_DAVID ANOINTED BY SAMUEL._
1 SAMUEL xvi. 1-13.
The rejection of Saul was laid very deeply to heart by Samuel. No doubt
there were many engaging qualities in the man Saul, which Samuel could
not but remember, and which fed the flame of personal attachment, and
made the fact of his rejection hard to digest. And no doubt, too, Samuel
was concerned for the peace and prosperity of the nation. He knew that a
change of dynasty commonly meant civil war--it might lead to the inward
weakening of a kingdom already weak enough, and its exposure to the
attacks of hostile neighbours that watched with lynx eyes for any
opportunity of dashing against Israel. Thus both on personal and on
public grounds the rejection of Saul was a great grief to Samuel,
especially as the rejection of Saul implied the rejection of Jonathan,
and the prophet might ask, with no small reason, where, in all the
nation, could there be found a better successor.
It was not God's pleasure to reveal to Samuel the tragic events that
were to stretch Jonathan and his brothers among the dead on the same day
as their father; but it was His pleasure to introduce him to the man
who, at a future time, was to rule Israel according to the ideal which
the prophet had vainly endeavoured to press upon Saul. There is a
sharpness in God's expostulation with Samuel which implies that the
prophet's grief for Saul was carried to an excessive and therefore
sinful length. "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have
rejected him from reigning over Israel?" Grief on account of others
seems such a sacred, such a holy feeling, that we are not ready to
apprehend the possibility of its acquiring the dark hue of sin. Yet if
God's children abandon themselves to the wildest excess for some sorrow
which bears to them the character of a fatherly chastening; if they
refuse to give effect in any way to God's purpose in the matter, and to
the gracious ends which He designs it to serve, they are guilty of sin,
and that sin one which is greatly dishonouring to God. It can never be
right to shut God out of view in connection with our sorrows, or to
forget that the day is coming--impossible though it may seem--when His
character shall be so vindicated in all that has happened to His
children, that all tears shall be wiped from their eyes, and it shall be
seen that His tender mercies have been over all His works.
It was to Bethlehem, and to the family of Jesse, that Samuel was to go
to find the destined successor of Saul. The place was not so far distant
from Ramah as to be quite beyond the sphere of Samuel's acquaintance. Of
Jesse, one of the leading men of the place, he would probably have at
least a general knowledge, though it is plain he had not any personal
acquaintance with him, or knowledge of his family. Bethlehem had already
acquired a marked place in Hebrew history, and Samuel could not have
been ignorant of the episode of the young Moabite widow who had given
such a beautiful proof of filial piety, and among whose descendants
Jesse and his sons were numbered. The very name of Bethlehem was fitted
to recall how God honours those that honour Him, and might have rebuked
that outburst of fear which fell from Samuel, whose first thought was
that he could not go, because if Saul heard of it he would kill him.
Well, it is plain enough that, with all his glorious qualities as a
prophet, Samuel was but a man, subject to the infirmities of men. What
an honest book the Bible is! its greatest heroes coming down so often to
the human level and showing the same weaknesses as ourselves! But God,
who stoops to human weakness, who fortified the failing heart of Moses
at the burning bush, and the doubting heart of Gideon, and afterwards
the weary heart of Elijah and the trembling heart of Jeremiah,
condescends in like manner to the infirmity of Samuel, and provides him
with an ostensible object for his journey, which was not fitted to
awaken the jealous temper of the king. Samuel is to announce that his
coming to Bethlehem is for the purpose of a sacrifice, and the
circumstances connected with the anointing of a successor to Saul are to
be gone about so quietly and so vaguely that the great object of his
visit will hardly be so much as guessed by any.
The question has often been raised, Was this diplomatic arrangement not
objectionable? Was it not an act of duplicity and deceit? Undoubtedly it
was an act of concealment, but it does not follow that it was an act of
duplicity. It was concealment of a thing which Samuel was under no
obligation to divulge. It was not concealment of which the object was to
mislead any one, or to induce any one to do what he would not have done
had the whole truth been known to him. When concealment is practised in
order to take an unfair advantage of any one, or to secure an unworthy
advantage over him, it is a detestable crime. But to conceal what you
are under no obligation to reveal, when some important end is to be
gained, is a quite different thing. "It is the glory of God to conceal a
thing;" providence is often just a vast web of concealment; the trials
of Job were the fruit of Divine concealment; the answers of our Lord to
the Syrophoenician woman were a concealment; the delay in going to
Bethany when He heard of the illness of Lazarus was just a concealment
of the glorious miracle which He intended by-and-bye to perform. One may
tell the truth, and yet not the whole truth, without being guilty of any
injustice or dishonesty. It was not on Saul's account at all that Samuel
was sent to anoint a king at Bethlehem. It was partly on Samuel's
account and partly on David's. If David was hereafter to fill the
exalted office of king of Israel, it was desirable that he should be
trained for its duties from his earliest years. Saul had not been called
to the throne till middle life, till his character had been formed and
his habits settled; the next king must be called at an earlier period of
life. And though the boy's father and brothers may not understand the
full nature of the distinction before him, they must be made to
understand that he is called to a very special service of God, in order
that they may give him up freely and readily to such preparation as that
service demands. This seems to have been the chief reason of the mission
of Samuel to Bethlehem. It could not but be known after that, that David
was to be distinguished as a servant of God, but no idea seems to have
been conveyed either to his brothers or to the elders of Bethlehem that
he was going to be king.
The arrangements for the public worship of God in those times--while the
ark of God was still at Kirjath-jearim--seem to have been far from
regular, and it appears to have been not unusual for Samuel to visit
particular places for the purpose of offering a sacrifice. It would seem
that the ordinary, though not the uniform, occasion for such visits was
the occurrence of something blameworthy in the community, and if so this
will explain the terror of the elders of Bethlehem at the visit of
Samuel, and their frightened question, "Comest thou peaceably?" Happily
Samuel was able to set their fears at rest, and to assure them that the
object of his visit was entirely peaceable. It was a religious service
he was come to perform, such a service as may have been associated with
the other religious services he was accustomed to hold as he went round
in circuit in the neighbourhood of Ramah. For this sacrifice the elders
of Bethlehem were called to sanctify themselves, as were also Jesse and
his sons. They were to take the usual steps for freeing themselves of
all ceremonial uncleanness, and after the sacrifice they were to share
the feast. A considerable interval would necessarily elapse between the
sacrifice and the feast, for the available portions of the animal had to
be prepared for food, and roasted on the fire. It was during this
interval that Samuel made acquaintance with the sons of Jesse. First
came the handsome and stately Eliab. And strange it is that even with
the fate of the handsome and stately Saul full in his memory, Samuel
leapt to the conclusion that this was the Lord's anointed. Could he
wonder at God's emphatic No! Surely he had seen enough of outward
appearance coupled with inward unfitness. One trial of that criterion
had been enough for Israel.
But alas, it is not merely in the choice of kings that men are apt to
show their readiness to rest in the outward appearance. To what an
infinite extent has this tendency been carried in the worship of God!
Let everything be outwardly correct, the church beautiful, the music
excellent, the sermon able, the congregation numerous and
respectable--what a pattern such a church is often regarded! Alas! how
little satisfactory it may be to God. The eye that searches and knows us
penetrates to the heart,--it is there only that God finds the genuine
elements of worship. The lowly sense of personal unworthiness, the
wondering contemplation of the Divine love, the eager longing for mercy
to pardon and grace to help, the faith that grasps the promises, the
hope that is anchored within the veil, the kindness that breathes
benediction all round, the love that beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,--it is these things,
breathing forth from the hearts of a congregation, that give pleasure to
God.
Or look at what often happens in secular life. See how intensely eager
some are about appearances. Why, it is one of the stereotyped rules of
society that it is necessary "to keep up appearances." Well-born people
may have become poor, very poor, but they must live to outward
appearance as if they were rich. Between rivals there may be a deadly
jealousy, but they must, by courtesy, keep up the form of friendship.
And in trade a substantial appearance must be given to goods that are
really worthless. And often, men who are really mean and unprincipled
must pose as persons very particular about the right and very indignant
at the wrong. And some, meaner than the common, must put on the cloak of
religion, and establish a character for sanctity.
The world is full of idolatries, but I question if any idolatry has been
more extensively practised than the idolatry of the outward appearance.
If there be less of this in our day than perhaps a generation back, it
is because in these days of sifting and trial men have learned in so
many ways by hard experience what a delusion it is to lean on such a
broken reed. Yes, and we have had men among us who from a point of view
not directly Christian have exposed the shams and counterfeits of the
age,--men like Carlyle, who have sounded against them a trumpet blast
which has been echoed and re-echoed round the very globe. But surely we
do not need to go outside the Bible for this great lesson. "Thou
desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part Thou shalt
make me to know wisdom;" "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord
will not hear me." Or if we pass to the New Testament, what is the great
lesson of the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee? The Publican was
a genuine man, an honest, humble, self-emptied sinner. The Pharisee was
a silly puffed-up pretender. The world seems to think that all high
profession must be hollow. I need not say that such an opinion is
utterly untenable. The world would have you profess nothing, lest you
should not come up to it. Christ says, "Abide in Me, so shall ye bear
much fruit." It was on this principle that St. Paul professed so much
and did so much. "The life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith
of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
There is nothing to be said of the other sons of Jesse. Only the
youngest one remained, apparently too young to be at the feast; he was
in the field, keeping the sheep. "And Jesse sent and brought him in. Now
he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance" (_marg._ eyes),
"and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this
is he." Though goodly to look at, he was too young, too boyish to be
preferred on the score of "outward appearance." It was qualities unseen,
and as yet but little developed, that commended him. Greatly astonished
must Jesse and his other sons have been to see Samuel pouring on the
ruddy stripling the holy oil, and anointing him for whatever the office
might be. But it has often been God's way to find His agents in
unexpected places. Here a great king is found in the sheepfold. In
Joseph's time a prime minister of Egypt was found in the prison. Our
Lord found His chief apostle in the school of Gamaliel. The great
Reformer of the sixteenth century was found in a poor miner's cottage.
God is never at a loss for agents, and if the men fail that might
naturally have been looked for to do Him service substitutes for them
are not far to seek. Out of the very stones He can raise up children to
Abraham.
But it was not a mere arbitrary arrangement that David should have been
a shepherd before he was king. There were many things in the one
employment that prepared the way for the other. In the East the shepherd
had higher rank and a larger sphere of duties than is common with us.
The duties of the shepherd, to watch over his flock, to feed and protect
them, to heal the sick, bind up the broken, and bring again that which
was driven away, corresponded to those which the faithful and godly
ruler owed to the people committed to his sceptre. It was from the time
of David that the shepherd phraseology began to be applied to rulers and
their people; and we hardly carry away the full lesson that the prophets
intended to teach in their denunciations of "the shepherds that fed
themselves and not the flock" when we apply these exclusively to the
shepherds of souls. So appropriate was the emblem of the shepherd for
denoting the right spirit and character of rulers, that it was
ultimately appropriated in a very high and peculiar sense to the person
and office of the Lord Jesus Christ. But long ere he appeared King David
had familiarised men's minds with the kind of benefits that flow from
the sceptre of a shepherd-ruler--the kind of blessings that were to flow
in their fulness from Christ. Never did he write a more expressive word
than this, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." On the
groundwork of his own earthly kingdom he had drawn the pattern of things
in heavenly places, for describing which in after times no language
could be found more suitable than that borrowed from his first
occupation.
But in full harmony with the character of Old Testament typology, the
glory of the thing symbolized was infinitely greater than the glory of
the symbol. Much though the nation owed to the godly administration of
him whom God "took from the sheepfold, and brought from following the
ewes great with young, to feed Jacob His people and Israel His
inheritance," these benefits were shadows indeed when compared with the
blessings procured by the great "Shepherd of Israel," "the good Shepherd
that giveth His life for the sheep," whose shepherd care does not
terminate with the life that now is, but will be exercised in eternity
in feeding them and leading them by living fountains of water, where God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
There are other points of typical resemblance between David and Christ
that demand our notice here. If it was a strange-like thing for God to
find the model king of Israel in a sheepcot at Bethlehem, it was still
more so to find the Saviour of the world in a workshop at Nazareth. But
again; King David was chosen for qualities that did not fall in with the
ordinary conception of what was king-like, but qualities that commended
him to God; and in the same manner the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Elect,
in whom His soul delighted, was not marked by those attributes which men
might have considered suitable in one who was to gain the empire of the
world. "He shall grow up as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry
ground; He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him there
is no beauty that we should desire Him." In bodily form the Lord Jesus
would seem to have resembled David rather than Saul. There is no reason
to think that there was any great physical superiority in Christ, that
He was taller than the common, or that He was distinguished by any of
those physical features that at first sight captivate men. And even in
the region of intellectual and spiritual influence, our Lord did not
conform to the type that naturally commands the confidence and
admiration of the world. He had a still, quiet manner. His eloquence did
not flash, nor blaze, nor flow like a torrent. The power of His words
was due more to their wonderful depth of meaning, going straight to the
heart of things, and to the aptness of His homely illustrations. Our
Lord's mode of conquest was very remarkable. He conquered by gentleness,
by forbearance, by love, by sympathy, by self-denial. He impressed men
with the glory of sacrifice, the glory of service, the glory of
obedience, obedience to the one great authority--the will of God--to
which all obedience is due. He inspired them with a love of
purity,--purity of heart, purity after the highest pattern. If you
compare our blessed Lord with those who have achieved great conquests,
you cannot but see the difference. I do not mean with conquerors like
Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon. Napoleon himself at St. Helena showed
in a word the vast difference between Christ and them. "Our conquests,"
said he, "have been achieved by force, but Jesus achieved His by love,
and to-day millions would die for Him." But look at some who have
conquered by gentler means. Take such men as Socrates, or Plato, or
Aristotle. They achieved great intellectual conquests--they founded
intellectual empires. But the intellect of Jesus Christ was of another
order from theirs. He propounded no theory of the universe, He did not
affect to explain the world of reason, He did not profess to lay bare
the laws of the human mind, or prescribe conditions for the welfare of
states. What strikes us about Christ's method of influence is its quiet
homeliness. Yet quiet and homely though it was and is, how prodigious,
how unprecedented has been its power! What other king of men has wielded
a tithe of His influence? And that not with one class of society, but
with all; not only with the poor and uneducated, but with thinkers and
men of genius as well; not only with men and women who know the world,
and know their own hearts and all their wants, and apprehend the fitness
of Christ to supply them, but even with little children, in the simple
unconsciousness of opening years. For out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings He hath perfected praise.
Now let us mark this also, in conclusion, that besides being a King
Himself Jesus makes all His people kings to God. Every Christian is
designed to be a ruler, an unconscious one it may be, but one who
exercises an influence in the same direction as Christ's. How can you
accomplish this? By first of all drinking into Christ's spirit, looking
out on the world as He did, with compassion, sympathy, self-sacrifice,
and an ardent desire for its renovation and its happiness. By walking
"worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called." Not by the
earthquake, or by the tempest, but by the still small voice. By quiet,
steady, persistent love, goodness, and self-denial. These are the true
Christian weapons, often little thought of, but really the armour of
God, and weapons mighty to the pulling down of strongholds and the
subjugation of the world to Christ.