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to point out David as his rival. And every fresh success of David, betokening the
manifest help of God, and every failure of his own attempts to rid himself of this
rival, would only deepen and embitter this feeling, and lead him onwards, from step
to step, until the murderous passion became all engrossing, and made the king not
only forgetful of Jehovah, and of what evidently was His purpose, but also wholly
regardless of the means which he used. Thus Saul's dark passions were ultimately
concentrated in the one thought of murder. Yet in reality it was against Jehovah that
he contended rather than against David. So true is it that all sin is ultimately against
the Lord; so bitter is the root of self; and so terrible the power of evil in its
constantly growing strength, till it casts out all fear of God or care for man. So true
also is it that "he that hateth his brother is a murderer," in heart and principle. On the
other hand, these constant unprovoked attempts upon the life of David, regardless of
the means employed, till at last the whole forces of the kingdom were used for no
other purpose than to hunt down an innocent fugitive, whose only crime was that
God was with him, and that he had successfully fought the cause of Israel, must have
had a very detrimental effect upon the people. They must have convinced all that he
who now occupied the throne was unfit for the post, while at the same time they
could not but demoralize the people in regard to their real enemies, thus bringing
about the very results which Saul so much dreaded.
It deserves special notice, that Saul's attempts against the life of David are in the
sacred text never attributed to the influence of the spirit of evil from the Lord,
although they were no doubt made when that spirit was upon him. For God never
tempts man to sin; but he sinneth when he is drawn away by his own passion, and
enticed by it. If proof were needed that the spirit whom God sent was not evil in
himself, it would be found in this, that while formerly David's music could soothe
the king, that power was lost when Saul had given way to sin. On the first occasion
of this kind, Saul, in a maniacal^176 fit, twice poised^177 against David the javelin,
which, as the symbol of royalty, he had by him (like the modern scepter); and twice
"David turned (bent) aside from before him."^178
The failure of his purpose only strengthened the king's conviction that, while God
had forsaken him, He was with David. The result, however, was not repentance, but
a feeling of fear, under which he removed David from his own presence, either to
free himself of the temptation to murder, or in the hope, which he scarcely yet
confessed to himself, that, promoted to the command over a thousand men, David
might fall in an engagement with the Philistines. How this also failed, or rather led to
results the opposite of those which Saul had wished, is briefly marked in the text.
With truest insight into the working of such a mind, the narrative traces the further
progress of this history. Perhaps to test whether he really cherished ambitious
designs, but with the conscious wish to rid himself of his dreaded rival, Saul now
(^)