibly in
that, motive they may discover reason for humility rather than boasting. A
humiliating sight it is to observe a man making an investment of his
magnanimity and earning credit for being generous when in his heart he is
inexpressibly mean.
2. David continued in his undisturbed course of wise consideration
and noble prudence. There was no stoop of servility in his attitude towards the
king, yet; there was neither aspect nor tone of defiance. David simply took the
task that was assigned to him, and wrought out its detail with wisdom and care.
This is the way to treat every enemy. Instead of directly attacking hostility
and so creating partisanship on its behalf, it is infinitely wiser to go about
the daily task with simple faith and obvious wisdom, as if content to serve in
the lowliest or highest capacity. Patience by long continuance constitutes
itself into a solid argument.
3. The religious explanation given in the case of David is marked by
beautiful naturalness. Wherever there is true wisdom there is always the
presence of the Lord to account for it. “The Lord was with him,” is not an
expression limited to any one set of circumstances or one class of favoured
men. The Lord will be with the least of us, and direct the way of the humblest
of His creatures. Take nothing with your own hands as if by your own strength
and skill you could accomplish your purpose: in all thy ways acknowledge God
and He will direct thy path. “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even
his enemies to be at peace with him.”
4. Saul being foiled in this direction betook himself to another
course of conduct towards David. Saul proposed to further honour the young
courtier by making him his son-in-law. In a tone of feigned cheerfulness the
king said, “Only be valiant for me, and fight the Lord’s battles.” How the
Divine name has been dragged into unworthy end unholy uses! What is this but the
most corrupt of all hypocrisy? For Saul said, “Let not mine hand be upon him
but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him.”
5. See in Saul the true quality of malice: there is nothing too mean
for it to do; there is no course too tortuous for it to adopt; lies, hypocrisy,
cruelty, these are the weapons with which it will fight its way to its destiny.
How Saul uncrowns himself in the twenty-second verse! When Saul made that
speech he took off the crown and became a mean man. How deceitful is the action
of iniquity in the heart when it will lead men to abase themselves thus in the
estimation of their servants! It did not occur to Saul that when he trusted his
servants with this commission he destroyed their confidence and respect in
relation to himself. There might, be no outward show of such distinction, but
it was not the less a fact in the heart of those who received the king’s wicked
instructions. But sin is self-blinding. Again and again we have seen that the
sinner is not only a criminal but a fool. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Verse 14
And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways.
Wise conduct
I. The wisdom of
days. The wisdom of David was shown by his conduct in extraordinary prosperity.
Suddenly David found himself the popular idol; he was set above the king; but
his head was not turned.
1. When Robert Burns was introduced into the brilliant society of
Edinburgh--of literary men and gifted women, of peers and noble ladies, the
titled of the lend--when all Scotland was at his feet he bore himself as to the
manner born. He was as gallant a gentleman as any in the salons of the
northern capital. But his head, alas! was turned. His heart was seduced. The
praise of men, the flattery of beautiful women, corrupted his simplicity,
ruined him. He had poetic inspiration unsurpassed since Shakespeare; but he
lacked the inspiration of wisdom. Under temptations far greater, David bore
himself undazzled. The excuse has been made for Burns that he was a poet; he
had a poet’s exquisite sensibility; the exposure was greater for him than for
common mortals. The palliation is admitted. He was more tempted than other men.
But David, too, was a poet; he was a musician beside; he had the sensibility
which attends both these Divine gifts; he had also the impassioned enthusiasm
of a youthful hero. Yet his wisdom did not fail; because it was his mastering
inspiration.
2. It increases our admiration of David to remember that he had no
preparation for prosperity. Trial is a discipline for success. It has been
usual to ascribe the wisdom of Queen Elizabeth, in the extraordinary elevation
of her great reign, to the discipline of her exile in youth, at Hatfield, beset
by scheming friends and enemies, dreaded and hated by Mary and the Catholic
nobles, and only secure of her life by incessant and extreme circumspection.
Such wisdom as she displayed in the long struggle through which England safely
passed to such a pitch of glory was truly admirable. But this wisdom she might
not have sustained if she had been taken to her sister’s court and made a
favourite there; if she had been put, with all her youthful charms and
accomplishments, in contrast with the sickly, suspicious, bigoted Mary. Yet,
even for this trial, Elizabeth had had a partial preparation, in being born a
princess. But David was a farmer’s boy. Suddenly, without preparation of any
kind, save the native correctness of his judgment and the simple rectitude of
his heart he was lifted to the pinnacle of earthly glory. His trials came
afterward. His success was his first experience. How few public men who have
ever lived have shown such marvellous modesty and self-restraint! The example
is a noble one for all young men.
II. The wisdom of
David was shown by his conduct under sudden and great reverses.
III. The wisdom of
David was shown in his purpose to have the favour of God. “The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom.” (Monday Club Sermons.)
The reward of religious obedience.
These words, “he behaved himself wisely,” might be also
translated, “he prospered;” and this version the margin affords; either
interpretation would be strictly true, as applied to this period of David’s
life; and even afterwards, he may truly be said to have prospered, even
although his apparent circumstances were adverse; for he was preserved in
dangers and calamities to an extent clearly proving that “God was with him” in
an especial sense, sheltering him by the presence of his Providence; and, in
the midst of his deepest misfortunes and bitterest persecutions, his language
is that of a mind absorbed in happiness beyond the control of earthly
circumstances. In whichever sense therefore we take the words of the text,
either that “he behaved himself wisely,” or that “he prospered in all his
ways,” the observation will allow of being extended over that whole portion of
David’s life in which he was subject to the persecutions of Saul, and before he
was settled in his kingdom.
1. Perhaps in no instance is the truth of the Apostolic observation,
“the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God,” more clearly exemplified
than in this. God says, “David behaved himself wisely;” the world would say, he
behaved himself foolishly, and discovered a defect of spirit. But of what spirit?
Of the spirit of him who was a murderer from the beginning. There was no
deficiency of courage in the character of David; this his bitterest foes muss
allow him. He did not conceive revenge at all necessary to his military
reputation. He was totally unaware of that meanness which it is now the fashion
to attribute to those who have the fortitude and high-mindedness to forgive.
Even a wise and virtuous heathen has justly retorted this charge of meanness,
and pronounced revenge to be the passion of a low, weak, and little mind. And
if such be the words of Nature and the works of the Law, how shall resentment
be tolerated beneath the Gospel?
2. David had sustained deliberate and premeditated injury; but
frequently resentment is at groundless as it is guilty; your brother may haw
offended unintentionally and inadvertently; you may yourself, also
inadvertently, have given him a provocation no less than that which is
operating within your own bosoms; or, perhaps, he is even now stung with
remorse and sorrow for his fault, and only wants the opportunity of repairing
it. Do not forget that others have their passions, prejudices, propensities,
and habitual feelings, as well as yourselves.
3. David, during his persecution, was once placed in a dangerous
situation. He had his most inveterate enemy within his grasp, and could at once
have gratified revenge and shown his own security foreverse But he had no
revenge to gratify: and security he sought from another quarter. Had the
opportunity been offered to him again and again, it would never have occurred
to him to embrace it; but treacherous counsellors are at hand, who would
persuade him to sin and destruction. They knew that David was only assailable
by religious motives: they therefore urge him with “Behold the day of which the
Lord said unto thee: Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thy hand, that
thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee.” But David knows that
what may seem good to him may not seem good to God; and therefore he takes not
the advantage which circumstances had placed in his power.
4. We may also observe that the passage of David’s life to which the
text may be especially applied, when “he behaved himself wisely in all his
ways,” and when “the Lord was with him,” was the time of his outward
humiliation and adversity: and this may serve to show us that, although such a
state as this is not good or to be sought after for itself, it has its
securities: it teaches us to seek protection and comfort where we can only seek
them with confidence, and in the same proportion it renders our actions safe. (H.
Thompson, M. A.)
Verse 17
Fight the Lord’s battles.
Aggressive work
The history of the human race is one of progress. Divine
revelation has moved accordingly. The character of David is a sore problem to
the narrow observer, because he who killed his tens of thousands drew his
courage from a Divine fountain. The blame is thrown upon the fountain. A much
more elastic view must be taken, and the physical regarded as the basilar of
the moral, as the flint hammer of Spiennes was the forerunner of the steam
hammer of today. The prowess which slew the giant of Philistia has developed
into a moral force which crushes tyranny, slavery, ignorance, and irreligion.
As Saul said to David, “Fight the battles of the Lord,” so saith the Spirit, to
the Christian Church. The weapons of our warfare differ, and the condition of
our courage is not identical. The noble and disinterested Christian has taken
the place of the lion-hearted warrior. There must be a determined opposition to
every evil, and the war must be carried into the enemy’s camp. When the
enormous crimes of today are taken out of the calendar, and society so far regenerated
that all shall “know the Lord,” then, and not till then, may the Church lay
aside the weapons of war, to enjoy the spoils, the dance, and the timbrel. The
conditions of power and efficiency which the Church needs in order to
aggressive work. The test question of the late Carlyle to persons seeking his
influence was, “What work are you doing?” He measured men’s capacities for
that, which they sought by that which they had accomplished. The fact that the
followers of Jesus wield an enormous influence, and are doing a grand work at
the present time, encourages the belief that they will yet do more. To extend
that influence, and multiply actions, two things are needed, viz., the
dedication of all learning, talent, riches, power, and time, which the Church
possesses, to the service of Christ and man; and then the energising of all
these resources by the Spirit of God, that they may become Divine forces in the
salvation of the world. It is needless to say that this has not been done to
the extent required.
1. There must be a deeper sense of the responsibility of the
situation. The Master’s injunction is, “Occupy till I come.” See how it is
acted upon in other spheres--the captain on the bridge, the soldier on the
battlefield, the premier at the helm of the state, the merchant in the counting
house, the scientist in his laboratory, the artist, before the canvas, the
musician at the organ, the poet in his study, as well as the husbandman and the
workman in their spheres of labour. They all occupy very earnestly their
stations. Christians are the dramatis personae who take the stage to show the
love of God in Christ Jesus. Time and eternity alike demand the white heat of
that earnestness which sacrifices all in order to save come.
2. There must be a stronger faith in the weapons of our warfare. “And
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God.” In the hand of faith the sword becomes omnipotent. (T. Davies, M. A.)
War! War! War!
I. The Lord’s
battles, what are they?
1. The Lord’s battle is first of all with sin. Seek grace to fight
that battle in your own heart. Endeavour by Divine grace to overcome those
propensities which continually push you towards iniquity. On your knees wrestle
against your besetting sins. As habits appear endeavour to break them by the
battleaxe of strong resolution wielded by the arm of faith. Put down pride, and
sloth, and lust, and unbelief, and you have now a battle before you which may
fill your hands, and more than fill them. And while this battle is being
fought, ay, and while it is still fighting, go out and fight with other men’s
sins. Smite them first with the weapon of holy example. Be yourselves what you
would have others be; be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. Be
yourselves clean ere ye can hope to be the purifiers of the world. Let your
testimony be unflinching; never let a sin pass under your eye without rebuke.
Go ye forth where sin is the most rampant. Go down the dark alley; climb the
creaking staircase; penetrate the dens of iniquity.
2. And even so must we cry against error. It is the preacher’s
business to preach the whole gospel of God, and to vindicate the truth as it is
in Jesus from the opposition of man. Thousands are the heresies which now beset
the church. O children of God! fight the Lord’s battles for truth. I am
astonished, and yet more astonished when I come to turn it over, at the want of
earnestness that there is in the Protestantism of the present age.
3. And yet again, it is the Christian’s duty always to have war with
war. To have bitterness in our hearts against any man that lives is to serve
Satan. We must speak very sternly against error, and against sin; but against
men we have not a word to say. With men the Christian is one. Are we not every
man’s brother? “God hath made of one flesh all people that dwell upon the face
of the earth.” The cause of Christ is the cause of humanity. We are friends to
all, and are enemies to none.
II. The Lord’s
soldiers: who are they that are to fight the Lord’s battles? Not everybody. The
Lord has His army, His church: who are they? The Lord’s soldiers are all of His
own choosing. He has chosen them out of the world; and they are not of the
world, even as Christ is not of the world.
III. The
exhortation. “Fight the Lord’s battles.” If you are the soldier of the heavenly
King, “To arms! to arms!” And now, I will read you over the code martial--the
rules which Christ, the Captain, would have you obey in fighting His battles.
Regulation
I.
No communication nor union with the enemy! No truce, no league, no
treaty, are you to make with the enemies of Christ.
Regulation
II.--No quarter to
be given or taken! Have nought to do with its pretended friendship. Ask nothing
at its hands; let it be crucified to you, and you to it.
Regulation
III.--No weapons or
ammunition taken from the enemy are to be used by Immanuel’s soldiers, but are
to be utterly burned with fire!
Regulation
IV.--No fear,
trembling, or cowardice! Fear not. Remember, if any man be ashamed of Christ in
this generation, of him will Christ be ashamed in the day when He comes in the
glory of His Father and all His holy angels.
Regulation
V.--No slumbering,
rest, ease, or surrender! Be always at it, all at it, constantly at it, with
all your might at it. No rest. I see sometimes the captains marching their
soldiers to and fro, and you may laugh and say they are doing nothing; but
mark, all that manoeuvring, that forming into square, and so forth, has its
practical effect when they come into the field of battle. Suffer me, then, to
put the Christian through his postures.
1. The first posture the Christian ought to take, and in which he
ought to be very well practised, is this. Down upon both knees, hands up, and
eyes up to Heaven!
2. The next posture is: Feet fast, hands still, and eyes up! A hard
posture that, though it looks very easy.
3. Another posture is this: Quick march, continually going onward!
Ah! there are some Christians who are constantly sleeping on their guns; but
they do not understand the posture of going onward. Quick march!
4. Another posture is one that is very hard to learn indeed. It is
what no soldier, I think, was ever told to do by his captain, except the
soldier of Christ: Eyes shut, and ears shut, and heart shut! That is when you
go through Vanity Fair.
5. And then there is another posture: Feet firm, sword in hand, eyes
open; looking at your enemy, watching every feint that he makes, and watching
too your opportunity to let fly at him, sword in hand! That posture you must
maintain every day.
6. There is one other posture, which is a very happy one for the
child of God to take up and I would have you remember today. Hands wide open,
and heart wide open, when you are helping your brethren.
7. Above all, the best posture for Christ’s Church is that of patient
waiting for the advent of Christ, a looking forward for His glorious
appearance, Who must come and will not tarry, but Who will get unto Himself the
victory. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 18
What is my life?
The grandeur of life
“Who am I?” and “What is my life?” Am I only like some larger
ephemera on the leaves of the green bay tree of existence, born in the morning
and gone at evening? Is the inner world of memory, conscience, and hope, only
some mocking dreamland of existence? Are all its agonies of remorse, its
stretchings-forth into the infinite, its feelings of accountability, only the
workings of a diseased imagination? Or am I what I feel to be--a soul--an
immortal soul--a responsible soul; having, after the close of life’s brief
stewardship, to give account of myself to God? Now there are really two
questions involved in this text. The first is, What is life? The second is,
“What is my life?” If the Christian ideal be a true one, if each man carries
within him the grandeur of immortality, how am I acting with my own great
nature? Am I despising and treading under foot my birthright? Am I weaving it
into a vestment of beauty, or into a garment of shame?
I. Is my life a
new life? Amongst the Hebrews the birth of a child was an occasion of gladdest
joy. Its birthday was a festival. So now “there is joy in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” If we are in Christ we are new
creatures, old things are passed away; old ideas of life, old habits of life,
old associations of life--all things are become new. Another world has come
into sight, as clearly as this world came into the view of the blind man to
whom Jesus gave sight. I do not say the old life is altogether gone. No. The
silkworm’s winter skin clings to the moth until it is ready to spread its wings
and soar away, and much of the old nature clings to the Christian till he is
ready to “depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” Paul felt the old
man still clinging to him. “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
the body of this death?” So shall we. But for all this, the new life is there.
We love prayer, we love God’s house, we love to talk with Christ; we bear the
blossoms in us of the better life--the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy,
peace.
II. Is my life a
dignified life? Yes! Dignified! Have we come to this, that we think ermine-clad
judges, and purple-clad rulers, alone have dignified estate? Let me hope not!
It was once thought a great dignity to be a Roman citizen--but there was a
greater dignity. I am a man! sounds a deeper depth of dignity than I am a Roman
citizen. Yes, and what the world wants just now is to feel this: the dignity of
life, as life. Why the greatest physical wonder in creation is man; and the
greatest moral wonder is man. Do you think if men and women felt this, that our
towns and cities would be disgraced as they are by lascivious songs and dances
at our places of public entertainment, or by debasing drunkenness, or by
hollow-hearted profanity, which misnames itself wit? Do you think, if the
dignity of life itself was properly estimated, that men would not rather be
bankrupt in cash, than bankrupt in character? Men would say, Think what manner
of men we are; and pointing to the lofty hills, or the all-surrounding sea,
they would say: these shall perish, but we shall remain.
III. Is my life a
Divine vocation? I hold, with Mr. Ruskin, that we were never sent into this
world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts. That is a serious
statement, and not to be adopted without reflection; but I for one believe it
to be quits true. Now let us remember that every honourable vocation is a
Divine vocation; that circumstances and fitnesses constitute the calling of
God, the voice speaking to us and saying “Son, go there.” If we miss this, we
shall come to artificial ideas of vocation.
IV. Is my life a
personal accountability? Is it like imprisoned air, that once released returns
to the universal atmosphere? Is it like the tiny mountain rill which flows into
the great river, and thence into the wide sea? Is it, that is to say, in any
personal sense mine? Upon our answer to this depends our deliverance from all
these Pantheistic ideas of God, which make Him the great Spirit of the
Universe; all life being His life, and our own spirits only part of the great
spirit, departing at death to its central source. Now the Bible declares
emphatically our personal and unalterable individuality, and our consciousness accords
with this. We are, in the strictest sense of the word, separate existences, and
when we depart hence we shall be separate existences still. Any property we may
possess, be it large or small, changes hands at death; we brought nothing into
the world, and it is certain we shall carry nothing out. But we do not lose
ourselves; thought, conscience, memory, remain the same, I cannot change my
life for yours, nor can you change with your brother. “What is my life?” Is it
a dreary fatalism? Our inner life answers with swift decision,--No! Is it the
result of influences which have helplessly overborne us? No. The Spirit of the
Living God has been nigh to every one of us. Had this poor man cried, the Lord
would have heard him and delivered him out of all his troubles.
V. Is my life a
redeemed life? It depends upon which side of Redemption you look at it. In one
sense, all lives are redeemed lives. Christ is “the propitiation not for our
sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.” Christ “died for all.” So far
then as the Great Atonement is concerned, the oblation was for all. “Once in
the end of the world Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself.” But on the other side of the Redemption comes in our personality
again. “Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting
life.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Faith then,
as you well know, is the condition of redemption, and faith is the trust of the
soul in the redeeming Christ. Surely we know whether we have trust or not. In
human affairs it is not so hard to tell. I saw a diamond this week, and held it
in my hand, which at the African diggings was sold for three thousand five
hundred pounds; it had been consigned to an agent here, far away from its
finder and possessor. Could that man, across the seas, have any difficulty in
deciding if he had trusted his agent here? I trow not And what does Paul say,
“I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have
committed to Him unto that day.” Beautiful are human trusts--in love, in
commerce, in friendship--there is poetry enough in human trusts. But there may
be failure here. Alas, there often is! But Christ never deserted or failed the
soul committed to Him. Never!
VI. Is my life a
mortal life. Here again it depends upon which side you study it. On one side it
is, “For what is your life, it is even as a vapour which appeareth for a little
time and then passeth away.” Yes! “All flesh is grass.” Yes! “The wind passeth
over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.” Sad
enough on this side is human life. The fairest forms and faces lie tonight amid
the clods of the valley. Tennyson’s little May Queen sees the hawthorn blossom
no more, and the Pride of the Village becomes the prey of worms. It has been
ever so. The dark Egyptian beauties, the fair Grecian forms, the proud Roman
damsels, descend to the dust. Pharoahs leave their palaces for the pyramids.
Caesars leave their purples for the same chambers that their meanest slaves
occupy. There, the rich and the poor--the strong and the weak--the servant and
the master--all meet together. Few of us like to think of it. The tabernacles
we have dwelt in so long, tended so carefully, adorned so constantly, and have
come to consider part of our very selves--these must not only die, but become
the subjects of corruption tool. “The grass withereth, the flower thereof
falleth away.” And is this, we may ask, all of life? Did God introduce us into
this world, where temptation tries, care wearies, doubt perplexes, sorrow
burdens, sickness weakens, bereavement embitters--only to pass through much
tribulation to the tomb! Oh! it cannot be! All the teachings of Scripture, all
the promises of Christ, all the undying hopes of the human heart, tell us it
cannot be. Immortality is the birthright of humanity, and though, during long
ages the light of this truth burned dimly, Christ “came to bring light and
immortality to light through the Gospel.” My life is mortal--and it is immortal
too. (W. H. Statham.)
Verse 21
And Saul said, I will give him her that she may be a snare to him.
Marriage an instrument of intrigue
We are not without examples in profane history of royal parents
employing matrimonial contracts as instruments of intrigue or revenge.
Antiochus the Great wedded his daughter Cleopatra to Ptolemy Epiphanes, King of
Egypt, in order thereby to compass his destruction, though the baseness of the
plot defeated itself (Delany). Saul, doubtless, in ordinary circumstances,
would have violently resented the marriage of Michal; but he was artful enough
to see, in the preliminaries to such a connection, a new opportunity for
effecting his deadly purpose, and that, too, by a repetition of the identical
stratagem and unworthy knavery which on two former occasions had been foiled.
The thing pleased him, and Saul said, I will give him her that she may be a
snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. (J.
R. Macduff, D. D.)
Verse 29
And Saul became David’s enemy continually.
The evil of enmity
1. The possible doings of one sinful feeling. Jealousy was first
awakened in the heart of Saul on that day when Hebrew females sung the praises
of the young conqueror of Goliath. “Jealousy is cruel as the grave.” So it
proved. At that moment when the dark feeling rose to consciousness it might not
seem as if the new guest were endowed with any special capacities. But it soon
swelled out to a proportion which dwarfed and overshadowed all the rest. What
tremendous energies of evil lurk in our fallen natural. If God judicially let
one slip, and cease to hedge it round with inward remonstrances and
providential restraints, it will quickly grow to a tyranny beyond resistance,
that shall desolate the soul, and sweep away before it the scruples of
conscience, the dictates of prudence, the lingering power of affection,
friendly counsels, and the pleadings of honour, interest, or decency. Oh, there
are within us materials enough to make earthquakes and volcanoes of the soul!
Let us pray that they be not “set on fire of hell.” Think not that you are not
in danger because neither Saul’s circumstances nor special tendencies are
yours. Jealousy is one of a gang. Envy, pride, lust, intemperance, love of
money, are notorious confederates. They operate singly or in company. Often
quarrelling, they are horribly unanimous in destroying the soul’s purity and
joy. O for Heaven’s healing hand to keep them down, to preserve the soul in
holy equipoise, to stablish it in self-governing power, and impel it by
restraining love.
2. The reality of an invisible power of evil. This is affirmed
plainly and frequently. “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil
spirit from the Lord troubled him.” The Holy Spirit who had been striving with
him for good was provoked away. His deserted soul was occupied by an evil
spirit. And how untiring! The foul and cruel inspiration was no passing breath.
It prompted many efforts. It suggested many varieties of operation. It absorbed
all other energies into one lordly passion. And all this is sustained for
years, in growing power, in spite of many obstacles. How awful this persistent
malevolence! O what shall break the spell of this terrible witchery? Who shall
put an end to this terrible possession? What power shall awaken fear, and
bestow a scrupulous caution, and inspire a holy ardour to be free from the
galling thraldom, and endow with a holy strength to resist it and to shut up
all those avenues of indulgence through which on-waiting spirits of evil issue
from their dwelling of darkness! “Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “He hath destroyed the works of the
devil.”
3. The beautiful character to which Divine grace can frame the human
soul. I suppose it will be regarded as sober truth to say that the world’s
annals present no parallel to the character which the great persecution
developes in David. Whence came that marvellous self-government, which kept him
equally from despair and violence? The power that girt up all his faculties was
from above. Men speak of virtue and its endurance, of heroism and its daring
deeds. Both are good--but in the balance of the sanctuary they are
electroplate, and nothing more. To be even ideally complete, a human character
must have godliness as its central power. Practically to reach the highest
level of what men call the virtues is impossible without the mighty presence of
supreme regard to God, maintained by His own quickening Spirit. This it was
that nerved the heart of the Hebrew outlaw with an enduring vigour that bore
him on amid floods of sorrow, and formed his heart to a fortitude beside which
the models of Greece and Rome look dim. Did ever Stoic endure so much with
meekness so conspicuous? Did ever Epicurean show a sensibility so delicate and
so pure as that which wept on the neck of Jonathan? Did the world’s men of
honour ever spare an enemy as David did the tyrant who thirsted for his blood?
I trow not. Such triumphs of noble feeling are wrought only by heavenly grace.
4. The opposition between the Church and the World. It will not be
questioned that Saul belonged to the latter and David to the former. Nor, on
reflection, will it be doubted that this is the secret of Saul’s
irreconciliable enmity. The two are ranged on opposite sides. Grace would have
quenched the smouldering embers of jealousy. Had the feeling not been rooted in
an unsanctified nature, prayer and pains would have dug it up to wither on the
surface. And in the bitter, impious and unrelenting nature of this persecution
we may see mirrored forth in fearful clearness the world’s irreconciliable opposition
to the Church. The circumstances of Saul give us the advantage of seeing this
feeling honestly displayed. He did not fear God; and as an absolute monarch he
did not need to regard men. But, one way or other, the body of believers may
count on meeting the world’s opposition, aye and until the conflict ceases by
the everlasting separation of the parties. Every step of her earthly way lies
through a wilderness haunted by enemies, whose hostility is sincere and
operative, whether they strive to corrupt her like Midian, or meet her boldly
with the Amorite.
5. God’s benignant care of His people. To one who looked only on the
surface, and took into view nothing more than ordinary human probabilities, it
would no doubt have appeared a hopeless folly for David to seek escape from
Saul. A private man against a king; a Solitary man against one who had a
nation’s forces at his back; a scrupulous man, whose conscience forbad violent
resistance, against a reckless man, under the impulse of an over-mastering
passion. David’s life lay constantly in the vicinity of death. He walked as if
on a narrow ledge, over a frowning gulf. That he was “preserved from falling”
is attributable to nothing but an over-ruling care which could not be
surprised, defeated, or wearied out. Almighty energy, working in the service of
love, wove the tangled texture of events round the living David, and secured
his perfect safety. (P. Richardson, B. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》