Digging Deeper for such a time as this: ***Part 1 of 8 *** DAVID THE SHEPHERD-MINSTREL And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly.—1 Sam. 16:21. IT is very rarely that a nation has associated all her attributes with the life of a single man. But in the Hebrews we find a people, through long centuries of its history and through devious changes of its fortune, consistently and persistently agreeing to heap upon a single individual the aggregate glories of every profession in life. Israel has fixed her affections upon an ideal whose very name expresses the object uniting all desires—David, the beloved. To claim one man as the object of all national desires is a claim not easily sustained. It can be supported only on the supposition that this one man has passed through every national experience, has filled every sphere, has partaken of every circumstance. Accordingly, the David of Israel is not simply the greatest of her kings; he is the man great in everything. He monopolizes all her institutions. He is her shepherd boy—the representative of her toiling classes. He is her musician—the successor of Jubal and Miriam and Deborah. He is her soldier—the conqueror of all the Goliaths that would steal her peace. He is her king—numbering her armies and regulating her polity. He is her priest—substituting a broken and contrite spirit for the blood of bulls and rams. He is her prophet—presaging with his latest breath the everlastingness of his kingdom. He is her poet—all her psalms are called by his name. The truth is, in the estimation of Israel this man is a personification of the nation itself—the embodiment of her qualities, the incarnation of her spirit, the type of her destiny. ¶ Brave and chivalrous, energetic and prudent, a judge of men, a true lover of his country, just and wisely impartial in his administration, David combined all the high qualities of a king who has made his way to the throne by real merit, and held it successfully to the last. He had also the personal qualities that endear a king to his subjects and a man to his fellows: considerate humanity, loyalty in friendship, strong family feeling, the genial gift of music and song. The stains upon his character—his deceitfulness, his severity in war, his sensual indulgence—may be partly excused by the general customs of the time; and where he fell below the common standards of morality, he righted himself again by a genuine contrition and repentance. Add to this an upright and earnest piety, faith in God and humble submission to His will: qualities that found expression in rude, even superstitious ways typical of the age, but forming evidently the bedrock of his character. Whether we consider David’s personal qualities, or his great achievements for a nation whose best traits he represented, we cannot wonder that the later generations of Israel exalted him above all his successors, and formed after his image their ideal king of the future Messianic times. THE SOURCES 1. The Biblical account of David is to be found (a) in the narrative of 1 Sam. 16–1 Kings 2; (b) in 1 Chron. 2, 3, 10–29; see also Ruth 4:18–22; and (c) in the titles of many psalms. Of these three sources the first is alike the oldest and the primary authority; information derived from the other two can be used only sparingly. 2. Much of the story is undoubtedly historical. It is plain that David was what we should call an honest burgher’s son, and that he kept the flocks of his father on the hills about his native place. He rose to his kingship out of the level of the people, having no advantage of birth more than another. It is plain that he was of great physical beauty, strength, and courage, with an eagerness in him for fighting. It is plain that he was a born leader of men; he shows this not only as the young hero of the army, but also as the outlaw, the free-companion, the king, and the lawgiver. It is plain that he was early mixed up with the court of Saul, and that the eyes of the people were more and more fastened upon him. It is plain that he was driven from the tents of Saul, and that he lived an outlaw’s life, and collected round him a band of daring companions who lived by plunder of their foes, and by blackmail levied on their countrymen. It is plain that when he was made king he united under him the contending political parties in Israel. It is plain that he was the first who welded into one nation the different tribes and made them feel themselves a homogeneous people. It is plain that he took Jerusalem, and made it—to promote further this unity—the capital, the centre of the kingdom. It is plain that his first years as king were stormy, and that he had to fight his way against many parties to confessed overlordship. It is plain that he had to face a great rebellion arising within his own home. It is plain that he created a kind of standing army, an ordered government, an established religion, and that these important things made steadfast the national unity of Israel. It is plain that, having done these things, he not only weakened the frontier foes of Israel, but made many of them tributary. At his death Israel had taken her place. She was lifted from a mere congeries of tribes into a recognized kingdom. These matters are all historical. But we must also remember that there was certain to gather round his name and life a succession of legends. The account we have of him gives us the conception which later writers, and the people of Israel in general, had of a great king and hero. It was a national conception. It reveals to us the character the Hebrews loved and honoured. It was a religious conception. It reveals to us the sort of man they conceived to be after God’s own heart; and how they thought that God dealt with him; and what they believed to be the right and the wrong ways in which a great leader should meet and master a number of various events and trials. This in itself—this conception of the Hebrews of a national and religious king of men—is an historical element and one of the greatest interest. ¶ Round the name of David have gathered the national ideals of heroism and sainthood so often found in combination in early story. They had a true origin in David, if we judge from the standards of piety and rulership that were natural to his age. Outlaw, hero, poet, saint—David is the darling of Israel’s history. It would be unfair to David to picture him as the saintly author of some of the tender Psalms that bear his name, although others of a more robust character might well be from his hand. That David was a poet seems to be certain, and the songs of lament over Saul and Abner, which have strong claims to be genuine, bear witness to his true poetic gift; but they are deficient in any display of deep religious feeling. We may have also to reduce somewhat the conception of the extent or the absoluteness of his kingly rule. He was rather one of those freebooters who, by their heroism and rough manly courage, are able to gather round them men of their own nature and to inspire in their followers a loyal devotion. To this pleasant adventurer the early kingdom fell, but for long it was only a kingdom of personal followers; nor does he ever seem to have been enthusiastically acknowledged by the whole nation, or to have established his claims absolutely beyond dispute. His heroic defence against the Philistine invasion was sufficient to give him a great place in the affection of the people, yet he never assumed the imperial rule in the manner of his successor Solomon. With all this necessary allowance for the idealizing process of a later age, David was the indispensable centre round which the early ideals and legends of the Monarchy could collect. DAVID’S INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY 1. One noticeable feature of the Davidic narratives contained in 1 Sam. 16–31 is the existence of a number of “doublets,” i.e., accounts of very similar events, or divergent accounts of the same event. There are three different stories introducing David into history. (1) The Anointing by Samuel.—This story presents us with a dramatic contrast between the fresh hope of David’s young life and the rejection of the self-willed King Saul, whose course was rapidly descending towards the fatal field of Gilboa. The first king had proved a failure. The worst fears of Samuel were confirmed, his hopes were disappointed. With all the evident latent power in him, Saul had not risen to the opportunity. There had been a battle in his breast—a battle between God’s will and self-will—and self-will had conquered. He is not going to be God’s instrument, as the man who will rule Israel must be. Saul, it is said, “rejected the word of the Lord”; and the Lord rejected him from being king. For a time indeed he remained king, until his sin worked out to its sad end; but God had fixed upon another to take his place, and God’s prophet, Samuel, was appointed to fulfil God’s will and anoint the new king. The mysterious call of Jehovah sent him to Bethlehem with the certainty of finding among Jesse’s sons the king after Jehovah’s own heart. The aged judge went thither as he was bid, causing the elders of the town no small alarm at first. He took a special sacrifice as the apparent occasion for his visit, called the elders and Jesse’s family to the sacrificial meal, and keenly scanned the faces of Jesse’s sons as they entered one after the other. At first Eliab, the eldest, pleased him, but the monitor within soon rejected him. One by one the sons of the old chief of Bethlehem passed before the man who was God’s messenger, and none of them would pass muster. Still the prophet was seeking what he could not find. “And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent, and brought him in.” There is the silent and puzzled group patiently or impatiently waiting. Only one man knows for what. And there breaks upon it this rustic youth, fresh from the field, bearing with him the scent of the sheepfold, with ruddy locks and parted lips, and the great eyes of a poet full of wonder. And even as he enters, it is revealed to Samuel that this is the future king, and the voice to which he has been accustomed to render implicit obedience says, “Arise, anoint him: for this is he.” So David appears suddenly, and from the moment that he appears he captivates us who read the narrative; while for the history, the troubled history of the chosen people, his coming is as the dawn of a new day. ¶ The most consummate art could have taken no better way of heightening the effect of his first appearance than that adopted in this perfectly unartificial story, which leads us up a long avenue to where the shepherd boy stands. First, we have Samuel, with his regrets and objections; then Jesse with his seven stalwart sons; and at last, when expectation has been heightened by delay and by the minute previous details, the future king is disclosed—a stripling with his ruddy locks glistening with the anointing oil, and his lovely eyes. ¶ We are enabled to fix his appearance at once in our minds. It is implied that he was of short stature, thus contrasting with his tall brother Eliab, with his rival Saul, and with his gigantic enemy of Gath. He had red or auburn hair, such as is not unfrequently seen in his countrymen of the East at the present day. His bright eyes are especially mentioned, and generally he was remarkable for the grace of his figure and countenance (“fair of eyes,” “comely,” “goodly”), well made, and of immense strength and agility. In swiftness and activity, like his nephew Asahel, he could only be compared to the wild gazelle, with feet like harts’ feet, with arms strong enough to break a bow of steel. He was pursuing the occupation usually allotted in Eastern countries to the slaves, the females or the despised of the family. He carried a switch or wand in his hand, such as would be used for his dogs, and a scrip or wallet round his neck, to carry anything that was needed for his shepherd’s life, and a sling to ward off beasts or birds of prey. Such was the outer life of David, when he was “taken from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young, to feed Israel according to the integrity of his heart, and to guide them by the skilfulness of his hands.” (2) The King’s Minstrel.—According to the earliest narrative (1 Sam. 16:14–23) David was already a mighty man of valour, one of the Gibborim who gathered about Saul, as the knights of the Round Table about King Arthur. The king had been attacked with morbid melancholy, called by the historian “an evil spirit from Jehovah.” His servants suggested that a skilful player upon the harp should be brought to soothe the king with his music, and David, the son of Jesse, was chosen for this office. David’s playing had the desired effect: Saul was roused from his gloomy fit. Perhaps the sight of the valiant youth, as well as converse with one whose faith was still fresh and untroubled, combined with the power of music and song to effect the cure. Saul came in time to love the youth. ¶ Browning’s poem of Saul is the great illustration in literature of the playing of David before Saul. David comes with music and song, and even more with his humanity and faith, to try what may be done for the mad king. He tries all kinds of song and all earthly appeals, and is only very partially successful. When impelled to save, he is driven by his very helplessness and yearning out upon God—on “the Christ in God”—and finds at length in that (when the whole feeling and resource of his nature has been roused) the saving help and vital power he was seeking. The Divine love and pity, the essential humanity of Deity, are our last ground of hope for such cases, and if, in a life such as ours and with men as they are, that be not a necessary truth, it is surely a beneficent and reasonable faith. ¶ The culminating moment in the effort of David by which he rouses to life the sunken soul of the King, the moment towards which all others tend, is that in which he finds in his own nature love as God’s ultimate gift, and assured that in this, as in other gifts, the creature cannot surpass the Creator, he breaks forth into a prophecy of God’s love made perfect in weakness: O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand! (3) The Slaying of Goliath.—Another writer (1 Sam. 17. E) puts David’s introduction to Saul into more dramatic form. The armies of Israel and Philistia are encamped opposite, and neither is quite ready for an attack. By a custom not without its instances in other histories, one side proposes to settle things by a duel between two champions. But the challenger is a very big man, and the Israelites cannot find a man who is at all his match. After many challenges it happens that the shepherd boy from Bethlehem comes into camp to visit his elder brothers, hears the challenge, takes fire at it, and offers to meet the champion. The lad trained on the hills, who had single-handed hunted down the lion and the bear, was not likely to be dismayed by the bravo, huge and well armed as he was. Putting aside the armour offered by the king, he advances to meet the giant. He brings his opponent to the ground by a stone slung against his forehead, and then cuts off his head with his own sword. At the death of their champion the Philistines are dismayed; they break and flee in disorder, and the Israelites pursue them beyond the border. Through all the manifold varieties of form which may have been assumed in the following centuries by this first great warlike exploit of David, it preserved its own peculiar importance, and all the many narrators whose traces we can detect are united in the feeling of its high significance. Even supposing these stories of successful prowess against Philistine giants had been told and applauded a hundred times in Israel, in no other spirit than that in which the Romans boasted of similar achievements against Gallic giants, or the Greeks of Odysseus’ victory over Polyphemus, the feeling would still have been an honourable one, and would have sprung from a higher spiritual aspiration. For as the hero of inferior stature but of nervous arm, unshaken courage and superior skill, fights and conquers the terrible but uncouth and awkward giant, just so, in all essentials, do the nations which, though smaller, are yet spiritually active and artistically cultivated, contend against those which are stronger but less refined. In the victory of a David over a Goliath, the whole nation—unfortunate sometimes but never despondent—rejoices in its spiritual superiority over its mightier foes, who are certain, for all that, to be conquered again at last. And so these combats are the foreshadowing of future victories still greater and more extensive, the symbols of the first successful efforts of a general spirit of lofty aspiration; and the idea already manifested in Samson’s life finds its embodiment again in David. But neither the heathen nor even Samson himself can rival the special glory, so prominent in David’s case, and consonant with his whole nature, of a courage supported by the higher religion; and this peculiar elevation transforms this human strife into a public contest between two religions. The Philistine curses the apparently defenceless stripling by his national gods, whilst David, though not unskilled in war, trusts more than in anything else in the name of Jahveh of Armies, the God of Israel’s battle array, and it is He who gives him courage and victory. And thus the twofold greatness of David and his whole age already steps into the foreground—the courage that is bold without rashness, which is inspired by the newly-wakened energy of the higher religion, and vindicates for itself a victorious freedom from even the strongest and most threatening of its foes. And for this reason David is hailed as a hero. ¶ Let us look for the gospel of heroism, the inner history of brave hearts. Heroism is one of life’s timeless things. It belongs to no age or place. It needs no interpretation. It tells its own story and wins its meed of acknowledgment. Do not misunderstand that. Heroism is a quiet thing. The hero is not often an orator; and even if he should be, his own heroism would never seem to him to be a fit subject for an oration. He exercises no self-repression in the matter. He says nothing, because he does not know of anything to say. The service of courage is a very simple, obvious, undistinguished thing in the eyes of those that render it. The hero is always a man of few words, and the less he tells us the more we know; the less he says the better we understand him. It is through the portal of silence that he comes to his own. If ever a man finds himself wishing that he could do some deed, make some sacrifice which would give him a name for courage, let him not think that he has (to use a current phrase and misleading at that) caught the heroic spirit, and that he is qualifying for a place in the roll of honour. Heroism lies not that way at all. Of all military honours, that which probably has been least consciously contended for is the Victoria Cross. It is self-forgetful love, and not self-regarding ambition, that wins that reward. There is a sense in which we cannot have too high a conception of heroism. When in our mind we paint the picture of the ideal hero, we cannot make the light in his eyes too beautiful and the poise of his head too kingly. It is altogether good that we should so think of heroism as to prevent our offering the hero’s crown to the essentially unheroic life. But we must lift our conception of life and the true terms of it and the spiritual setting of it and the constant issues of it till we come to see that the one man who can never hope to do justice to life is the hero. Surely the heroic spirit is not like the red bloom of the aloe that bursts upon the view once in a century! The inward conditions of its existence are constant and abiding. The hero’s work was not finished when the last stake was set up in the market-place and the flame of the last martyr-fire flickered out. There is need of him while one poor soul in the city trembles under the shadow of tyranny, or writhes in the grip of unscrupulous power. The most real and awful tyranny in the world is the tyranny of sin. The hero knows that. That knowledge goes to the development of the hero. Where sin is an abstraction heroism is a dream. The gleam in the hero’s eyes never came from the shimmer of a false optimism or the glamour of a weak and soothesome view of the evil that is in the world. 2. While there is a difficulty in harmonizing the stories of David’s early life, we cannot doubt the uniform tradition that David performed wonderful exploits in the war with the Philistines, and so acquired favour in the eyes of Saul and all the people. By his valorous deeds and his modest behaviour he also gained the lifelong friendship of Jonathan, Saul’s most valiant son. The two heroes exchanged armour in token of comradeship; and in the darker days that were near at hand David found in Jonathan a helpful and loyal friend. ¶ Dr. Mayo having asked Johnson’s opinion of Soame Jenyns’s “View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion”;—JOHNSON. “I think it a pretty book; not very theological, indeed; and there seems to be an affectation of ease and carelessness, as if it were not suitable to his character to be very serious about the matter.” BOSWELL. “You should like his book, Mrs. Knowles, as it maintains, as your friends do, that courage is not a Christian virtue.” Mrs. KNOWLES. “Yes, indeed, I like him there; but I cannot agree with him that friendship is not a Christian virtue.” JOHNSON. “Why, Madam, strictly speaking, he is right. All friendship is preferring the interest of a friend to the neglect, or, perhaps, against the interest, of others; so that an old Greek said, ‘He that has friends has no friend.’ Now, Christianity recommends universal benevolence; to consider all men as our brethren; which is contrary to the virtue of friendship, as described by the ancient philosophers. Surely, Madam, your sect [Quakers] must approve of this; for you call all men friends.” Mrs. KNOWLES. “We are commanded to do good to all men, ‘but especially to them who are of the household of faith.’ ” JOHNSON. “Well, Madam, the household of faith is wide enough.” Mrs. KNOWLES. “But, Doctor, our Saviour had twelve apostles, yet there was one whom he loved. John was called ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ ” JOHNSON (with eyes sparkling benignantly). “Very well indeed, Madam. You have said very well.” BOSWELL. “A fine application. Pray, Sir, had you ever thought of it?” JOHNSON. “I had not, Sir.” Oh, gift of God, my friend! Whose face has brought th’ Eternal nigh; No sermon like thy life doth tend To turn my gaze toward the sky. Oh, ray of light, my friend! When sorrow’s gloom made life so drear, Then comfort sweet thy words did lend, As if Christ spake, “Be of good cheer!” Oh, rock of strength, my friend! When shifting sands beneath my feet, And changing scenes my steps attend, Thy truth and constancy are sweet. Oh, home of rest, my friend! When wearied with the toil and rush My wistful gaze on thee I bend, Then o’er my spirit falls a hush. I clasp thy hand, my friend! Thank God that thou art here; I am not worthy He should send To me a gift so dear. Hastings, J. (Ed.). (1914).The greater men and women of the Bible: Ruth–Naaman. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. - via Logos 5
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 15:00:50 +0000
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