'And the king's servants said unto the king, Behold, thy servants are
ready to do whatsoever my lord the king shall appoint.'--2 SAMUEL xv.
15.
We stand here at the darkest hour of King David's life. Bowed down by
the consciousness of his past sin, and recognising in the rebellion of
his favourite son the divine chastisement, his early courage and
buoyant daring seem to have ebbed from him wholly. He is forsaken by
the mass of his subjects, he is preparing to abandon Jerusalem, and to
flee as an exile, as he says himself so pathetically, 'whither I may.'
And at that moment of deepest depression there comes one little gleam
of consolation and one piece of chivalrous devotion which brightens the
whole story. His special retainers, apparently a bodyguard mostly of
foreigners, rally round him. Mostly foreigners, I say, for these hard
words 'Cherethites and Pelethites' most probably mean inhabitants of
the island of Crete, and Philistines. And as to six hundred of them, at
all events, there can be no doubt, for they are expressly said to be
'men of Gath who followed after him.' At all events, there was a little
nucleus of men, not his own subjects, who determined to share his fate,
whatever it was. And the words of my text are their words, 'Behold, thy
servants are ready to do whatsoever the king shall appoint.' Or, as the
word stands in the original, in an abrupt, half-finished sentence, even
more pathetic, 'According to all that my lord the king shall appoint,
behold thy servants.' These men were foreigners, not bound to render
obedience to the king, but giving it because their hearts were touched.
They were loyal amongst rebels, so many Abdiels, 'among the faithless,
faithful only' these, and they avowed their determination to cleave to
the sovereign of their choice at a time when his back was at the wall,
and their determination to follow him meant only peril and privation.
They were filled with a passionate personal attachment to the king, and
that personal attachment was ready to manifest itself as a willing
sacrifice, as such love always is ready.
Now surely in all this there is a lesson for us. The heroism of men
towards a man, the uncalculating devotion and magnificent
self-sacrifice of which the poorest human soul is capable when touched
to fine issues by some heart-love, are surely not all meant to be
lavished on fellow-creatures, who, alas! generally receive the most of
them. But these rude Philistines and Gittites, Goliath's
fellow-townsmen, may preach to us Christians a lesson. Why should not
we say as they said, 'According to all that my Lord the King shall
appoint, behold Thy servants'?