Digging Deeper for such a time as this: *** Part 2 of ?# *** DAVID AT THE COURT OF SAUL And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the Lord was with him.—1 Sam. 18:14. THE narrative relating the estrangement of Saul and David is one of the most perplexing in the Bible. Nothing in the ancient history of Israel aroused such interest as that romantic period in the career of the great king when his life was in danger at the hands of Saul. There must have been countless narratives of his friendship with Jonathan, of his daring exploits and hairbreadth escapes, of his courage and generosity, of his resourcefulness and shrewd sayings. The number of psalms ascribed to this period shows how great an interest it excited in after days. It is therefore permissible to regard these chapters as a collection of well-known stories about David, rather than as an orderly presentation of facts. The Alexandrian translators, however, have endeavoured with some success to give a connected account of the progress of Saul’s estrangement from David by omitting various passages in 1 Sam. 17–19. Thus the account of Saul’s casting his spear at David is omitted and the promise of marriage with the elder daughter Merab; the gradual growth of Saul’s jealousy is described, and each stage is appropriately emphasized with the words “Saul was afraid of David” (18:12), “stood in awe of him” (18:15), “was yet more afraid” (18:29); and on account of the clear and consistent picture given in this version, many scholars accept the LXX text as original. i. Saul’s Jealousy It is not easy to trace the beginning of the distrust which Saul conceived for his young favourite, who had been promoted to the position of captain of the bodyguard (1 Sam. 22:14, LXX). Perhaps after all it is only natural that there should be some want of definiteness in the narratives. The facts could be known only to those belonging to the innermost circle of the court, and all our records are written from the point of view of friends of David. If any ill-advised action on his part contributed to excite Saul’s ill-will, we are told nothing about it. The main reason alleged for Saul’s enmity is the jealousy of David’s popularity and success in war, which is said to have been excited by the song of the women, who met the victorious warriors with the words, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” The situation was one to arouse jealousy, even in a better balanced mind than that of Saul. The kingship was not yet a well-established institution. To maintain his position the king must be recognized as the strongest man in his realm. Saul’s authority rested almost entirely on his military achievements. Suddenly his glory had been eclipsed by that of another, who not only had the support of the powerful tribe of Judah but also was endowed with a unique personal charm. ¶ Jealousy is not one of the faults which are only the shadow of intelligence and reason; it is part of the animal inheritance of man. Faults such as untruthfulness, insincerity, irreverence, cynicism, are faults which come from the misuse of reason and imagination. But jealousy is simply a brutish fault, the selfish and spiteful dislike of seeing others enjoy what one would wish to enjoy oneself. It even goes deeper than that, and becomes, when deeply rooted, a mere dislike of seeing other people happy, even though one is happy oneself. There are people who like to spoil the grace of a gift by giving it grudgingly and conditionally; and worse still, there are people who like, if they can, to throw cold water over the enjoyment of others, and belittle or explain away their successes. I do not think so ill of human nature as to say that we are most of us deliberately pleased to hear of a misfortune happening to an acquaintance, but the feelings which it arouses are not as a rule those of unmixed sorrow; even the best people have a comfortable sense of heightened security resulting from the news, or at least a sense of thankfulness that the misfortune has not befallen themselves. To be whole-heartedly glad of the success or good fortune of an acquaintance is a sign of a really generous and kindly nature. We do most of us need to discipline ourselves in the matter, and we ought to encourage and nurture by every means in our power the sense of shame and self-contempt which, after all, we do feel on reflection at the thought of how little we are affected by pleasure at others’ good fortune, or by sorrow at others’ calamities. The apostolic command to rejoice with those that rejoice and to weep with those that weep is by no means a platitude, but a very real and needful counsel of Christian conduct. ii. David’s Courage For some time Saul kept his jealousy concealed, and David was publicly honoured. Saul appointed him to a command in the army, either as a mark of favour or because of his growing distrust; in any case, when David was removed from the royal presence, his popularity increased. Not only did the people love the young general, but he found favour in the eyes of Saul’s daughter Michal. Saul, hoping to entrap him, sent courtiers to suggest that David should become his son-in-law, and that he should pay the dowry by slaying a hundred Philistines. David disappointed Saul’s hope that his rashness would lead him to his death, and provided the dowry required by the king. The royal promise was kept, and Michal was married to David. The incident is truly Oriental. But David’s courage in the face of open and serious danger is worthy of all admiration. ¶ There is no real courage unless there is real perception of danger. The man who does not comprehend the perils which surround him, and is therefore calm and collected, is not courageous; he is simply ignorant. And, in like manner, the unimaginative man, who has no consciousness of danger until he looks straight into its eyes, is not courageous; he is dull and sluggish. The highest courage is manifested only by the man who knows what he faces and fully realizes it. The duty of measuring one’s power accurately in accepting responsibilities is often illustrated by the disasters which overtake those who fail to gauge their ability to endure or to achieve; but it is nobler to fail through excess of courage than through cowardice. Those who sit well housed, well warmed, and well fed often commend themselves as discreet users of opportunity and successful solvers of the problems of living, when, as a matter of fact, they are leaving the doors of opportunity unopened and evading the problems of life. Success in dealing with life consists in resolutely closing with it and measuring one’s self fearlessly against its greatest forces. In such a world as this courage is the only safety; the coward is lost. There is no possible retreat and no place where one can hide himself; safety lies in pushing resolutely on through storm and darkness and danger. These are but the shadows on the path; for the brave they have no real existence. In such a world he who takes God at His word and ventures most is most cautious and far-seeing; and the more daring the faith, the greater the certainty of achievement. “God being with us, who can be against us?” It is our part to welcome responsibility, to crave the difficult work, to seek the dangerous duty; for these are our divinest opportunities of service and growth. iii. Jonathan’s Love 1. The jealousy of the king became at length so fierce and uncontrolled that it could no longer be hidden. He spoke openly of David’s destruction, and even to Jonathan. Jonathan warned David, but Jonathan himself could hardly believe that it was more than passing frenzy on his father’s part. He contrived to remonstrate with him, so that David could hear what was said, and so moved the king’s heart at the moment that he himself was reassured, and David was also reassured, and presented himself as usual at court. But a Philistine war soon brought him new laurels, and Saul new rage. A new fit of brooding melancholy seized the king. Unconscious of danger, David, as was his wont, was playing before him on the guitar, when Saul, transported to frenzy, cast his javelin at him, and tried to pin him to the wall. David evaded the weapon, escaped from Saul’s presence, and fled to his own house. Saul’s mind was now made up, apparently, to rid himself of his enemy: he had David’s house surrounded by guards, who were to slay him when he came forth in the morning. The watchers were noticed by his wife Michal, who at once divined their intentions, and she let her husband down by a window on the other side of the house, while she placed in his bed the teraphim or household image, and covered it with the bed-clothes. When Saul’s messengers came at his command to carry to the king the supposed sick man, bed and all, the trick was discovered, and Michal saved herself by pretending that it was in her own interests that David had escaped, lest Saul’s daughter should share the fate of his son-in-law. “He said unto me, Let me go; why should I kill thee?” The trick gave David time to make good his escape from the district of Gibeah. Michal loved David well; could she only have shared his faith in God all had been well with her. ¶ You fancy, perhaps, as you have been told so often, that a wife’s rule should only be over her husband’s house, not over his mind. Ah, no! the true rule is just the reverse of that; a true wife in her husband’s house is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of best he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she must purge into purity, all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth; from her, through all the world’s clamour, he must win his praise; in her, through all the world’s warfare, he must find his peace. 2. An independent and parallel account of David’s escape, and of previous efforts of Jonathan in his favour, is given in chap. 20, which goes back to a time when David was still at court, and when no one apparently suspected Saul’s evil intentions but David himself. Jonathan could hardly be convinced that David’s suspicions were well founded. The friends agreed, however, that David should remain in hiding for three days, and that Jonathan should draw Saul into a conversation about David, in which his real intentions might be discovered. The means taken by Jonathan to carry out his undertaking was to observe Saul’s attitude when David’s place at the royal table was seen to be empty. The first day of David’s absence, Saul said nothing, thinking that some accidental ceremonial defilement had kept him from the royal table, where the meal would be a sacrificial one on this festal day. Next day, however, when David’s seat was again empty, he asked Jonathan about him, and on receiving the reply agreed on—that David had gone to Bethlehem to take part in a family festival—broke out into most vulgar and violent insults of Jonathan for befriending David, and actually flung his javelin-sceptre to slay him too. Jonathan left the table “in fierce anger,” and, recognizing that matters were hopeless, went to give David, in his hiding-place, the news by a secret code already arranged between them. The fatal word was heard by David in his hiding-place—“Is not the arrow beyond thee? Make speed, haste, stay not.” Neither the boy with the quiver, nor any other hearer but David, was the wiser. David, however, abandoning the attempt at secrecy, rose out of his hiding-place as soon as the boy had been sent back to the town, took a pathetic and tearful farewell of his loyal and self-sacrificing friend, and henceforth, till Saul’s death, was a refugee and an outlaw. It was a bitter parting; both of them were conscious of a terrible cloud hanging over them. The soul of Jonathan, especially, seems to have been overcast with the impression that their happy intercourse would never again be renewed; therefore he pledged David with that pathetic vow, to be faithful to his seed, and to remember their love when all his enemies had been cut off. “Go in peace,” Jonathan said finally, as though he could no longer bear the awful anguish of that parting, “forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed, for ever.” Then David arose and departed to become a fugitive and an outlaw, liable at any moment to capture and violent death; whilst Jonathan returned thoughtfully and sadly to the palace, where he must spend the rest of his life in contact with one who had no sympathy with his noble sentiments, and had outraged his tenderest sensibilities. ¶ For every David there lives a Saul. But for every David there lives also a Jonathan. “Saul eyed David from that day and forward.” Yes; but from that day and forward Jonathan loved him as his own soul, and spent his life in ministering to David’s slow but sure advance. How dreadful an enmity the enmity of the father! How rare a friendship the friendship of the son! His robe, his sword, his bow, his girdle—all are at the service of this young man, minded to do and dare, and so carry on the great traditions of a people chosen of the Lord. So in the same hour entered into David’s life a mighty, relentless foe, and a royal, faithful, tireless friend. And the friend always comes. ¶ Rutherford was the spy chosen by Jesus Christ to go out first of all the ministers of Scotland into the life of banishment in that day, so as to try its fords and taste its vineyards, and to report to God’s straitened and persecuted people at home. To begin with, it must always be remembered that Rutherford was not laid in irons in Aberdeen, or cast into a dungeon. He was simply deprived of his pulpit and of his liberty to preach, and was sentenced to live in silence in the town of Aberdeen. Like Dante, another great spy of God’s providence and grace, Rutherford was less a prisoner than an exile. But if any man thinks that simply to be an exile is a small punishment, or a light cross, let him read the psalms and prophecies of Babylon, the Divine Comedy, and Rutherford’s Letters. Yes, banishment was banishment; exile was exile; silent Sabbaths were silent Sabbaths; and a borrowed fireside with all its willing heat was still a borrowed fireside; and, spite of all that the best people of Aberdeen could do for Samuel Rutherford, he felt the friendliest stairs of that city to be very steep to his feet, and its best bread to be very salt in his mouth. 3. Jonathan’s love was truly great; it was no blossom of nature’s growth—it was the fruit of the operation of the Spirit of God, such as one could almost scarcely look for in such perfection in the time of the Old Covenant. His was the love that sacrifices all for the loved one. Humanly speaking, he had nothing to gain from his friendship with the youthful harpist, while the advantages to David of a friend of Jonathan’s position were unlimited. But David’s side of the friendship was also truly heroic, for it had its dangers. David’s position at Saul’s court was a most difficult one. His life was sought, both openly and by plot and intrigue, and, with the change in the king’s mood, envious, rancorous tongues would not be wanting to shoot their shafts at him. But, amidst all, as David showed no vanity or pride in the day of his prosperity, so now he makes no attempt, by counter-intrigue, to retaliate upon or overthrow his enemies, in the day of adversity. Saul deals wrongly towards him, but he behaves with unimpeachable fidelity towards Saul. “He behaved himself wisely,” the history informs us. Under all the honours with which he saw himself loaded, he remained master of his spirit, and always like himself. However high they raised him, his heart did not raise itself. In all his actions he conducted himself as became an obedient and submissive servant of his king. David was endowed with natural qualities which could not but tend to promote this sincere and confiding friendship on the part of Jonathan; David’s noble self-respect, always associated with unfeigned modesty and humility, as well as his whole general demeanour, as far removed from an unworthy over-estimation of the honour conferred upon him through the favour of the king’s son as his conduct toward that like-minded youth was removed from everything like presumptuous arrogance—how could this fail to gain the whole heart of his friend? ¶ How were Friendship possible? In mutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise impossible, except as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man. ¶ The miracle of friendship has been too often enacted on this dull earth of ours to suffer us to doubt either its possibility or its wondrous beauty. The classic instance of David and Jonathan represents the typical friendship. They met, and at the meeting knew each other to be nearer than kindred. By subtle elective affinity they felt that they belonged to each other. Out of all the chaos of the time and the disorder of their lives, there arose for these two souls a new and beautiful world, where there reigned peace, and love, and sweet content. It was the miracle of the death of self. Jonathan forgot his pride, and David his ambition. It was as the smile of God which changed the world to them. One of them it saved from the temptations of a squalid court, and the other from the sourness of an exile’s life. Jonathan’s princely soul had no room for envy or jealousy. David’s frank nature rose to meet the magnanimity of his friend. In the kingdom of love there was no disparity between the king’s son and the shepherd boy. Such a gift as each gave and received is not to be bought or sold. It was the fruit of the innate nobility of both: it softened and tempered a very trying time for both. Jonathan withstood his father’s anger to shield his friend: David was patient with Saul for his son’s sake. They agreed to be true to each other in their difficult position. Close and tender must have been the bond which had such fruit in princely generosity and mutual loyalty of soul. Fitting was the beautiful lament, when David’s heart was bereaved at tragic Gilboa, “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” Love is always wonderful, a new creation, fair and fresh to every loving soul. It is the miracle of spring to the cold, dull earth. You ask me “why I like him.” Nay, I cannot; nay, I would not, say. I think it vile to pigeonhole The pros and cons of a kindred soul. You “wonder he should be my friend.” But then why should you comprehend? Thank God for this—a new—surprise: My eyes, remember, are not your eyes. Cherish this one small mystery; And marvel not that love can be “In spite of all his many flaws.” In spite? Supposing I said “Because.” A truce, a truce to questioning: “We two are friends” tells everything. Yet if you must know, this is why: Because he is he and I am I. Hastings, J. (Ed.). (1914). In The greater men and women of the Bible: Ruth–Naaman. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. - via Logos 5
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 16:52:02 +0000
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