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2 Samuel
Chapter Twenty-one
2 Samuel 21
Chapter Contents
The Gibeonites avenged. (1-9) Rizpah's care for the
bodies of Saul's descendants. (10-14) Battles with the Philistines. (15-22)
Commentary on 2 Samuel 21:1-9
(Read 2 Samuel 21:1-9)
Every affliction arises from sin, and should lead us to
repent and humble ourselves before God; but some troubles especially show that
they are sent to bring sin to remembrance. God's judgments often look a great
way back, which requires us to do so, when we are under his rebukes. It is not
for us to object against the people's smarting for the sin of their king;
perhaps they helped him. Nor against this generation suffering for the sin of
the last. God often visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, and he
gives no account of any matters. Time does not wear out the guilt of sin; nor
can we build hopes of escape upon the delay of judgments. If we cannot
understand all the reasons of Providence in this matter, still we have no right
to demand that God should acquaint us with those reasons. It must be right, because
it is the will of God, and in the end it will be proved to be so. Money is no
satisfaction for blood. It should seem, Saul's posterity trod in his steps, for
it is called a bloody house. It was the spirit of the family, therefore they
are justly reckoned with for his sin, as well as for their own. The Gibeonites
did not require this out of malice against Saul or his family. It was not to
gratify any revenge, but for the public good. They were put to death at the
beginning of harvest; they were thus sacrificed to turn away the wrath of
Almighty God, who had withheld the harvest-mercies for some years past, and to
obtain his favour in the present harvest. In vain do we expect mercy from God,
unless we do justice upon our sins. Executions must not be thought cruel, which
are for the public welfare.
Commentary on 2 Samuel 21:10-14
(Read 2 Samuel 21:10-14)
That a guilty land should enjoy many years of plenty,
calls for gratitude; and we need not wonder misused abundance should be
punished with scarcity; yet how few are disposed to ask of the Lord concerning
the sinful cause, while numbers search for the second causes by which he is
pleased to work! But the Lord will plead the cause of those who cannot or will
not avenge themselves; and the prayers of the poor are of great power. When God
sent rain to water the earth, these bodies were buried, for then it appeared
that God was entreated for the land. When justice is done on earth, vengeance
from heaven ceases. God is pacified, and is entreated for us through Christ,
who was hanged on a tree, and so made a curse for us, to do away our guilt,
though he was himself guiltless.
Commentary on 2 Samuel 21:15-22
(Read 2 Samuel 21:15-22)
These events seem to have taken place towards the end of
David's reign. David fainted, but he did not flee, and God sent help in the
time of need. In spiritual conflicts, even strong saints sometimes wax faint;
then Satan attacks them furiously; but those who stand their ground and resist
him, shall be relieved and made more than conquerors. Death is a Christian's
last enemy, and a son of Anak; but through Him that triumphed for us, believers
shall be more than conquerors at last, even over that enemy.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 2 Samuel》
2 Samuel 21
Verse 1
[1] Then
there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David
enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody
house, because he slew the Gibeonites.
Then —
The things related here and chap. 24:1-25, are by the best interpreters conceived
to have been done long before Absalom's rebellion. And this opinion is not
without sufficient grounds: first, this particle, then, is here explained, in
the days, that is, during the reign of David: which general words seem to be
added as an intimation that these things were not done after the next foregoing
passages, for then the sacred writer would rather have added, after these
things, as it is in many other places. Secondly, here are divers passages which
it seems improbable to ascribe to the last years of David's reign: such as
first, that Saul's sin against the Gibeonites should so long remain unpunished.
And indeed that this was done, and Saul's seven sons hanged by David's order
before that time, seems to be intimated by that passage, 2 Samuel 16:8, where he is charged with the
blood of the house of Saul: for which there was not the least colour 'till this
time. Secondly, that David should not remove the bones of Saul and Jonathan to their
proper place, 'till that time. Thirdly, that the Philistines should wage war
with David again and again, verse 15, etc. so long after he had fully subdued
them, chap. 8:1, and that David in his old age should
attempt to fight with a Philistine giant, or that his people should suffer him
to do so. Fourthly, that David should then have so vehement a desire to number
his people, chap. 24:1, which being an act of youthful vanity,
seems not at all to agree with his old age, nor with that state of deep
humiliation in which he then was. And the reason why these matters are put here
out of their proper order, is plainly this, because David's sin being once
related, it was very convenient that David's punishments should immediately
succeed: this being very frequent in scripture-story, to put those things
together which belong to one matter, though they happened at several times.
He flew —
Which was not only an act of cruelty, but also of perfidiousness, because it
was a public violation of that solemn oath given to them by Joshua and the
princes, in the name of all the Israelites, of that and succeeding generations.
"But why did not God punish Saul whilst he was alive for this, but his
children, and the Israelites of this age?" First, God did severely punish
Saul for this and his other sins. Secondly, as God may justly inflict temporal
punishments upon any offender, either in his person, or in his posterity, when
he pleaseth; so it is meet he should take his own time for it; and it is folly
in us to quarrel with God for so doing. Thirdly, the Israelites might sundry
ways make themselves guilty of Saul's sin, tho' it be not particularly
mentioned, advising or encouraging him to it; or, assisting him in the
execution of it. And whereas many of the people were probably innocent of that
crime, yet they also were guilty of many other sins, for which God might punish
them, though he took this occasion for it.
Verse 2
[2] And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the
Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites;
and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in
his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)
Sought —
That is, he sought how he might cut them off with some colour of justice,
aggravating their faults, and punishing them worse than they deserved;
oppressing them with excessive labours, and intending by degrees to wear them
out.
Verse 6
[6] Let
seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the
LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will
give them.
I will —
Having doubtless consulted God in the matter; who as he had before declared
Saul's bloody house to be the causes of this judgment, so now commanded that
justice should be done upon it, and that the remaining branches of it should be
cut off; as sufficiently appears from hence, that God was well pleased with the
action; which he would not have been, if David had done it without his command;
for then it had been a sinful action of David's, and contrary to a double law
of God, Deuteronomy 21:23; 24:16.
Verse 7
[7] But
the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of
the LORD's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of
Saul.
Spared —
For the Gibeonites desiring only such a number, it was at David's choice whom
to spare.
Of Jonathan —
This is added, to distinguish him from the other Mephibosheth, verse 8.
Verse 10
[10] And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon
the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of
heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor
the beasts of the field by night.
Spread it — As
a tent to dwell in: being informed that their bodies were not to be taken away
speedily, as the course of the law was in ordinary cases, but were to continue
there until God was intreated, and removed the present judgment.
On the rock — In
some convenient place in a rock, near adjoining.
Until water —
Until they were taken down: which was not to be done 'till God had given rain
as a sign of his favour, and a mean to remove the famine, which was caused by
the want of it. Thus she let the world know, that her sons died not for any sin
of their own, not as stubborn and rebellious sons, whose eye had despised their
mother: but for their father's sin, and therefore her mind could not be
alienated from them by their hard fate.
Verse 11
[11] And
it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had
done.
David —
Who heard it with so much approbation, that he thought fit to imitate her
piety, being by her example provoked to do what hitherto he had neglected, to
bestow an honourable interment on the remains of Saul and Jonathan, and, with
them, upon those that are now put to death, that the honour done to them
herein, might be some comfort to this disconsolate widow.
Verse 13
[13] And
he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son;
and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
The bones —
Having first burnt off the flesh which remained upon them when they were taken
down. Compare 1 Samuel 31:10, etc.
Verse 14
[14] And
the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin
in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father: and they performed all that the
king commanded. And after that God was intreated for the land.
After that —
After those things were done which were before related; that is, after they
were hanged up: for by that God was pacified, and not by their burial.
Verse 18
[18] And
it came to pass after this, that there was again a battle with the Philistines
at Gob: then Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Saph, which was of the sons of the
giant.
After this —
After the battle last mentioned.
Verse 22
[22]
These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and
by the hand of his servants.
Born to the giant in Gath — These giants were probably the remains of the sons of Anak, who, tho'
long feared, fell at last.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 2
Samuel》
21 Chapter 21
Verses 1-14
Then there was a famine in the days of David three years.
The quickening of David’s conscience by Rizpah’s example
Some years since it was found that many returned emigrants were
ending their days in English workhouses. When the authorities inquired into the
causes of this fact, they ascertained that in nearly every case those who were
then paupers had formerly prospered in the colonies; but they had forsaken
their prosperity and come back to England, because they could not bear the
thought of dying and being buried in the strange lands wherein they had made
their homes for a season. While they were in health and vigour, they were
comparatively content to be far away from the old country; but as soon as the
shadows of evening began to fall they yearned to return to the familiar haunts
of life’s morning, in order that, when they fell asleep, they might be laid to
rest in their fathers’ sepulchres. The desire was so strong, that they yielded to
it, although they thereby doomed themselves to poverty for the remainder of
their days. This is an instinct which cannot be put down by force of argument. After
all that can be said about the un-wisdom of it, the voice of nature will still
plead for it, and “it seems to be the appointment of heaven that the first
attachments of which the heart is conscious should be its last.” If we have no
such desire about out own final resting-places we have about those of our
friends, and we like to have the graves of our loved ones near to us, and not
far away amongst strangers. This feeling must not be denounced as mere
sentimentalism, for it has been cherished as an honourable thing by men who
were neither feeble nor foolish. When Barzillai pleaded against the preferment
which David was urging upon him, this was his last and most forcible entreaty:
“Let thy servant, I pray thee,” etc. Was it not strange that David should for
so many years leave the remains, of Saul and Jonathan in the place of their
hasty sepulture, far from the burial of their fathers? It might have been
fairly anticipated that, on his coining into power, David would make an early
effort to bring the body of Jonathan to his native place, and there inter it
with all the honour befitting the burial of such a princely man and faithful
friend. Instead of this, David allowed thirty years to pass away before he did
what reverence and gratitude for the dead should have constrained him to regard
as a sacred duty to be discharged as soon as possible. Towards the close of
David’s life, the prosperity f the kingdom was interrupted by a famine. “He
inquired of the Lord.” It will be remembered that, in the days of Joshua, the
Gibeonites had, by means of false pretences, obtained a covenant of peace
between themselves and the Israelites. They were degraded to perpetual
servitude; but with all the sacredness of a solemn oath the public faith was
pledged to them for the security of their lives. Under circumstances not fully
disclosed to us, Saul broke the oath and forfeited the honour of the nation, by
slaying many of the Gibeonites, and by attempting to destroy them all. It has
been supposed by some that he was severe and cruel towards the Gibeonites, as a
kind of set-off against his pretended compassion towards the Amalekites. Later
commentators have thought that light is is to be obtained from the question
Saul put to his courtiers when he was disclosing his suspicions against David:
“Hear now, ye Benjamites,” etc. This implies that Saul either had given or
would give them fields and vineyards. The sin of Saul was regarded by God as a
national sin, either because the people shared in the plunder, or because they
sympathised with or connived at the deed. The matter was one of double guilt,
for, besides the shedding of innocent blood, there was the violation of a
solemn compact. Some men have a feeling that there is an appearance of
injustice ii a crime be punished many years after its perpetration. But lapse
of time has no power to diminish the guilt of an action, and why should it
deter or diminish punishment? If lapse of time work change in the offender,
bringing him to repentance, then it is meet for mercy to interpose with pardon,
and keep back punishment for ever. This is according to God’s promise. Where,
on the other hand, the rolling years reveal no improvement, the guilt is
increased instead of diminished. In these cases delayed judgment will be at
last heavier judgment. Of course, objectors will ask the old question: “Was it
just to make one generation suffer for the sins of another?” Seeing the famine
did not come till more than forty years after the offence, the greater part of
the offenders must have entirely escaped the punishment; and it is said,
therefore, the delayed judgment must have been an unjust judgment. How is it
people never think of asking this other question: “Is it just for one
generation to be enriched in many ways by the skill and labour and victories of
a preceding generation?” The law of God that links the generations together is
constantly and powerfully working for good. We are all of us more or less
better in body, mind, and estate, because of the virtues of those who have
lived before us. If we were to be stripped of all the fruit Of the various
excellences of bygone generations, how poor and feeble we should be! Our
freedom, our art and science, our civilisation, with all its power to mitigate
the sorrows and increase the pleasures of life, are not the creation of our
wisdom, they are not the product of our virtues. By far the larger portion of
them we owe, under God, to the work and worth of those who now sleep in their
graves. “Other men laboured, and we have entered into their labours.” It was
doubtless by God’s direction that David suffered the surviving Gibeonites to
decide what should be done to expiate the sin. They demanded that seven of
Saul’s descendants should be publicly executed, and their demand was granted.
Saul and his sons had been the leaders in the unprincipled slaughter, and his
descendants were most likely the largest holders of the unrighteous spoil. It
was contrary to Jewish custom to leave the bodies upon the gibbets to waste
away; but it was done in the case of these seven, either because the Gibeonites
demanded it, or in order to make the warning more terrible. It gave rise to a
most touching display of motherly affection and fidelity. Two of the seven were
sons of Rizpah, who, though she had been one of Saul’s wives, was still living.
She could not bear the thought of their hanging there for the vultures to tear
to pieces and devour, and she determined to keep watch over them and drive off
the foul birds of prey. She made her home upon the rock, and watched with a
vigilance that never slept, and a devotion that never wearied. It was told
David what Rizpah had done, and instantly his memory was awakened, and his
conscience was quickened. He thought of the bones of Saul and Jonathan sleeping
in the place of their somewhat hurried and unseemly burial. He saw the duty he
ought to have discharged. He fetched the long-neglected remains from
Jabesh-Gilead, and carried them to the country of Benjamin, and buried them in
the sepulchre of Kish, the father of Saul. With them he buried also the bodies
of the seven, and thus relieved the tender and faithful-hearted Rizpah from the
burden of work and woe which her love for her own had laid upon her.
Long-forgotten sin had been brought to mind, and acknowledged, and expiated;
homage had been paid to justice; the evil of unfaithfulness had been exposed;
the honour of the nation had been purged from foul stains; it had been shown
that neither kings nor princes can do wrong with impunity; maternal fondness
and fidelity had been touchingly displayed; a long-forgotten duty had been
attended to; a noble example had borne fruit; and “after that God was untreated
for the land.” The way in which Rizpah’s conduct moved David to his duty
affords a fine instance of what has been aptly called “unconscious influence.”
She had no design upon the conscience of the king, but her right doing told
with great effect. Words are often feeble and in vain, but deeds are seldom
fruitless. The most eloquent preachers may have to cry out complainingly--“Who
hath believed our report?” The success of example is far more certain, for its
fragrance has never been a sweetness wholly “wasted on the desert air.” (C.
Vince.)
Conscience assertive
Conscience works after the manner so beautifully set forth in a
ring that a great magician, according to an Eastern tale, presented to his
prince. The gift was of inestimable value: not for the diamonds and rubies and
pearls that gemmed it, but for a rare and mystic property in the metal. It sat
easily enough on the finger in ordinary circumstances; but so soon as its
wearer formed a bad thought, designed or committed a bad action, the ring
became a monitor. Suddenly contracting, it pressed painfully on his finger,
warning him of sin. Such a ring, thank God, is not the peculiar property of
kings; all, the poorest of us, those who wear none other possess and wear this
inestimable jewel--for the ring in the fable is just that conscience which is
the voice of God within us. (T. Guthrie.)
Famine in the days of David
I. The connection
between moral evil and physical suffering. Do we believe in God as the Moral
Ruler of men? Then we cannot but believe that He designs and controls what is
occurrent around them to the education and bettering of the moral, nature that
is within them. National calamities follow upon national sins. Let no corn-seed
be sown; no provision made as far as man can make it for harvest, and famine
will come as a Divine retribution. But with all the husbandmen’s forecast and
arduous anticipative toil, famine may still come as a punishment because of a
nation’s sins--drought, mildew, destructive insect life, the ministers of God
that do His chastening pleasure. Atheistic philosophy resolves the government
of the world into the action of natural laws, as if there could be laws without
a Law-giver, as if they could act except He continued to be and continued to
make them efficient. Some may point to second causes. “These suffice; hence
come war, famine, black pestilence.” But why hence? Design there cannot be
without a Designer. Punishment may smite the nations through the operation of
natural law; but that law is the expression of God’s will, and in its operation
moves His hidden, but correcting hand. As men deal with their children, God
deals with them; from moral evil comes physical suffering. The punishment may
be delayed, but it is inevitable. Nations, as such, have no future beyond the
bounds of time. Punishment, then, for national sins must fall upon nations now.
Sometimes with startling, convicting sharpness. Sometimes “after many
days”--days that have gathered into many years. It was so in the case of the
famine that was the punishment for Israel’s accessory guilt in Saul’s crime
against the Gideonites forty years before. A truth this not without modern
confirmatory instances. France slaughtered many of the Huguenots--her best and
purest sons--and chased many more into exile. Two hundred years afterwards came
the full appalling punishment for that stupendous crime in the horrors of the
French Revolution--in the “dire Religion stript of God.” America cherished
slave-holding into a domestic institution--and, at length, long after the first
slave-holders had passed, in tremendous national convulsion, and through the
Red Sea of slaughter, the African bondmen made their wondering, exultant way
into freedom. “God’s judgments often look a long way back.”
II. God’s
displeasure with national pride and violation of treaty obligations. The famine
afflicted Israel because of the perfidy shown to the Gibeonites by Saul and his
approving subjects. What instruction, what warning, in these records for
England to-day! We are in treaty with many dependent nations and tribes. Let us
be faithful to our treaties--honest, kind, not aggressive on the reserved and
acknowledged rights of any. To wrong African or Indian tribe--any tribe though
as weak and helpless as the ancient Gibeonites, with the national approval, is
to assure in coming days for the nation storms of the Divine displeasure. Nor
is national pride to go unpunished. And are we guiltless herein? Vast,
inclusive of many languages and all climates, the empire that acknowledges our
King. But let us not forget who has made us to differ; who has exalted us among
the nations; who has lifted us up and can cast us down.
III. In Rizpah we
see the unutterable, unvanquishable strength or a mother’s love. Her sons were
doomed to ignominious, dishonoured end. She will honour them! An aged woman;
adult sons; a king’s sons--thus to end! To her they are royal still. As her
grey hair streams to the wind, as her voice and arms are raised against the
prowling creatures, oh strength of resolution! oh, thronging memories in that
lonely woman’s heart!
The
barley harvest was nodding white
When
my children died on the rocky height,
And
the reapers were singing on hill and plain
When
I came to my task of sorrow and pain.
But
now the season of rain is nigh,
The
sun is dim in the thickening sky.
I
hear the howl of the wind that brings
The
long, drear storm on its heavy wings;
But
the howling wind and the driving rain
Will
beat on my houseless head in vain.
I
shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare
The
beasts of the desert and fowls of air.
Unconquerable love! not rewarded--winning comely sepulture for the
bodies of her dead. (G. T. Coster.)
Punished sin expiated
1. A famine in Palestine was always a consequence of deficient winter
rains, such a deficiency being by no means uncommon; but in this case the
famine endured three successive years, and thus became alarming, and impelled
men to ask religious questions and make religious arrangements. “David inquired
of the Lord”--in other words, he sought the face of the Lord. Is not the action
of David imitated, to some extent at least, by the men of all time? When the
east wind blows three days, or three weeks, men do but remark upon it
complainingly, and it passes from criticism; but when it continues three
months, and three more, and the earth is made white with dust, and every tree
stands in blackness and barrenness, and every bird is silent, and the whole
landscape is one scene of blank desolation--then men begin to inquire
concerning causes, and even the most flippant and obdurate may be easily moved
to seek the face of the Lord. Thus selfishness assumes a religious aspect, and
religion is degraded by being crowned with selfishness; thus men make confusion
in moral distinctions, and imagine themselves to be pious when they are only
self-seeking, and suppose themselves constrained by persuasion when they are
simply driven by fear.
2. David, having learned the Divine reason for the continued famine,
now turned in a human direction, as he was bound to do, saying unto the
Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you?” The word is the term which is used
throughout the law in connection with the propitiatory sacrifices. The word
literally means to cover up. David inquires what he can do to cover up the sin
of Saul, so as to remove it from the sight of the men against whom it had been
committed. Saul himself being dead, his male descendants were considered as
standing in his place, and were looked at in the solemn light of actually
personating him and having responsibility for his evil deeds. The Gibeonites
regarded the whole affair as involving theocracy, and not until the execution
had been completed could the stains be removed which had been thrown upon the
most sacred history of the race. Men’s ideas of compensation undergo great
changes. It is no surprise that at first the idea of compensation should be
considerably rough and formless. Jesus Christ remarking upon it, set it aside
in the letter, and displaced it by a nobler spirit:--“Ye have heard it hath
been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say Unto you” . .
. and then came the gospel so difficult to be apprehended by the natural
reason, but yielding itself as an infinite treasure to the claim of faith and
love. David took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah. He could not
lawfully refuse the demand of the Gideonites, having before him the fact that
the law absolutely required that bloodguiltiness should be expiated by the
blood of the offender. David spared for Jonathan’s sake the only descendants of
Saul in the direct line who could have advanced any claim to the throne.
3. The beginning of harvest points to the time as being immediately
after the Passover (Leviticus 23:10-11), and consequently
about the middle of April. The rains of autumn began in October, so that
Rizpah’s tender care must have extended over about six months. She waited until
water dropped upon them out of heaven--that is, until the water-famine was at
an end; and thus the Divine forgiveness was assured. A most vivid and ghastly
picture this: see the seven bodies fastened to a stake, either by impaling or
by crucifixion, and watch them standing there day by day and week by week,
until the clouds gathered and the returning rain attested that God had been
satisfied because justice had been done in the earth. The Lord from heaven is
watching all our oblations and sacrifices and actions, and when we have done
that which His law of justice requires He will not forget to send the rain and
the sunshine, and to bless the earth with an abundant harvest.
4. Then we come upon a beautiful expression--“And after that God was
intreated for the land.” There is a solemn lesson here for all time. We must do
justice before we can make acceptable prayer, we cannot turn dishonoured graves
into altars which God will recognise. “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee: leave there thy
gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and
then come and offer thy gift.” “Wash you, make you clean; pub away the evil of
your doings.” These are the conditions upon which God will be intreated.
5. There is a line of true melancholy in the remainder of the
chapter. The Philistines had yet war again with Israel, but now when David went
down and fought against the Philistines we read that “David waxed faint” (v.
15). A splendid life is now showing signs of decay. David in his old age was
fighting with giants, but he was no longer the ruddy youth who smote Goliath in
the forehead. There is a time when a man must cease from war. There is also a
time when his character, his peaceful counsels, his benignant smile, may be of
more value than the uplifting of his enfeebled arm. Patriots should take care
that their leaders are not too long in the field of danger; and these leaders
themselves should know that there is an appointed time for withdrawing from the
battle and sitting in noble and well-earned seclusion, guiding by counsel when
they can no longer lead by example. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Famine and war
This chapter is a double narrative, first of famine, and secondly
of waters, in the latter end of David’s days.
1. The time when those three years of famine were, this is uncertain.
Some expositors are for a transposition of those stories both of the famine and
of the wars, which (they say) fell out before the rebellions both of Absalom’s
and of Sheba’s, rendering probable reasons for their opinion; seeing ‘tis said
here in the general only that this famine fell out in the days of David (2 Samuel 21:1), but other authors of
profound judgment do see no reason for admitting any such transposition in the
Scriptures, seeing it is never safe to allow it, but when it is necessary, and
cannot be avoided; and therefore ‘tis best to take them in that order, wherein
the Holy Spirit hath placed them; yet sometimes Scripture-story puts those
passages that belongs to one matter all together, though they happened at
several times.
2. The cause of this famine made known by God’s oracle. The natural
cause was the drought (2 Samuel 21:10). David, though a
prophet, knew not the supernatural cause, until he consulted with the Urim, and
God told him it was to punish Saul’s fallen zeal, who had so perfidiously and
perjuriously brought the Gibeonites into perdition (2 Samuel 21:1-2.)
3. The means made use of for removing this judgment of famine,
namely, the getting both God and the Gibeonites reconciled to Israel (2 Samuel 21:3-5; 2 Samuel 6:1-23.) Those Gibeonites
had complained of their grievances to God, and he had heard them, for he is
gracious. (Exodus 23:27.) The reason why they had
not all this long time complained to King David. That happened to them which
befalls all that are deeply oppressed, they are so dispirited that they dare do
nothing for their own relief, and possibly they suspected that David would be
unwilling to rescind the acts of Saul.
(1.) Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, is so named to distinguish him
from that other Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s concubine (2 Samuel 21:7-8). This poor cripple
was saved for Jonathan’s sake, because of the Lord’s oath between them. How
much more will the Father of all mercies be mindful of the children of
believers for Jesu’s sake, and for the covenant made with their parents.
5. David’s high commendation of Rizpah’s doing, insomuch as he made
her his pattern in declaring due respect to the dead. (2 Samuel 21:11-14.)
6. The effect of all this. (2 Samuel 21:14.)
7. The wars David had with the Philistines, wherein were four famous
battles fought, from verse 15 to the end.
God’s Delays in Punishing.
Saul had been some time dead, when this famine, year by
year, for three years, visited the people of Israel. You must look back to the
book of Joshua, to see what the sin was. There we find that Israel had made a
league with the Gibeonites. “Joshua,” it is written, “made peace with them, to
let them live; and the princes of the congregation aware unto them And the
children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had
sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel.” But in after times they forgot this
oath, by suffering Saul to slay the Gibeonites, and did not see the guilt of
letting him take their lives. But the sin, though at first it brought no
chastisement, began to put forth thorns and to prick in David’s day. Now we
often act like Israel; we brush away from our minds what we have done. We are
too busy with to-day; we are interested in what is going on just now. Who likes
to look an old folly in the face? Who likes to unrol the book of life, to read
the pages that are stained and blackened with old sins? We do not like to rake
up all our sins. There is enough of sin in every man’s life to put him to the
blush. But is it wise thus to treat ourselves and our sins? Is all well because
we are at ease, and have got rid of the sting of our old misdeeds? Is all
really safe? Is there no cause for a certain fearful looking for of judgment,
and fiery indignation.? Are sins to be thrown aside, and got rid of this way?
Nay, we may be very easy and composed; but this is not safety; it is only a
treacherous peace; true peace must be sought for by the very opposite course.
The true way of peace is not to turn away from the past, but to turn towards
it, that we may search and see what we have been about; the true way of peace
is not to try to forget our sinful or frivolous deeds of old, but to be at
pains to recollect and recall them; for the true way of peace lies through the
gate of repentance, through a deep, sincere, careful repentance. It is the
penitent who can lay hold of the Cross and live. We must not mistake the ways
of God in this matter. The famine that fell on Israel for offences long since
past shews us that the edge of God’s sword is not blunted, because for a time
it is withheld; for every sin there is punishment in store. No man resists the
Spirit, and goes unpunished, if he remains impenitent. The Lord often withholds
His arm, not because He disregards the sin, bug because He knows the terror of
His vengeance, and would fain see the conversion of the sinner. If we are at
all moved by the long-suffering and forbearance with which we have been
treated, what wiser thing can we do than solemnly and carefully to retrace our
steps, and, by a close accurate study of our past lives, to see whether we have
much to repent and to confess before the Lord? (J. Armstrong, D. D.)
The enquiry into sin
Here we have an example of the dealings of God with sinners; we
see the sin of one man, Saul, coming upon his family, according to that rule
which God hath specially laid down among the strictest of his commandments. “I,
the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” The
first thing to be learned from such a manifestation of the ways of God’s
dealing with sin, is the very dreadful extent to which it goes: nearly 200
generations have past since the days of Adam, and yet the effects of his sin have not
run out their course. All this world is of a piece; one part is joined on to
another, so that no man, however selfish, can do any thing for himself only;
some one else must in some way or another come in for his share in it. Can the
Christian then take too great heed to himself? The sin of Saul, we seed brought
a judgment on the whole land; and it is most instructive to observe how it had
been so completely forgotten by men, so that David was obliged to enquire the
reason of the judgment. So little do men think of sin until they begin to smart
for it. Is not this also a matter of daily experience? But the child of God,
and joint-heir with Jesus Christ, has no need of being compelled to enquire of
God. He does enquire daily; daily there is presented to his eyes the miserable
spectacle of this world, full of sorrow and death, and daily and hourly he
feels in his body the tokens of mortality; and daily God gives him an answer
with greater clearness, “It is for sin.” And daily also he sees his Saviour on
the cross, in his agony and sufferings; and daily he enquires of the Lord in
his heart, “Why is this?” and daily the answer comes to him with a deeper
experience of his own need and God’s abundance, “It is for sin.” Sin,
therefore, is his abhorrence; he sees God’s judgment ever upon it. We see from
this chapter that after David had enquired of the Lord, and found the reason of
the judgment which was upon the land, he immediately set to work to remove it.
But how few will follow the example of David in their own case I God having
spoken to their enquiring conscience in a manner not to be mistaken, how slow
are they to give up the darling sin to be crucified! Such never can have made
serious and earnest enquiry of the Lord. Let all enquire with David’s
sincerity, and then they will perform with David’s faithfulness. But the
business of the Christian is to enquire with all sincerity, and with daily
diligence; ford if he be not less watchful than becomes his profession, he must
see both within him and without him continual occasion for such inquiry. And
thus they daily grow in the knowledge of themselves, and in the resignation of
their wills unto God; thus they become more conformed to the image of the Son
of God, who Himself, when in the flesh, though He were a Son, yet “learned obedience
by the things which He suffered.” Thus, as persons find pearls of inestimable
price by diving to the bottom of the sea, and groping there amid fear and
darkness, so they, searching into the dark depths of their heart with godly
fear, bring always up to sight the precious pearl of their redemption in Jesus
Christ. (R. W. Evans, B. D.)
Then
there was a famine in the days of David three years.
The quickening
of David’s conscience by Rizpah’s example
Some
years since it was found that many returned emigrants were ending their days in
English workhouses. When the authorities inquired into the causes of this fact,
they ascertained that in nearly every case those who were then paupers had
formerly prospered in the colonies; but they had forsaken their prosperity and
come back to England, because they could not bear the thought of dying and
being buried in the strange lands wherein they had made their homes for a
season. While they were in health and vigour, they were comparatively content
to be far away from the old country; but as soon as the shadows of evening
began to fall they yearned to return to the familiar haunts of life’s morning,
in order that, when they fell asleep, they might be laid to rest in their
fathers’ sepulchres. The desire
was so strong, that they yielded to it, although they thereby doomed themselves
to poverty for the remainder of their days. This is an instinct which cannot be
put down by force of argument. After all that can be said about the un-wisdom
of it, the voice of nature will still plead for it, and “it seems to be the appointment of heaven
that the first attachments of which the heart is conscious should be its last.”
If we have no such desire about out own final resting-places we have about
those of our friends, and we like to have the graves of our loved ones near to
us, and not far away amongst strangers. This feeling must not be denounced as
mere sentimentalism, for it has been cherished as an honourable thing by men
who were neither feeble nor foolish. When Barzillai pleaded against the
preferment which David was urging upon him, this was his last and most forcible
entreaty: “Let thy servant, I pray thee,” etc. Was it not strange that David
should for so many years leave the remains, of Saul and Jonathan in the place
of their hasty sepulture, far from the burial of their fathers? It might have
been fairly anticipated that, on his coining into power, David would make an early
effort to bring the body of Jonathan to his native place, and there inter it
with all the honour befitting the burial of such a princely man and faithful
friend. Instead of this, David allowed thirty years to pass away before he did
what reverence and gratitude for the dead should have constrained him to regard
as a sacred duty to be discharged as soon as possible. Towards the close of
David’s life, the prosperity f the kingdom was interrupted by a famine. “He
inquired of the Lord.” It will be remembered that, in the days of Joshua, the
Gibeonites had, by means of false pretences, obtained a covenant of peace
between themselves and the Israelites. They were degraded to perpetual
servitude; but with all the sacredness of a solemn oath the public faith was pledged
to them for the security of their lives. Under circumstances not fully
disclosed to us, Saul broke the oath and forfeited the honour of the nation, by
slaying many of the Gibeonites, and by attempting to destroy them all. It has
been supposed by some that he was severe and cruel towards the Gibeonites, as a
kind of set-off against his pretended compassion towards the Amalekites. Later
commentators have thought that light is is to be obtained from the question
Saul put to his courtiers when he was disclosing his suspicions against David:
“Hear now, ye Benjamites,” etc. This implies that Saul either had given or
would give them fields and vineyards. The sin of Saul was regarded by God as a
national sin, either because the people shared in the plunder, or because they
sympathised with or connived at the deed. The matter was one of double guilt,
for, besides the shedding of innocent blood, there was the violation of a
solemn compact. Some men have a feeling that there is an appearance of
injustice ii a crime be punished many years after its perpetration. But lapse
of time has no power to diminish the guilt of an action, and why should it
deter or diminish punishment? If lapse of time work change in the offender,
bringing him to repentance, then it is meet for mercy to interpose with pardon,
and keep back punishment for ever. This is according to God’s promise. Where,
on the other hand, the rolling years reveal no improvement, the guilt is
increased instead of diminished. In these cases delayed judgment will be at
last heavier judgment. Of course, objectors will ask the old question: “Was it
just to make one generation suffer for the sins of another?” Seeing the famine
did not come till more than forty years after the offence, the greater part of
the offenders must have entirely escaped the punishment; and it is said,
therefore, the delayed judgment must have been an unjust judgment. How is it
people never think of asking this other question: “Is it just for one
generation to be enriched in many ways by the skill and labour and victories of
a preceding generation?” The law of God that links the generations together is
constantly and powerfully working for good. We are all of us more or less
better in body, mind, and estate, because of the virtues of those who have
lived before us. If we were to be stripped of all the fruit Of the various
excellences of bygone generations, how poor and feeble we should be! Our
freedom, our art and science, our civilisation, with all its power to mitigate
the sorrows and increase the pleasures of life, are not the creation of our
wisdom, they are not the product of our virtues. By far the larger portion of
them we owe, under God, to the work and worth of those who now sleep in their
graves. “Other men laboured, and we have entered into their labours.” It was
doubtless by God’s direction that David suffered the surviving Gibeonites to
decide what should be done to expiate the sin. They demanded that seven of
Saul’s descendants should be publicly executed, and their demand was granted.
Saul and his sons had been the leaders in the unprincipled slaughter, and his
descendants were most likely the largest holders of the unrighteous spoil. It
was contrary to Jewish custom to leave the bodies upon the gibbets to waste
away; but it was done in the case of these seven, either because the Gibeonites
demanded it, or in order to make the warning more terrible. It gave rise to a
most touching display of motherly affection and fidelity. Two of the seven were
sons of Rizpah, who, though she had been one of Saul’s wives, was still living.
She could not bear the thought of their hanging there for the vultures to tear
to pieces and devour, and she determined to keep watch over them and drive off
the foul birds of prey. She made her home upon the rock, and watched with a
vigilance that never slept, and a devotion that never wearied. It was told
David what Rizpah had done, and instantly his memory was awakened, and his
conscience was quickened. He thought of the bones of Saul and Jonathan sleeping
in the place of their somewhat hurried and unseemly burial. He saw the duty he
ought to have discharged. He fetched the long-neglected remains from
Jabesh-Gilead, and carried them to the country of Benjamin, and buried them in
the sepulchre of Kish, the father of Saul. With them he buried also the bodies
of the seven, and thus relieved the tender and faithful-hearted Rizpah from the
burden of work and woe which her love for her own had laid upon her.
Long-forgotten sin had been brought to mind, and acknowledged, and expiated;
homage had been paid to justice; the evil of unfaithfulness had been exposed;
the honour of the nation had been purged from foul stains; it had been shown
that neither kings nor princes can do wrong with impunity; maternal fondness
and fidelity had been touchingly displayed; a long-forgotten duty had been
attended to; a noble example had borne fruit; and “after that God was untreated
for the land.” The way in which Rizpah’s conduct moved David to his duty
affords a fine instance of what has been aptly called “unconscious influence.”
She had no design upon the conscience of the king, but her right doing told
with great effect. Words are often feeble and in vain, but deeds are seldom
fruitless. The most eloquent preachers may have to cry out complainingly--“Who
hath believed our report?” The success of example is far more certain, for its
fragrance has never been a sweetness wholly “wasted on the desert air.” (C.
Vince.)
Conscience
assertive
Conscience
works after the manner so beautifully set forth in a ring that a great
magician, according to an Eastern tale, presented to his prince. The gift was
of inestimable value: not for the diamonds and rubies and pearls that gemmed
it, but for a rare and mystic property in the metal. It sat easily enough on the
finger in ordinary circumstances; but so soon as its wearer formed a bad
thought, designed or committed a bad action, the ring became a monitor.
Suddenly contracting, it pressed painfully on his finger, warning him of sin.
Such a ring, thank God, is not the peculiar property of kings; all, the poorest
of us, those who wear none other possess and wear this inestimable jewel--for
the ring in the fable is just that conscience which is the voice of God within
us. (T. Guthrie.)
Famine in the
days of David
I. The connection between moral evil and physical suffering. Do we
believe in God as the Moral Ruler of men? Then we cannot but believe that He
designs and controls what is occurrent around them to the education and
bettering of the moral, nature that is within them. National calamities follow
upon national sins. Let no corn-seed be sown; no provision made as far as man
can make it for harvest, and famine will come as a Divine retribution. But with
all the husbandmen’s forecast and arduous anticipative toil, famine may still
come as a punishment because of a nation’s sins--drought, mildew, destructive
insect life, the ministers of God that do His chastening pleasure. Atheistic
philosophy resolves the government of the world into the action of natural
laws, as if there could be laws without a Law-giver, as if they could act
except He continued to be and continued to make them efficient. Some may point
to second causes. “These suffice; hence come war, famine, black pestilence.”
But why hence? Design there cannot be without a Designer. Punishment may smite
the nations through the operation of natural law; but that law is the
expression of God’s will, and in its operation moves His hidden, but correcting
hand. As men deal with their children, God deals with them; from moral evil
comes physical suffering. The punishment may be delayed, but it is inevitable.
Nations, as such, have no future beyond the bounds of time. Punishment, then,
for national sins must fall upon nations now. Sometimes with startling,
convicting sharpness. Sometimes “after many days”--days that have gathered into
many years. It was so in the case of the famine that was the punishment for
Israel’s accessory guilt in Saul’s crime against the Gideonites forty years
before. A truth this not without modern confirmatory instances. France
slaughtered many of the Huguenots--her best and purest sons--and chased many
more into exile. Two hundred years afterwards came the full appalling
punishment for that stupendous crime in the horrors of the French Revolution--in
the “dire Religion stript of God.” America cherished slave-holding into a
domestic institution--and, at length, long after the first slave-holders had
passed, in tremendous national convulsion, and through the Red Sea of
slaughter, the African bondmen made their wondering, exultant way into freedom.
“God’s judgments often look a long way back.”
II. God’s displeasure with national pride and violation of treaty
obligations. The famine afflicted Israel because of the perfidy shown to the
Gibeonites by Saul and his approving subjects. What instruction, what warning,
in these records for England to-day! We are in treaty with many dependent
nations and tribes. Let us be faithful to our treaties--honest, kind, not
aggressive on the reserved and acknowledged rights of any. To wrong African or
Indian tribe--any tribe though as weak and helpless as the ancient Gibeonites,
with the national approval, is to assure in coming days for the nation storms
of the Divine displeasure. Nor is national pride to go unpunished. And are we
guiltless herein? Vast, inclusive of many languages and all climates, the
empire that acknowledges our King. But let us not forget who has made us to
differ; who has exalted us among the nations; who has lifted us up and can cast
us down.
III. In Rizpah we see the unutterable, unvanquishable strength or a
mother’s love. Her sons were doomed to ignominious, dishonoured end. She will
honour them! An aged woman; adult sons; a king’s sons--thus to end! To her they
are royal still. As her grey hair streams to the wind, as her voice and arms
are raised against the prowling creatures, oh strength of resolution! oh,
thronging memories in that lonely woman’s heart!
The barley harvest was
nodding white
When my children died on
the rocky height,
And the reapers were
singing on hill and plain
When I came to my task of
sorrow and pain.
But now the season of rain
is nigh,
The sun is dim in the
thickening sky.
I hear the howl of the
wind that brings
The long, drear storm on
its heavy wings;
But the howling wind and
the driving rain
Will beat on my houseless
head in vain.
I shall stay, from my
murdered sons to scare
The beasts of the desert
and fowls of air.
Unconquerable
love! not rewarded--winning comely sepulture for the bodies of her dead. (G.
T. Coster.)
Punished sin
expiated
1. A famine in Palestine was always a consequence of deficient winter
rains, such a deficiency being by no means uncommon; but in this case the
famine endured three successive years, and thus became alarming, and impelled
men to ask religious questions and make religious arrangements. “David inquired
of the Lord”--in other words, he sought the face of the Lord. Is not the action
of David imitated, to some extent at least, by the men of all time? When the
east wind blows three days, or three weeks, men do but remark upon it
complainingly, and it passes from criticism; but when it continues three
months, and three more, and the earth is made white with dust, and every tree
stands in blackness and barrenness, and every bird is silent, and the whole
landscape is one scene of blank desolation--then men begin to inquire
concerning causes, and even the most flippant and obdurate may be easily moved
to seek the face of the Lord. Thus selfishness assumes a religious aspect, and
religion is degraded by being crowned with selfishness; thus men make confusion
in moral distinctions, and imagine themselves to be pious when they are only
self-seeking, and suppose themselves constrained by persuasion when they are
simply driven by fear.
2. David, having learned the Divine reason for the continued famine,
now turned in a human direction, as he was bound to do, saying unto the
Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you?” The word is the term which is used
throughout the law in connection with the propitiatory sacrifices. The word
literally means to cover up. David inquires what he can do to cover up the sin
of Saul, so as to remove it from the sight of the men against whom it had been
committed. Saul himself being dead, his male descendants were considered as
standing in his place, and were looked at in the solemn light of actually
personating him and having responsibility for his evil deeds. The Gibeonites
regarded the whole affair as involving theocracy, and not until the execution
had been completed could the stains be removed which had been thrown upon the
most sacred history of the race. Men’s ideas of compensation undergo great
changes. It is no surprise that at first the idea of compensation should be
considerably rough and formless. Jesus Christ remarking upon it, set it aside
in the letter, and displaced it by a nobler spirit:--“Ye have heard it hath
been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say Unto you” . .
. and then came the gospel so difficult to be apprehended by the natural
reason, but yielding itself as an infinite treasure to the claim of faith and
love. David took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah. He could not
lawfully refuse the demand of the Gideonites, having before him the fact that
the law absolutely required that bloodguiltiness should be expiated by the
blood of the offender. David spared for Jonathan’s sake the only descendants of
Saul in the direct line who could have advanced any claim to the throne.
3. The beginning of harvest points to the time as being immediately
after the Passover (Leviticus 23:10-11), and consequently about the middle of April. The rains of autumn
began in October, so that Rizpah’s tender care must have extended over about
six months. She waited until water dropped upon them out of heaven--that is,
until the water-famine was at an end; and thus the Divine forgiveness was
assured. A most vivid and ghastly picture this: see the seven bodies fastened
to a stake, either by impaling or by crucifixion, and watch them standing there
day by day and week by week, until the clouds gathered and the returning rain
attested that God had been satisfied because justice had been done in the
earth. The Lord from heaven is watching all our oblations and sacrifices and
actions, and when we have done that which His law of justice requires He will
not forget to send the rain and the sunshine, and to bless the earth with an
abundant harvest.
4. Then we come upon a beautiful expression--“And after that God was
intreated for the land.” There is a solemn lesson here for all time. We must do
justice before we can make acceptable prayer, we cannot turn dishonoured graves
into altars which God will recognise. “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee: leave there thy
gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and
then come and offer thy gift.” “Wash you, make you clean; pub away the evil of
your doings.” These are the conditions upon which God will be intreated.
5. There is a line of true melancholy in the remainder of the
chapter. The Philistines had yet war again with Israel, but now when David went
down and fought against the Philistines we read that “David waxed faint” (v.
15). A splendid life is now showing signs of decay. David in his old age was
fighting with giants, but he was no longer the ruddy youth who smote Goliath in
the forehead. There is a time when a man must cease from war. There is also a
time when his character, his peaceful counsels, his benignant smile, may be of
more value than the uplifting of his enfeebled arm. Patriots should take care
that their leaders are not too long in the field of danger; and these leaders
themselves should know that there is an appointed time for withdrawing from the
battle and sitting in noble and well-earned seclusion, guiding by counsel when
they can no longer lead by example. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Famine and war
This
chapter is a double narrative, first of famine, and secondly of waters, in the
latter end of David’s days.
1. The time when those three years of famine were, this is uncertain.
Some expositors are for a transposition of those stories both of the famine and
of the wars, which (they say) fell out before the rebellions both of Absalom’s
and of Sheba’s, rendering probable reasons for their opinion; seeing ‘tis said
here in the general only that this famine fell out in the days of David (2 Samuel 21:1), but other authors of profound judgment do see no reason for
admitting any such transposition in the Scriptures, seeing it is never safe to
allow it, but when it is necessary, and cannot be avoided; and therefore ‘tis
best to take them in that order, wherein the Holy Spirit hath placed them; yet
sometimes Scripture-story puts those passages that belongs to one matter all
together, though they happened at several times.
2. The cause of this famine made known by God’s oracle. The natural
cause was the drought (2 Samuel 21:10). David, though a prophet, knew not the supernatural cause, until
he consulted with the Urim, and God told him it was to punish Saul’s fallen
zeal, who had so perfidiously and perjuriously brought the Gibeonites into
perdition (2 Samuel 21:1-2.)
3. The means made use of for removing this judgment of famine,
namely, the getting both God and the Gibeonites reconciled to Israel (2 Samuel 21:3-5; 2 Samuel 6:1-23.) Those Gibeonites had complained of their grievances to God, and
he had heard them, for he is gracious. (Exodus 23:27.) The reason why they had not all this long time complained to
King David. That happened to them which befalls all that are deeply oppressed,
they are so dispirited that they dare do nothing for their own relief, and
possibly they suspected that David would be unwilling to rescind the acts of
Saul.
(1.)
Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, is so named to distinguish him from that other
Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s concubine (2 Samuel 21:7-8). This poor cripple was saved for Jonathan’s sake, because of the
Lord’s oath between them. How much more will the Father of all mercies be
mindful of the children of believers for Jesu’s sake, and for the covenant made
with their parents.
5. David’s high commendation of Rizpah’s doing, insomuch as he made
her his pattern in declaring due respect to the dead. (2 Samuel 21:11-14.)
6. The effect of all this. (2 Samuel 21:14.)
7. The wars David had with the Philistines, wherein were four famous
battles fought, from verse 15 to the end.
God’s Delays in
Punishing.
Saul
had been some time dead, when this famine, year by year, for three years,
visited the people of Israel. You must look back to the book of Joshua, to see
what the sin was. There we find that Israel had made a league with the
Gibeonites. “Joshua,” it is written, “made peace with them, to let them live;
and the princes of the congregation aware unto them And the children of Israel
smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by
the Lord God of Israel.” But in after times they forgot this oath, by suffering
Saul to slay the Gibeonites, and did not see the guilt of letting him take
their lives. But the sin, though at first it brought no chastisement, began to
put forth thorns and to prick in David’s day. Now we often act like Israel; we
brush away from our minds what we have done. We are too busy with to-day; we
are interested in what is going on just now. Who likes to look an old folly in
the face? Who likes to unrol the book of life, to read the pages that are
stained and blackened with old sins? We do not like to rake up all our sins.
There is enough of sin in every man’s life to put him to the blush. But is it
wise thus to treat ourselves and our sins? Is all well because we are at ease,
and have got rid of the sting of our old misdeeds? Is all really safe? Is there
no cause for a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation.?
Are sins to be thrown aside, and got rid of this way? Nay, we may be very easy
and composed; but this is not safety; it is only a treacherous peace; true
peace must be sought for by the very opposite course. The true way of peace is
not to turn away from the past, but to turn towards it, that we may search and
see what we have been about; the true way of peace is not to try to forget our
sinful or frivolous deeds of old, but to be at pains to recollect and recall
them; for the true way of peace lies through the gate of repentance, through a
deep, sincere, careful repentance. It is the penitent who can lay hold of the
Cross and live. We must not mistake the ways of God in this matter. The famine
that fell on Israel for offences long since past shews us that the edge of God’s
sword is not blunted, because for a time it is withheld; for every sin there is
punishment in store. No man resists the Spirit, and goes unpunished, if he
remains impenitent. The Lord often withholds His arm, not because He disregards
the sin, bug because He knows the terror of His vengeance, and would fain see
the conversion of the sinner. If we are at all moved by the long-suffering and
forbearance with which we have been treated, what wiser thing can we do than
solemnly and carefully to retrace our steps, and, by a close accurate study of
our past lives, to see whether we have much to repent and to confess before the
Lord? (J. Armstrong, D. D.)
The enquiry
into sin
Here
we have an example of the dealings of God with sinners; we see the sin of one
man, Saul, coming upon his family, according to that rule which God hath
specially laid down among the strictest of his commandments. “I, the Lord thy
God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” The first thing to
be learned from such a manifestation of the ways of God’s dealing with sin, is
the very dreadful extent to which it goes: nearly 200 generations have past
since the days of Adam, and yet the effects of his sin have not run out their course.
All this world is of a piece; one part is joined on to another, so that no man,
however selfish, can do any thing for himself only; some one else must in some
way or another come in for his share in it. Can the Christian then take too great
heed to himself? The sin of Saul, we seed brought a judgment on the whole land;
and it is most instructive to observe how it had been so completely forgotten
by men, so that David was obliged to enquire the reason of the judgment. So little
do men think of sin until they begin to smart for it. Is not this also a matter
of daily experience? But the child of God, and joint-heir with Jesus Christ,
has no need of being compelled to enquire of God. He does enquire daily; daily
there is presented to his eyes the miserable spectacle of this world, full of
sorrow and death, and daily and hourly he feels in his body the tokens of
mortality; and daily God gives him an answer with greater clearness, “It is for
sin.” And daily also he sees his Saviour on the cross, in his agony and
sufferings; and daily he enquires of the Lord in his heart, “Why is this?” and
daily the answer comes to him with a deeper experience of his own need and
God’s abundance, “It is for sin.” Sin, therefore, is his abhorrence; he sees
God’s judgment ever upon it. We see from this chapter that after David had
enquired of the Lord, and found the reason of the judgment which was upon the
land, he immediately set to work to remove it. But how few will follow the
example of David in their own case I God having spoken to their enquiring
conscience in a manner not to be mistaken, how slow are they to give up the
darling sin to be crucified! Such never can have made serious and earnest
enquiry of the Lord. Let all enquire with David’s sincerity, and then they will
perform with David’s faithfulness. But the business of the Christian is to
enquire with all sincerity, and with daily diligence; ford if he be not less
watchful than becomes his profession, he must see both within him and without him
continual occasion for such inquiry. And thus they daily grow in the knowledge
of themselves, and in the resignation of their wills unto God; thus they become
more conformed to the image of the Son of God, who Himself, when in the flesh,
though He were a Son, yet “learned obedience by the things which He suffered.”
Thus, as persons find pearls of inestimable price by diving to the bottom of
the sea, and groping there amid fear and darkness, so they, searching into the
dark depths of their heart with godly fear, bring always up to sight the
precious pearl of their redemption in Jesus Christ. (R. W. Evans, B. D.)
Verses 10-14
And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth.
Rizpah: or, relative suffering
We may generally see the cause of any suffering if we only
go far enough. David began to enquire, and found out the cause. The demand of
the Gibeonites was in harmony only with that crude, cruel, harsh age. They demanded
that the survivors of Saul’s race should be handed over to them, that they
might do that which they thought would appease outraged law. Some have supposed
that David was glad of the opportunity of getting rid--after an Eastern
fashion--of possible rivals to the throne; but this could not have been his
motive, or he would not otherwise have spared the one who was the only direct
and lineal descendant, Mephibosheth, the eldest son of the deceased heir
apparent, Jonathan. If all forsake those who hang as accursed, Rizpah will not.
She cannot hinder the seizure of her sons and relatives, but she can watch that
no further dishonour shall be done to their bodies. She takes sackcloth,
spreads it to shield her by day and to rest on at night. Stifled by the heat,
and chilled by the cold night air, she remains near to those sun-scorched,
haggard, weird, blackened, dishonoured bodies, watching to save them from
further ignominy.
I. We may gaze
with admiring wonder at a woman’s faithfulness, love, and patience. What faith
I She believed that sooner or later God would be entreated for the land, and
that when the rains came it would show that guilt had been appeased, and that
her dear ones might at least have honourable burial. She believed that they
hung there, not for their own sin, but for the sin of others, and, therefore,
she does not forsake them. It is so easy to turn our back on those whom the
world forsakes. Rizpah would not believe her sons were wrong. How like a woman!
They are always slowest to believe wrong, and always readiest to bear the
heaviest burdens for those they love. And what a burden, to watch through all
those slowly passing weeks.
II. The sorrows
that are silently endured. In thousands of homes every day, there are wives and
sisters and daughters who are watching as assiduously, either by the bedside of
loved sufferers, or mourning at their death, as Rizpah on the rock of Gibeah.
How many there are out of whose lives all that is bright is gone, because one
to whom they gave their heart’s best devotion is lying pulseless, in the blank
stare of death.
III. The bitterest
trials of life come through the wrongdoings of others. Rizpah had nothing to do
with Saul’s sin, and yet, she had to bear some of the fearful consequences.
Here, too, we see how Christ has suffered through the sin of others. There was
no sill in Him. Yet was He treated as a sinner, because He became one with us.
Love bound Him to us. How He drove back the vultures of sin and the demons of
darkness! How He hung on the cross in the full blaze of a broken law that He
might take away the sin of the world! How He has waited since, like Rizpah, at
the door of the heart, to give life and peace, and to let the rain of His mercy
drop on us out of heaven! Our sins nailed Him to the tree, but He does not love
us the less. He knows that when we see how He has loved us, love will break or
melt our hearts. For that sign of penitence and love He waits through the long
years, as Rizpah did through dabs of furnace heat and nights of intensest cold,
for the sign of coming rain from heaven. Oil, how unwearied is Jesus in His
waiting for souls I His locks are wet with the dews of heaven, and His form
withered as by the solar heat!
IV. The
overwhelming influence of a devoted life is seen in this act of Rizpah. That
silent, watching woman little thought how others were taking note of her,--how
her heroic action would be recorded in the Book which would be the most widely
read of all books. Example has immense power. Men submit to it more readily
than to any commands. Of it speaks Hudibras--
“Example,
that imperious dictator
Of
all that’s good or bad to human nature;
By
it the world’s corrupted or reclaimed,
Hopes
to be saved or studies to be damned.”
However obscure, we cannot be sure but that our example may have a
good or an evil influence. In proportion to the extent of our circle, so our
power for good or evil.
V. faithful love
is finally rewarded. Rizpah, at last, when the dead are buried, can rest, and
Duly think with a shudder of the long and weary days when her strong arm drove
off the vultures, or of the nights when the wild beasts were only kept at bay
by the fire that flashed from her eye, and the force that she threw into her
voice. And as we think of Him who was homeless, rejected, crucified, we ask,
“Will not Christ see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied?” (F.
Hastings.)
Rizpah
One of the most affecting narratives in Holy Writ--a story, full
of beauty and pathos, is the solitary vigil of Rizpah as she watched with a
mother’s love over the dead bodies of her two sons. In years gone by she had
been a favourite with Saul. Her home was in the king’s palace; in his love she
found both home and happiness. She had no wishes ungratified; whatever could
add to her wondrous beauty or minister to her woman’s vanity was freely at her
command. The hues of health and youth mantled in her checks, the rose and the
lily lent to her their charms, the light, of hope sat upon her calm brow and
brightly beamed in her dark eve; her light, elastic step told of the joy that
filled her heart. The stream of life flowed gently on, as a river of peace; the
present hour was without a cloud of care; the visions of the future were as
bright and rose-coloured as her own playful fancy could paint them. All men
paid their court to her, they lived upon her smiles; she was the beneficent
fairy who administered happiness and favour to the admiring throng. Far above
all these and more than all these was the king’s love, the love of Saul, not
more distinguished for his manly honours than for the grace of his manly
beauty, for his heroic courage and valour, for his warlike triumphs--those
qualities which might well commend him to her woman’s heart. He was the lover
of her youth, the father of her children, the two beautiful boys, who were not
only the source of the young mother’s pride and joy, but the pledge and
assurance of her continued reign in the royal heart. Well might she move on in
her peerless beauty and pride, careless of the whispering envy that followed
her steps, and mindful only of the great prize she had won and so gracefully
bore. The scene changes; we stand upon the mountains of Gilboa. Over them like
a sirocco has swept the rude blast of war; they are covered with the dying and
the dead. Woe, woe to the land, for the Philistines have triumphed; the beauty
of Israel is slain upon the high places, the mighty are fallen. Weep, O ye
daughters of Israeli weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and other
delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty
fallen in the midst of the battle! Such might have been the exclamations of
Rizpah over the dead body of Saul. Her bosom was rent with anguish, her heart
broken with sorrow. At one fell blow all her hopes were crushed; vain now were
her beauty and her pride. The palace was no longer a fitting home for one so
forlorn and distressed; its stores of wealth, its jewelry and costly array, had
departed from her for ever; another king had come to the throne who knew not
Rizpah. But what cared she? Why, when Saul was himself lost, tell her of past
splendour and past joys? Had she not already suffered the worst that could
befall her, since the king’s death, from one of the new king’s
captains--insult, ignominy, and shame? A consuming sorrow preyed upon her life;
grief had done the work of years, and, if she lived on it was but for the sake
of her two sons. They were all that was left her of her former wealth, and
while the mother love survives the human heart still preserves its capacity to
suffer and endure. So she went forth--she, so delicately nurtured and cared
for; her summer friends had all forsaken her; she went forth into a world of
poverty and loneliness with her two sons. She sought some retired hamlet, that
she might devote her life to her sorrow and to them. They had now come to the
years of youth, or, it may be, of manhood, and were able to do something to
repair the mother’s toss and to repay her love. Their united toil provided the
scanty fare and supplied their simple wants. With untiring patience and love
they devoted themselves to her comfort, living not for themselves, but for her.
Rizpah could not but be touched with the spectacle; she could but see with
maternal pride their beauty and virtues. Despite herself, hope would re-kindle
in her heart, not for her own future, that was dead for ever, but for theirs;
she could but think and believe they so honoured her that their days would be
long in the land. They might, they ought, to regain their ancestral name and
wealth; they would be the comfort and the solace of her declining years, and
would pay her the last sad offices of love. God, had come very near to her, but
He had not left her altogether without comfort; while her two sons survived,
such sons as mother never had before, she need not wholly despair. It was
perchance while Rizpah thus communed with her own heart in her chamber and was
still, while she was thus recovering from the staggering blow which Providence
had dealt upon her, that she heard the tramp of horses’ feet approaching her lowly
cottage; she looks up, and the king’s messenger is at the door. Her heart beats
with agitation, but not with fear. Already God has heard her prayers; her two
sons are to be restored to the king’s court; even on earth they will reap in
part their reward. The royal David has heard the touching story of their love;
her visions and her hopes are to be realized. Her neighbours and her friends
know, alas l how vain such an imagination is. They have suffered from the
famine; the only remedy and relief has been bruited abroad--the sacrifice of
the seven sons of Saul on the hill before the Lord; it has reached all ears but
the ears of Rizpah. Who should break such a tale to that lone and sorrowing
woman? Who should bear to her what might be her own as well as the
death-warrant of her two sons? What manly courage would not shrink from her
wail of woe? Without any fault or crime of theirs, having violated no law human
or divine, they, the good sons, were to die a death of shame; like malefactors,
they were to be hanged upon a tree. It is one of the strange workings of
Providence we can neither fathom nor explain, the visiting upon the innocent
children the father’s sins, though it is every day exemplified before our eyes.
The sacrifice was ordained; it was accepted of God. The king’s messenger had
come; he tells his sorrowful errand, and Rizpah makes no resistance and no
reply. Her heart is paralyzed, she is dead to the world; naught survives in her
but that maternal love which, like the instinct of modesty, may remain long
after all outward consciousness is gone. The signal is at length given, the
fatal drop falls, and the sacrifice is complete; the seven sons of Saul have
ceased to live; the multitude depart, and Rizpah is left alone with her misery
and her dead. Now commences her sad, solitary vigil. Her two sons have died
like criminals; no sacred burial rites await them. The gibbet on which they
perished is to be their only tomb; they are left to be a prey to the unclean
birds of heaven and to the wild beasts of the field. From this last indignity
the love of Rizpah shields them. What a picture for the pencil of the painter
or for the pen of the poet! What a proof of the strength and devotion of
maternal level It survives death and the grave; it lives through good and
through evil report; in the discharge of its office it fears no danger and
shuns no toil. Who can tell but she may yet win them that last favour man can
bestow upon the sons of Saul--the rite of burial? So she watches in darkness
and in light; the very stillness of her sorrow spreads over her a halo of
sanctity that scares away all that would molest or make afraid. A vigil so
remarkable soon attracts the notice of the passers-by, the piteous tale is told
from one to another, until at length it reaches King David’s ears. His royal
heart, is moved with compassion for her sorrows. He collects the bodies of Saul
and Jonathan and of their dead sons, and gives them such royal burial as it
became a king to bestow. Thus the work of Rizpah was done, her painful vigil
ended; and she lays down to die, perhaps to share the grave of Saul and of her
two sons, and God was entreated for the land, and instead of famine plenty
reigns. Oh! wondrous power of maternal love, hallowing by its sacred influences
even the gibbet of infamy, and lending a halo to the noisomeness of death and
the grave. Oh only love of earth which finds its prototype in the love of God!
(G. F. Cushman, D. D.)
Rizpah.
In the days of David, King of Israel, there prevailed a
famine which lasted three years. On inquiring of the Lord the cause, David
received for answer that it was “because of Saul and his bloody house.” Already
is one striking lesson to be derived from the history. We learn, not only that
the weather is in the hands of God,--Rain and sunshine, “wind and storm,
fulfilling His word”; but also, that one of the causes which influence Him in
sending the weather which produces abundance, or which occasions famine, is the
conduct of the people. Now the crime of Saul was this. Whereas Joshua and the
men of Israel on first coming into Canaan had entered into a solemn covenant
with the Gibeonites that they would do them no injury, but suffer them to dwell
on unmolested, Saul had sought to slay them. That ancient oath and covenant of
the people of the land,--made upwards of four hundred years before,--Saul, the unscrupulous,
irreligious Captain of the Lord’s people, had broken; and three years of famine
were the penalty, inflicted on all Israel for the sin of their ruler. Money
they spurned. They would have the lives of seven of Saul’s sons. Accordingly,
seven men were surrendered, and “hanged in the hill before the Lord.” Two
mothers here come to view,--Rizpah and Michal. Of the latter, little is
related: but we are guided to a very solemn warning to be derived from this
seemingly casual mention of her name. Saul’s daughter had loved David when she
knew him as the warlike and victorious captain; but despised him when she beheld him as the
religious King, transported with holy joy at the recovery and return of the Ark
of God. Michal proved childless: but she is found from this place of Scripture
to have adopted five of her sister’s children and made them hers. Yet, mark
you! Those five children are taken from her to complete the number required to
make atonement for her father’s sin; and she remains childless until the day of
her death. Very different is the character of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah,--who
becomes for evermore a pattern to mankind in respect of piety towards the dead.
The sackcloth which she is said to have taken and spread upon the rock, was a
token of her mourning, as well as an emblem of her grief. What is of more
importance, is the hint afforded us of Rizpah’s piety towards God no less than
towards man, contained in those words,--“until water dropped upon them out of
Heaven.” “Cursed” (says the Law,) “is every one that hangeth upon a tree”: and
here were seven men appointed to sustain the curse which rested upon the land,
and to make atonement for the sin of Saul and of his bloody house. So long as
the famine (occasioned by the want of rain) lasted, so long was it to be
thought that the wrath of God rested upon the people, and the atonement
remained unaccepted by the injured majesty of Heaven. The poor mother
watched, therefore, in sackcloth, upon the hard rock; “until water dropped upon
them out of Heaven”: and Rizpah enjoyed the blessed assurance that the Lord was
pacified, and that His wrath had indeed passed away! Only one circumstance more
requires to be mentioned. “It was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah,
the concubine of Saul had done.” David beholds in Rizpah’s conduct a lesson to
himself; and he proceeds at once to copy the example of piety which that
sorrowful bereaved mother has set him. He bethinks him of the bones of Saul and
of Jonathan his son which are still lying dishonoured at Jabesh-gilead; sends
for them; causes the bones of the seven sons who had been hanged at Gibeah to
be gathered also; and honourably buries them. So true is it that no one lives
to himself; but the effect of good example spreads, and (as in the case before
us) a weak woman’s example becomes a model for the imitation of the monarch on
the throne! We never know, we cannot possibly tell the remote consequences of
our acts for good or for evil. We cannot even pretend to describe their present
influence, and the results which they may immediately occasion. (J. W.
Burgon, M. A.)
Rizpah’s watch; or, the story of a mother’s love
Rizpah, the widow of Saul, was getting to be an old woman when her
two sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth, were hanged in Gibeah, at the demand of the
Gibeonites, who had been ravished and desolated by the cruel wickedness of
Saul, their father. These men suffered not only for their own sin, but for the
sins of the wicked family in which they were born, and especially for the sins
of their father. Rizpah stands out as the true type of the undying loyalty of
motherhood. What the world owes to good mothers, who have sacrificed themselves
with all joy that they might live again in their children, no statistician will
ever be able to adequately determine. John Newton, who caused his mother much
sorrow while she lived, was brought back to righteousness long after she had
gone to heaven by the recollection of the lessons she had taught him. God
brought her back to him again in a vision, and the memory of her prayers and of
her tender solicitude broke his heart and turned him away from sin. John
Randolph once said: “I should have been an atheist if it had not been for one
recollection--and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used
to take my little hand in hers and cause me on my knees to say, ‘Our Father,
which art in heaven.’” When General Grant was at West Point, he wrote to his
mother: “Your kind words of admonition are ever present with me. How well do
they strengthen me in every good word and work. Should I become a soldier for
my country, I look forward with hope to have you spared to share with me any
advancement I might gain, and I trust that my future conduct will prove me
worthy of the patriotic instruction you and father have given me.” No human
being in this world has so much power over the life of man or woman, taking it
all in all, as the mother. A mother gives the very emphasis and tone and colour
to the speech of her child, and that is only an “outward indication of the way
she moulds the plastic soul within. Of all the most important classes for the
welfare of the world, mothers lead the van. No wonder Napoleon said, in his
wicked day, “What France needs is good mothers.” And as there is no devotion
more beautiful and splendid than that of a mother’s, so there is nothing that
wins a higher meed of love and gratitude in return, The affection which the
noblest and truest men and women in the world have had for their mothers
brightens up the pages of history. Lord Macaulay once said that it was worth
while being sick to be nursed by a mother. William Cowper said: “Every creature
that bears an affinity to my mother is dear to me.” When Thomas Guthrie, the
great Scotch preacher, was on his deathbed, his latest words were these: “How
strange to think that within twenty-four hours I may see my mother and my
Saviour!” How much it means when God says that He will comfort us, when we give
our hearts to Him, as a mother comforteth her child! How can anyone fear to
yield completely to the mother-like arms of Divine love? It is this mother-God
to whom I call you to-night, (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
Changes of fortune
Some of the worst distresses have come to scenes of royalty and
wealth. What porter at the mansion’s gate has not let in champing and lathered
steed bringing evil despatch? On what tesselated hall has there not stood the
solemn bier? Under what exquisite fresco has there not been enacted a tragedy
of disaster? What curtained couch hath heard no err of pain? What harp hath
never trilled with sorrow? What lordly nature hath never leaned against carved
pillar and made utterance of woe. Gall is not less bitter when quaffed from a
golden chalice than when taken from a pewter mug. Sorrow is often attended by
running footmen, and laced lackeys mounted behind. Queen Anne Boleyn is
desolate in the palace of Henry VIII. Adolphus wept in German castles over the
hypocrisy of friends. Pedro I. among Brazilian diamonds shivered with fear of
massacre. Stephen of England sat on a rocking throne. And every mast of pride
has bent in the storm, and the highest mountains of honour and fame are covered
with perpetual snow. Sickness will frost the rosiest cheek, wrinkle the
smoothest brow, and stiffen the sprightliest step. Rizpah quits the courtly
circle and sits on the rock. Perhaps you look back upon scenes different from
those in which now from day to day you mingle. You have exchanged the plenty
and luxuriance of your father’s house for privation and trials known to God and
your own heart. The morning of life was flushed with promise. Troops of
calamities since then have made desperate charge upon you. Darkness has come.
Sorrows have swooped like carrion birds from the sky and barked like jackals
from the thicket. You stand amid your slain, anguished and woestruck. So it has
been in all ages. Vashti must doff the spangled robes of the Persian Court, and
go forth blasted from the palace gate. Hagar exchanges Oriental comfort for the
wilderness of Beersheba. Mary Queen of Scots must pass out from flattery and
pomp to suffer ignominious death in the Castle of Fotheringay. The wheel of
fortune keeps turning, and mansions and huts exchange, and he who rode in the
chariot pushes the barrow, and instead of the glare of festal lights is the
simmering of the peat-fire, and in place of Saul’s palace is the rock, the cold
rock, the desolate rock. But that is the place to which God comes. Jacob with
his head on a stone saw the shining ladder. Israel in the desert beheld the
marshalling of the fiery baton. John on barren Patmos heard trumpeting, and the
clapping of wings, and the stroke of seraphic fingers on golden harps, and
nothing but heavenly strength nerved Rizpah for her appalling mission amid the
scream of wild birds and the steady tread of hungry monsters. (T. De Wilt
Talmage.)
Sins of lathers visited upon children
But it hardly ends before you cry out: What a hard thing that
those seven boys should suffer for the crimes of a father and grandfather! Yes.
But it is always so. Let everyone who does wrong know that he was not only, as
in this case, against two generations, children and grandchildren, but against
all the generations of coming time. That is what makes dissipation and
uncleanness so awful. It reverberates in other times. It may skip one
generation, as is suggested in the Ten Commandments: which say: “Visiting the
iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation.” Mind you, it says nothing about the second generation, but
mentions the third and the fourth. That accounts for what you sometimes see,
very good parents with very bad children. Go far enough back in the ancestral
line and you find the source of all the turpitude. “Visiting the iniquities of
the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation.” If, when
Saul died, the consequences of his iniquity could have died with him, it would
not have been so sad. Alas, no! Look on that hill a few miles out from
Jerusalem and see the ghastly burdens of those seven gibbets, and the wan and
wasted Rizpah watching them. Go to-day through the wards and alms-houses, and
the reformatory institutions where unfortunate children are kept, and you will
find that nine out of ten had drunken or vicious parents. Yea, day by day, in
the streets of our cities you find men and women wrecked of evil parentage.
They are moral corpses. Like the seven sons of Saul--though dead--unburied.
Alas! for Rizpah, who, not for six months, but for years and years has watched
them. She cannot keep the vultures and the jackals off. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The courage of woman amid great emergencies
What mother, or sister, or daughter would dare to go out to fight
the cormorant and jackal? Rizpah did it. And so would you if an emergency demanded.
Woman is naturally timid and shrinks from exposure, and depends on stronger
arms for the achievement of great enterprises. And she is often troubled lest
there might be occasions demanding fortitude when she would fail. Not so. Some
of those who are afraid to look out of door after nightfall, and who quake in
the darkness at the least uncertain sound, and who start at the slam of the
door, and turn pale in a thunderstorm, if the day of trial came would be heroic
and invulnerable. God has arranged it so that woman needs the trumpet of some
great contest of principle or affection to rouse up her slumbering courage.
Then she will stand under the cross fire of opposing hosts at Chalons to give
wine to the wounded. Then she will carry into prison and dark lane the message
of salvation. Then she will brave the pestilence. Deborah goes out to sound
terror into the heart of God’s enemies. Abigail throws herself between a
raiding party of infuriated men and her husband’s vineyards. Rizpah fights back
the vultures from the Rook. Among the Orkney Islands an eagle swooped and
lifted a child to its eyrie far up on the mountains. With the spring of a
panther the mother mounts hill above hill, crag above crag, height above
height, the fire of her own eye outflashing the glare of the eagle’s; and with
unmailed hand stronger than the iron beak and the terrible claw she hurled the
wild bird down the rocks. In the French Revolution, Cazotte was brought to be
executed when his daughter threw herself on the body of her father and said,
“Strike! barbarians! You cannot reach my father but through my heart!” The
crowd parted, and linking arms father and daughter walked out free. During the
siege of Saragossa, Augustina carried refreshments to the gates. Arriving at
the battery of Portillo she found that all the garrison had been killed. She
snatched a match from the hand of a dead artilleryman and fired off a
twenty-six pounder, then leaped on it and vowed she would not leave it alive.
The soldiers looked in and saw her daring, and rushed up and opened another
tremendous fire on the enemy. The life of James I. of Scotland was threatened.
Poets have sung those times, and able pens have lingered upon the story of
manly endurance, but how few tell the story of Catherine Douglas, one of the
Queen’s maids, who ran to bolt the door, but found the bar had been taken away
so as to facilitate the entrance of the assassins. She thrust her arm into the
staple. The murderers rushing, against it, her arm was shattered. Yet how many
have since lived and died who never heard the touching, self-sacrificing,
heroic story of Catherine Douglas and her poor shattered arm. You know how
calmly Madame Roland went to execution and how cheerfully Joanna of Naples
walked to the castle of Mute, and how fearlessly Madame Grimaldi listened to
her condemnation, and how Charlotte Corday smiled upon the frantic mob that
pursued her to the guillotine. And there would be no end to the recital if I
attempted to present all the historical incidents which show that women’s
courage will rouse itself for great emergencies. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
A mother buries remains of her executed sons,
In the time of George IV., two men were convicted of
robbing the Brighton mail-coach, and were hung on gibbets on the spot where the
crime had been committed. When the clothes and the flesh had at length fallen
away, an aged woman was observed to go night after night, in all weather, to
the lonely spot, and bring away something in her apron. These were the bones of
her son, which she interred with her own hands in the parish churchyard. (Memoir
of Lord Tennyson.)
Verses 18-22
Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Saph, which was of the sons of the
giant.
On doing valiantly
If his master bids him perform exploits too hard for him, he draws
upon the resources of omnipotence, and achieves impossibilities. Wellington
sent word to his troops one night: “Cindad Rodrigo must be taken to-night.” And
what do you think was the commentary of the British soldiers appointed for
attack? “Then,” said they all, “we will do it.” So, when our great Captain
sends round, as He doth to us, the word of command, “Go ye into all the world,
and preach the Gospel to every creature,” if we were all good soldiers of the
Cross, we should say at once, “We will do it.” However hard the task, since God
Himself is with us to be our Captain, and Jesus the Priest of the Most High is
with us to sound the trumpet, we will do it in Jehovah’s name. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
Deeds
When a man dies they who survive him ask, what property Ire has
left behind; the angel who bends over the dying one asks what good deeds he has
sent before him. (H. W. Beecher.)
What one can do
In one of the Napoleonic wars a young soldier complained to his
commanding officer that his sword was too short. “Then add a step to it,” was
the curt and significant reply. “When I hear,” says the Rev. W. L. Watkinson,
“a man say, ‘You know you cannot do more than you can do,’ I am always still
for a moment. It is such a philosophic sentence that it can only be taken in
slowly.” But you never know what you can do until you put your soul into
it--until you add a step. Says Paul to Timothy: “Stir up the gift that is in
thee.” And it is not so much a question of environment as it is a question of
soul; it is not a question of opportunity, because “it is in thee.”
Action more than knowledge
“It is not the man who knows most, but the one that does best,
that wins the victory, Grant, and Meade, and Sheridan could have been taught
many lessons by our learned professors of military tactics and strategy, but
none of these could have guided his forces to victory as Grant did at
Chatanooga, Meade at Gettysberg, or have hurled his masses as Sheridan did at
Winchester. Action guided by knowledge, if you will, but better action without
knowledge than much knowledge and feeble action.” (General Sherman.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》