'And David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched: and
David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Xer, the
captain of his host: and Saul lay in the trench, and the people pitched
round about him. 6. Then answered David and said to Ahimelech the
Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab, saying,
Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp? And Abishai said, I will
go down with thee. 7. So David and Abishai came to the people by night:
and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck
in the ground at his bolster: but Abner and the people lay round about
him. 8. Then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into
thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with
the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the
second time. 9. And David said to Abishai, Destroy him not: for who can
stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless?
10. David said furthermore, As the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite
him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into battle, and
perish. 11. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand
against the Lord's anointed: but, I pray thee, take thou now the spear
that is at his bolster, and the cruse of water, and let us go. 12. So
David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul's bolster; and
they gat them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither awaked: for
they were all asleep; because a deep sleep from the Lord was fallen
upon them .... 21. Then said Saul, I have sinned: return, my son David:
for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine
eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred
exceedingly. 22. And David answered and said, Behold the king's spear!
and let one of the young men come over and fetch it. 23. The Lord
render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness; for the
Lord delivered thee into my hand today, but I would not stretch forth
mine hand against the Lord's anointed. 24. And, behold, as thy life was
much set by this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set by in the
eyes of the Lord, and let Him deliver me out of all tribulation. 25.
Then Saul said to David, Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both
do great things, and also shalt still prevail. So David went on his
way, and Saul returned to his place.'--1 SAMUEL xxvi 5-12; 21-25.
It is fashionable at present to regard this incident and the other
instance of David's sparing Saul, when in his power, as two versions of
one event. But it if not improbable that the hunted outlaw should twice
have taken refuge in the same place, or that his hiding-place should
have been twice betrayed. He had but a small choice of safe retreats,
and the Ziphites had motive for a second betrayal in the fact of the
first, and of its failure to secure David's capture. The whole cast of
the two incidents is so different that it is impossible to see how the
one could have been evolved from the other, and either they are both
true, or they are both unhistorical, or, at best, are both the product
of fancy working on, and arbitrarily filling up, a very meagre skeleton
of fact. Many of the advocates of the identity of the incident at the
bottom of the two accounts would accept the latter explanation; we take
the former.
Saul had three thousand men with him; David had left his little troop
'in the wilderness,' and seems to have come with only his two
companions, Ahimelech and his own nephew, Abishai, to reconnoitre. He
sees, from some height, the camp, with the transport wagons making a
kind of barricade in the centre--just as camps are still arranged in
South Africa and elsewhere,--and Saul established therein as in a rude
fortification. A bold thought flashes into his mind as he looks.
Perhaps he remembered Gideon's daring visit to the camp of Midian. He
will go down, and not only into the camp, but 'to Saul,' through the
ranks and over the barrier. What to do he does not say, but the two
fierce fighters beside him think of only one thing as sufficient motive
for such an adventure. Abishai volunteers to go with him; no doubt
Ahimelech would have been ready also, but two were enough, and three
would only have increased risk. So they lay close hid till night fell,
and then stole down through the sleeping ranks with silent movements,
like a couple of Indians on the war-trail, climbed the barricade, and
stood at last where Saul lay, with his spear, as the emblem of
kingship, stuck upright at his head, and a cruse of water for slaking
thirst, if he awoke, beside him. Those who should have been his guards
lay sleeping round him, for a 'deep sleep from Jehovah was fallen upon
them.' What a vivid, strange picture it is, and how characteristic of
the careless discipline of unscientific Eastern warfare!
The tigerish lust for blood awoke in Abishai. Whatever sad, pitying,
half-tender thoughts stirred in David as he looked at the mighty form
of Saul, with limbs relaxed in slumber, and perhaps some of the gloom
and evil passions charmed out of his face, his nephew's only thought
was,' What a fair mark! what an easy blow!' He was brutally eager to
strike once, and truculently sure that his arm would make sure that
once would be enough. He was religious too, after a strange fierce
fashion. God-significantly he does not say 'Jehovah'; his religion was
only the vague belief in a deity-had delivered Saul into David's hands,
and it would be a kind of sin not to kill him. How many bloody
tragedies that same unnatural alliance of religion and murderous hate
has varnished over! Very beautifully does David's spirit contrast with
this. Abishai represents the natural impulse of us all--to strike at
our enemies when we can, to meet hate with hate, and do to another the
evil that he would do to us.
David here, though he could be fierce and cruel enough sometimes, and
had plenty of the devil in him, listens to his nobler self, which
listens to God, and, at a time when everything tempted him to avenge
himself, resists and overcomes. He is here a saint after the New
Testament pattern. Abishai had, in effect, said, 'Thou shalt love thy
neighbour, and hate thine enemy.' David's finely-tuned ear heard, long
before they were spoken on earth, the great Christian words, 11 say
unto you, Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you.' He knew
that Saul had been 'rejected,' but he was 'Jehovah's anointed,' and the
unction which had rested on that sleeping head lingered still. It was
not for David to be the executor of God's retribution. He left himself
and his cause in Jehovah's hands, and no doubt it was with sorrow and
pitying love, not altogether quenched by Saul's mad hate, that he
foresaw that the life which he spared now was certain one day to be
smitten. We may well learn the lesson of this story, and apply it to
the small antagonisms and comparatively harmless enmities which may
beset our more quiet lives. David in Saul's 'laager,' Stephen outside
the wall, alike lead up our thoughts to Jesus' prayer,' Father, forgive
them; for they know not what they do.'
The carrying off of the spear and the cruse was a couch of almost
humour, and it, with the ironical taunt flung across the valley to
Abner, gives relief to the strain of emotion in the story. Saul's burst
of passionate remorse is morbid, paroxysmal, like his fits of fury, and
is sure to foam itself away. The man had no self-control. He had let
wild, ungoverned moods master him, and was truly 'possessed.' One
passion indulged had pushed him over the precipice into insanity, or
something like it. Let us take care not to let any passion, emotion, or
mood get the upper hand. 'That way madness lies.' 'He that hath no rule
over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, without walls.'
And let us not confound remorse with repentance 'The sorrow of the
world worketh death.' Saul grovelled in agony that day, but tomorrow he
was raging again with more than the old frenzy of hate. Many a man
says, 'I have played the fool,' and yet goes on playing it again when
the paroxysm of remorse has stormed itself out. David's answer was by
no means effusive, for he had learned how little Saul's regrets were to
be trusted. He takes no notice of the honeyed words of invitation to
return, and will not this time venture to take back the spear and
cruse, as he had done, on the previous occasion, the skirt of Saul's
robe. He solemnly appeals to Jehovah's righteous judgment to determine
his and Saul's respective 'righteousness and faithfulness.' He is
silent as to what that judgment may have in reserve for Saul, but for
himself he is calmly conscious that, in the matter of sparing Saul's
life, he has done right, and expects that God will deliver him 'out of
all tribulation.' That is not self-righteous boasting, although it does
not exactly smack of the Christian spirit; but it is faith clinging to
the confidence that God is 'not unrighteous to forget' his servant's
obedience, and that the innocent will not always be the oppressor's
victim.
What a strange, bewildered, self-contradictory chaos of belief and
intention is revealed in poor, miserable Saul's parting words! He
blesses the man whom he is hunting to slay. He knows that all his wild
efforts to destroy him are foredoomed to failure, and that David 'shall
surely prevail'; and yet he cannot give up fighting against the
inevitable,--that is, against God. How many of us are doing the very
same thing--rushing on in a course of life which we know, when we are
sane, to be dead against God's will, and therefore doomed to utter
collapse some day!
'And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war
against me, and God is departed from me.'-1 Samuel xxviii. 15.
Among all the persons of Scripture who are represented as having fallen
away from God and wrecked their lives, perhaps there is none so
impressive as the giant form of the first king of Israel. Huge and
black, seamed and scarred with lightning marks of passions, moody and
suspicious, devil-ridden and lonely, doubting his truest friends, and
even his son, striking blindly in his fury at the gracious, sunny
poet-warrior who shows so bright, so full of resource, so nimble, so
generous, by contrast with the heavy strength of the moody giant, and
ever escapes the javelin that quivers harmlessly in the wall, with an
inevitable destiny hanging over his head, and at last creeping to
'wizards that peep and mutter,' and dying a suicide, with his army in
full flight and his son dead at his feet--what a course and what an end
for the chosen of the Lord, on whom the Spirit of the Lord came with
the anointing oil, and gave him a new heart for his kingly office.
I know not anywhere a sadder story: and I know not where human lips
ever poured out a more awful wail--like a Titan in his rage of
pain--than these words of our text. Bright hopes and fair promise, and
much that was good and true in performance--all came to this. A few
hours more and the 'battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit
him, and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers.' Madness,
despair, defeat, death, all were the sequel of, 'Because thou hast
rejected the commandment of the Lord, the Lord hath also rejected thee
from being king.' A true soul's tragedy! Let us look together at its
course, and gather the lessons that lie on the surface. We have neither
space nor wish here to enter upon the many points of minute interest
and curiosity which are in the story. We have to be contented with
large outlines.