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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 275. David
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David
Of David and of his early fortunes and of his first meeting with Saul there are two different accounts in the Bible. One is older and more historical, the other later and less historical. According to the older account, the servants of Saul, who little understood the deeper causes of their master's madness, sent for David to sooth him with his harp, and Saul “loved him greatly.” They sit side by side, the likenesses of the old system passing away and of the new system coming into existence. Saul, the warlike chief, his great spear always by his side, reluctant, moody, melancholy, and David, the youthful minstrel, his harp in his hand, fresh from the schools, where the spirit of the better times was fostered, pouring forth to soothe the troubled spirit of the king the earliest of those strains which have soothed the troubled spirit of the whole world.
This passage of Scripture has been expounded by Robert Browning in one of the greatest poems of the nineteenth century. It is, in itself, a moving incident, the great first king, drear and stark in his tent, and the bright, blythe young harpist seeking by music to win his soul back from the inferno of despair where it was overwhelmed. But how? By what fashion of music can this miracle be accomplished? What craft can avail to bring back the dead to life? First, says Browning, he plays the tune of the sheepfold, the musical call to which the sheep flock across the hills in the evening when the stars are coming out. Then he plays strains which the creatures loved, the quails and the crickets and the jerboa. And then the reaper's song of rejoicing, and then:
When the dead man is praised on his journey.
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned.
2. The later account of the meeting of Saul and David is the familiar story of the giant Goliath. Both accounts represent David as becoming after a time the successful general of Saul in campaigns against the Philistines.
Gradually Saul's jealousy of David's success and popularity became aroused. As Saul passed through the cities from his victory over his enemies, the women of Israel came out to meet him, singing and dancing; and they said, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” Immediately the jealous king “was very wroth, and the saying displeased him”; his sullenness returned; he feared David as a rival; and “eyed him from that day and forward.” Poor Saul had to drink the bitter cup which all who love the sweet draught of popular applause have sooner or later to taste; and we need not think him a monster of badness because he found it bitter.
In one pathetic passage of his autobiographical memoranda, there is mention-though I suppress the name-of a neighbouring pastor at Notting Hill, specially gifted and qualified as an expositor of the Scriptures. His ministry was attracting some members of my father's congregation. He missed them frequently from their seats in the Tabernacle. “Henry Varley did not like this,” he writes. To his intense self-loathing, he found that the “green-eyed monster” of jealousy had its claws upon his soul. “I shall never forget,” he continues, “the sense of guilt and sin that possessed me over that business.… I was miserable.… Was I practically saying to the Lord Jesus, ‘Unless the prosperity of Thy Church and people comes in this neighbourhood by me, success had better not come'? Was I really showing inability to rejoice in another worker's service? I felt that it was a sin of a very hateful character. I never asked the Lord to take away my life either before or since; but I did then, unless His grace gave me victory over this foul image of jealousy.” The suggestion inevitably arises of the possibility of vacant pulpits if preachers jealous of other preachers' success were to pray to die, and their prayer were answered.1 [Note: Henry Varley's Life Story, by his Song of Solomon, 235.]
3. One development after another occurred to excite Saul's jealousy afresh. At last the turbulent ferment of passion broke forth into wild frenzy. Saul had no longer any doubt: the armour-bearer whom he had promoted to be leader of his forces is not satisfied with casting into the shade the king's name and martial glory; his aim is higher; he wishes to become the friend of the king's son, the king's son-in-law-the traitor wishes to become the king's successor before his death. Henceforth Saul's decision is immovable: the traitor is doomed to death. Saul sought to carry out his decision, however and whenever he could. The victim of his suspicion having escaped his murderous steel, he went forth expressly to seek him. With the tenacity peculiar to one haunted by an illusion, he devoted himself henceforth almost exclusively to his purpose of avenging himself on his supposed mortal enemy and persecutor. We may confidently assert that this thought, which never again left the unfortunate man, finally wasted him away. Stormy and dark as Saul's nature had become, and grave as had been his failure to be worthy of the monarchy, one cannot but feel the infinite pathos and pity of his life.
Saul was now mad with suspicion and jealousy and hatred. He lived, so to speak, in continual murder, for he lived in hatred of David, and hunted after him to take away his life. He had indulged in hateful passions until they had completely mastered him, and were plunging him headlong into ruin. And yet, in the midst of that terrible darkness and madness and moral derangement, there were momentary flashes of returning consciousness, brief sunny beams of light, which showed that, beneath all these strange and awful distortions of his mind, there was a nobler and truer self not utterly dead. Like a dismantled and helpless wreck over which wild and pitiless storms rage, Saul showed, even in his ruin, what he might and ought to have been.
Suspicion is a monster 'tis vain to contend with; it can swallow everything or it can live upon nothing; its patience is as inexhaustible as its ingenuity is wonderful, and it builds castles out of rubbish, and as often as they fall for want of a foundation it collects fresh materials and begins anew. The provoking thing is, it's always to be seen but never to be caught, so that there's no hopes of ever being able to overcome it.1 [Note: J. A. Doyle, Memoir of Susan Ferrier, 60.]
4. Saul dismissed David from his court and threw him into dangers; but David's disgrace and danger increased his popularity. Saul made the marriage with his daughter a trap for David, and commanded his son to kill him; but his design ended in Michal's passionate love, and in Jonathan's faithful friendship. He pursued him over the hills of Judah, and he found that he had unconsciously been in his enemy's power and had been spared by his enemy's generosity; and with that ebb and flow of sentiment so natural, so true, so difficult to square with any precise theories of predestination or reprobation, yet so important as indications of a living human character-the old fatherly feeling towards David revived. “Is this thy voice, my son David?” And he lifted up his voice and wept. “I have sinned: return, my son David: … behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.… 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.” Thus they parted on the hills of Judah.
It is possible that this was the last interview between the two men, and how pleasant it is when the last meeting is the happiest! Would not Saul carry back from Engedi a heart not only wiser but gladder, because of the ineradicable assurance that David cared for him, and had done him nothing but good? The gentleness of the hunted man called out this stray gleam of a loftier spirit, and brought him back, yet once again, to the border of repentance.
He spoke not, but slow
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: thro' my hair
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power-
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower.
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine-
And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?
I yearned-“Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this;
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence,
As this moment,-had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!”1 [Note: Browning, Saul.]