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calling and work appears to have been, in a sense, progressive; being gradually
manifested in the course of His history.
But to return. The seven sons of Jesse had successively passed before Samuel, yet he
was not among them whom the prophet had been sent to anoint. But for all that his
mission had not failed: he had only learned to own the sovereignty of God, the
failure of his own judgment, and the fact that he was simply a passive instrument to
carry out, not his own views, but the will of the Lord. For, the youngest of the family
still remained. So unlikely did it seem to his father that he could be called to any
great work, that he had been left in the field to tend the sheep. But when, at the
bidding of Samuel, he came, his very bearing and appearance seemed to speak in his
favor. In the language of the text, "he was reddish,^159 and fair of eyes, and goodly to
look at." And now the command to anoint him was given, and immediately and
unquestioningly obeyed by Samuel.^160
The sacrifice past, and the sacrificial meal over, Samuel returned to Ramah, and
David to his humble avocation in his father's household. And here also we love to
mark the print of our Lord's footsteps, and to see in the history of David the same
humble submission to a lowly calling, and faithful discharge of menial toil, and the
same subjectness to his parents, as we adoringly trace in the life of Him Who
humbled Himself to become David's son. But there was henceforth one difference in
the life of the son of Jesse. From the day of his anointing forward, "the Spirit of
Jehovah seized upon David," as formerly upon Saul, to qualify him by might and by
power for the work of "God's anointed." But from Saul, who was no longer the king
of God's appointment, had the Spirit of Jehovah departed, not only as the source of
"might and of power," but even as "the Spirit of a sound mind." At his anointing, the
Spirit then given him had made him "another man" (1 Samuel 10:6, 10). But Saul
had resisted and rebelled, nor had he ever turned from his pride and disobedience in
repentance to the Lord. And now the Spirit of God not only departed from him, but
in judgment God sent an "evil spirit," or rather "a spirit of evil," to "terrify"^161 Saul.
Not that God ever sends a spirit who is evil. The angels whom God sends are all
good, though their commission may be in judgment to bring evil upon us.^162
As one has rightly remarked, "God sends good angels to punish evil men, while to
chastise good men, evil angels claim the power." The "evil spirit" sent from God was
the messenger of that evil which in the Divine judgment was to come upon Saul,
visions of which now affrighted the king, filled him with melancholy, and brought
him to the verge of madness - but not to repentance. It is thus also that we can
understand how the music of David's harp soothed the spirit of Saul, while those
hymns which it accompanied - perhaps some of his earliest Psalms -brought words
of heaven, thoughts of mercy, strains of another world, to the troubled soul of the
king.
(^)