In the preceding chapter Saul had used roundabout ways to rid himself of the Lord’s anointed; here he contrives a genuine conspiracy against him: “Saul spoke to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should slay David” (1 Sam. 19:1). Jonathan preaches grace to his father by presenting to him what David was, what David had done for him at the risk of his own life, and by reminding him that he himself, Saul, had at first rejoiced after he had witnessed these things: “Thou didst see it, and didst rejoice” (1 Sam. 19:5). How far superior was David’s activity to all that Jonathan could do for him (and Jonathan was conscious of this), even though he loved David as his own soul!
Saul listens to Jonathan and swears: “As Jehovah liveth, he shall not be put to death!” (1 Sam. 19:6). By presenting grace to the heart of the natural man God allows his wickedness to be momentarily arrested in its development, but this is not conversion. Saul’s murderous intention is changed, yet nevertheless he does not repent. He retracts his decision, makes a new resolution when faced with the exhortations of a man of faith, but hardly is this resolution made than he shows himself to be in no way free from his impulses and by his behavior proves that he is a miserable slave of Satan.
As for David, he does not change. “He was in his presence as previously” (1 Sam. 19:7). The grace that has led him up to now remains impressed upon his person and upon his behavior.
A fresh triumph of David’s re-awakens the evil spirit that had taken control of Saul. As long as the believer does not trouble Satan by victories won over his followers his hostility remains asleep, as it were, but his mortal hatred soon awakens. We see this hatred against David at the very moment when the evil spirit seems to be subdued by the gracious relief which David procures for the king. A moment comes, then, when the only thing the believer can do is to flee, to escape like a bird out of the fowler’s net. Now David’s death is irrevocably decreed. Michal, motivated by her natural affection for David, comes to his help in her own way, God using here the human feelings that animated her (1 Sam. 19:11-17).
This passage also reveals to us the fact that there was an image (a teraphim) in David’s house. Certainly, David did not worship it, but its presence allows us to conclude that he put up with it. The teraphim was not an idol, properly speaking, and the Word is careful to distinguish the one from the other. (See Hos. 3:4; Zech. 10:2; 1 Sam. 15:22, 23; 2 Kings 23:24; Ezek. 21:21; Gen. 31:19, 30, 32-35; Jud. 17:3-5; 18:17, 18, 20.) The image (teraphim) is somewhat inferior to the idol; it is a sort of demi-god whose domain is the household; it is clothed with a certain importance, and is even consulted on occasion. Such superstitions quickly lead to true idols; this is exactly how Jacob judged the matter, when he told Laban to take back his gods (Gen. 31:32). Often the believer lacks the energy to banish these occasions of stumbling from his family, and each one of us must be earnestly mindful of this even though, like Jacob and David, we may not personally attribute to them any influence over our life. The image had evidently been introduced into David’s household by Michal, Saul’s daughter, who was thus a snare to the man of God.
Michal avoids her father’s wrath by acting before him as though she were one of David’s enemies, constrained by his threats to allow him to escape: “He said to me, Let me go; why should I kill thee?” (1 Sam. 19:17). How different her heart is from Jonathan’s who openly, at his own risk and peril, took up the defense of the one whom he tenderly loved.
“David fled, and escaped, and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth” (1 Sam. 19:18). David tells everything to Samuel, God’s representative and prophet. He becomes his companion, and the two of them dwell together. Such is, for David, the result of this trial.
This leads us to consider the Psalms that speak of David’s afflictions. We assume that none of our readers are ignoring the fact that the Psalms are prophetical songs, describing the moral circumstances the remnant of Israel will pass through in the last days. This remnant will be sustained during the tribulation by the Spirit of Christ, of the One who has in grace passed through analogous circumstances, although much more terrible, because His walk of obedience, dependence, integrity, holiness, and love resulted but in death, and He could only be delivered “from the horns of the buffaloes.” It is therefore natural to see David used as the principal organ to express prophetically the feelings of the remnant and of Christ. Is not his life, as we have already observed many times, a striking type of the life of the Messiah who was to come, and as such had David not passed through all the phases of rejection, humiliation, and persecution which except for death represent the Savior’s sufferings? We are not saying this with the intention of entering more deeply into this subject, so often treated in detail by others, but to underscore the fact that the Psalms of David which carry us so high and so far into the prophetical future are in first line drawn from his personal experiences. In them, too, we can find a faithful expression of his heart’s condition in the midst of trial, the results produced by God’s discipline with regard to him, and the resources that were his when tribulation overtook him. From this restricted point of view only, as events progressively unfold we will consider the Psalms that are related to them.
The account in this chapter has its counterpart in Psalm 59, inspired “when Saul sent, and they watched the house [of David] to kill him.” While Saul’s messengers, men of blood who were gathered against him, went round about the city during the night, David was raising his heart in supplication to the Lord. He was looking to Him for deliverance (Psa. 59:1-2), assured that He would be gracious toward him (Psa. 59:10), for they sought his life not “for [his] transgression, nor for [his] sin,” but rather because he belonged to the Lord. For the moment he is not asking the Lord to slay his enemies (Psa. 59:11), to kill Saul, in order that David’s people may not forget these things. The profane king must remain alive until the patience of the Lord’s anointed shall have had its perfect work. Later God will consume the enemy in order to establish his reign.
Isn’t it touching to see this man of God at the very moment when he is so closely pressed and when his life could be cut off entirely occupied with the Lord, with His designs, and with His deliverance. Indeed, he does not question either the love of God nor His will to deliver him. “But as for me, I will sing of Thy strength; yea, I will sing aloud of Thy loving-kindness in the morning” (Psa. 59:16). In the morning? when his enemies “howl like a dog” during the night of anguish, as they watch his house and go round about the city! Thus he was sure of deliverance because he counted on God, and he can add in this extreme peril in anticipation of this deliverance: “Thou hast been to me a high fortress and a refuge in the day of my trouble!” (Psa. 59:16).
Let us return to our chapter. In 1 Samuel 19:19-24, all Saul’s efforts against David fail, and yet he has his messengers follow him, even when he finds refuge under his protector Samuel. Against their own will these instruments of the enemy experience the influence of the Spirit of God in whose power they prophesy, a serious warning which neither converts them nor saves them. Even Saul—and this not for the first time in his life—is here forced to prophesy by the Spirit of God. In 1 Samuel 18:10 he had done so by the evil spirit which had come upon him. God is able to speak through the mouth of a Saul who at other times is the mouthpiece of Satan; He can do the same through the mouth of a Salaam or of a Caiaphas. This only proves that God uses someone as an instrument if it suits Him; but it is necessary to distinguish between the quickening activity of the Holy Spirit and His various operations in power. Power may communicate a great knowledge of the Word and perhaps also the energy that uses this knowledge on behalf of others, but it never leads us to self-judgment and appropriation of Christ as the One answering to our needs. It gives neither repentance nor faith; there must be a work of the Spirit in the heart in order to reach the conscience, to give an awareness of sin, to lead a soul to God. Without this, there is no new life. The hearts of Saul and of his messengers were not changed, but God had come upon their spirits through prophecy in order to expose their foolishness and in order to save David, His beloved.