'And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the Lord
said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand,
that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David
arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily. 5. And it came to
pass afterward, that David's heart smote him, because he had out off
Saul's skirt. 6. And he said unto his men, The Lord forbid that I
should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch
forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. 7.
So David stayed his servants with these words, and suffered them not to
rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his
way. 8. David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried
after Saul, saying, My Lord the king. And when Saul looked behind him,
David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed himself, 9. And
David said to Saul, Wherefore hearest thou men's words, saying, Behold,
David seeketh thy hurt? 10. Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how
that the Lord had delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave: and
some bade me kill thee: but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will
not put forth mine hand against my lord; for he is the Lord's anointed.
11. Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my
hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not,
know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine
hand, and I have not sinned against thee; yet thou huntest my soul to
take it. 12. The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me
Of thee; but mine hand shall not be upon thee. 13. As saith the proverb
of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand
shall not be upon thee. 14. After whom is the king of Israel come out?
after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. 15. The
Lord therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and
plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand. 16. And it came to
pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul,
that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his
voice, and wept. 17. And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than
I; for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee
evil.'--1 SAMUEL xxiv. 4-17.
A sudden Philistine invasion had saved David, when hard pressed by
Saul, and had given him the opportunity of flight to the wild country
on the west of the Dead Sea, near the place where En-Gedi ('the
Fountain of the Wild Goat') sparkles into light on the hill above the
weird lake. In these savage gorges Saul's three thousand men would be
of little use against the light-footed outlaw and his troop. The whole
district is seamed with ravines, and these are honeycombed with great
caverns, where dangerous outcasts still lurk and defy capture.
Travellers go into raptures over the beauty of some of these 'fairy
grottoes' draped with maiden-hair fern, cool and moist, and blessedly
dark after the fierce light outside. In some one of these the beautiful
story which makes our lesson occurred.
I. We have the scene in the cave. The interior would be black as night
to one looking inward with eyes fresh from the blinding glare of such
sunlight upon limestone, but it would hold a glimmering twilight for
one looking outward, with eyes accustomed to the gloom. David and his
men, keeping close to the walls and hiding behind angles, might well be
unobserved by Saul at the mouth, and probably never looking in at all.
How vividly the whispered eagerness of the outcasts round David is
reproduced! They think it would be 'tempting Providence' to let such a
chance slip. They put a religious varnish on their advice. It would be
almost impious not to kill Saul, for here was the hand of God evidently
fulfilling a prophecy! There may have been some unrecorded prediction
of the sort which they seem to quote; but more probably they are only
referring to David's designation to the crown, which they had come to
know. It never struck them as possible that it could 'seem good' to a
wise man not to cut his enemy's throat when he could do it without
danger to himself. So they would watch David stealing down quietly to
the place where the unconscious king was crouching, and getting close
behind him, knife in hand. How disgusted they must have been when the
blade, that flashed for a moment in the light at the cave's mouth, was
not buried in Saul's great back, but only hacked off the end of his
robe spread out behind him! No personal animosity was in David. However
he had been driven to consort with outlaws, and to live a kind of
freebooter's life, his natural sweetness was unspoiled, and was
reinforced by solemn veneration for the sanctity of the Lord's
anointing, which he reverenced all the more because himself had
received it. He clambered back to his disappointed men, and, as soon as
he was up in the dark again, his chivalry and his religion made him
ashamed of his coarse practical jest. The humour of the thing had
tempted him to do it; but it was a rude insult, which lowered him more
than it did Saul, and, like a true man, he blushes there in the gloom
at what he has done. Then he has to defend himself to his men for not
coming up to their expectations, and he does it by insisting on the
sacredness which still surrounded Saul as 'the Lord's anointed.' David
knew that the unhappy king had been rejected and forsaken by 'the
Spirit of the Lord,' and that he himself was the true bearer of the
regal unction; but he will not take the law into his own hands, and
still regards Saul as his 'lord.' He sets the example, much needed by
us all, of leaving God to carry out His purposes at His own time, and
patiently waiting till that time comes. He had hard work to keep his
men from rushing down on the king; but, having commanded himself, is
able to restrain them. How many virtues may be in exercise in one
action! Here we have generosity, clemency, sensitiveness of conscience,
reverence, self-abnegation, patience, loyalty, firmness, sway over
lower natures for high ends,--a whole constellation shining star-like
in the dark cavern.
II. We have, next, David's pathetic remonstrance. Saul was alone, and
David could easily escape among the cliffs, if the king summoned his
men; but he risks capture, in the gush of ancient friendship. His words
are full of nobleness, and his silence is no less so. He has no
reproaches, no anger nor hate. He will not even suppose that Saul has
followed his own impulses in his persecution, but assumes that he has
been led astray by calumnies. He points to the fragment of Saul's robe
in his hand as the disproof of the lie that he had designs against him,
and passionately asserts his innocence now and in all the past. He
compares himself to some timid wild thing, like one of the goats among
the cliffs, and Saul to a hunter. He solemnly calls God to judge
between them, and appeals from the slanders and misjudgings of men to
the perfect tribunal of God, to whom he commits his cause. He abjures
all intention of striking at Saul in his own defence. He quotes, in
true Eastern manner, a scrap of proverbial wisdom, which contains the
homely truth that character determines action; for it needs a wicked
man to do a wicked thing, and he implies that he is not wicked, and
that Saul knows that well enough,--by what has just happened, if by
nothing else. Then he puts his own insignificance and the disproportion
between him and his ragged band and the imposing force of Saul in vivid
light by his half-humorous and wholly humble description of himself as
a 'dead dog,' and a 'flea'; as harmless as the one, as hard to catch as
the other, as little important as either. Finally, he reiterates his
devout reference of the whole cause to God, and his fixed resolution to
take no steps to right himself, but to leave all to Him.
So ought we to deal with slanders and enmity. The eternal law for us in
all opposition and hostility is enshrined in David's noble words and
deeds. To repay evil with benefits, to abstain from retaliation when it
is in our power, to keep our tongues from bitter and wounding words, to
appeal to the adversary's better self, even at the cost of our own
'dignity,'--all that is not easy nor usual among professing Christians.
But it ought to be. David's Lord, 'when He suffered, threatened not;
but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.' We are poor
followers of Him, if David surpasses us in patience and magnanimity. It
has taken nineteen hundred years to teach us that passive endurance is
more heroic than fighting for our own hand, and that repaying scorn and
hate with their like is less noble than meeting them with endless
forgiveness.
Psalm vii. is all but universally regarded as David's, and as belonging
to this period. In it we find a clause, 'I have delivered him that
without cause was mine enemy,' which may fairly be supposed to refer to
the scene in the cave, and we read the same vehement protestations of
innocence, the same figure of himself as a hunted wild animal, the same
appeal to God's judgment, as in his remonstrance with Saul. The psalm
is the poetic echo of our lesson.
III. We have the momentary melting of Saul's heart. He breaks into
passionate weeping. With that sudden flashing out into vehement
emotion, so characteristic of him throughout, and, in these latter days
of his life, so significant of enfeebled self-control, he recognises
David's generous forbearance in its contrast to his own hate, which,
for the moment, he feels to be causeless. There is a piteous
remembrance of the days when David soothed him by song, in his mention
of the sweet 'voice,' and some rekindling of ancient love in his
calling him 'My son.' Then follow the sad words which confess the
hopelessness of his struggle against the divine purpose, and his appeal
for mercy to his house. The picture may well move solemn thoughts and
pity for that scathed and solitary soul, seeing for a moment, as by a
lightning flash, the madness of his course, and yet held so fast in the
grip of his dark passions that he cannot shake off their tyranny.
Two great lessons are taught by that tragic figure of the weeping and
yet unchanged king. One is of the power of forbearing gentleness to
exorcise hate. The true way to 'overcome evil' is to melt it by fiery
coals of gentleness. That is God's way. An iceberg may be crushed to
powder, but every fragment is still ice. Only sunshine that melts it
will turn it into sweet water. Love is conqueror, and the only
conqueror, and its conquest is to transform hate into love. The other
lesson is the worthlessness of mere feeling, which by its very nature
passes away, and, like unstored rain, leaves the rock in its obstinate
hardness more exposed. Saul only increased his guilt by reason of the
fleeting glimpse of his folly which he did not follow up; and our
gleams of insight into some sin and madness of ours but add to our
responsibility. Emotion which does not lead to action hardens the
heart, and adds to our guilt and condemnation.