“Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of love.
We may trust Him fully all for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.”
As David became from this time one of the chief captains over the men of war, and of those specially appointed to be near the king—his bodyguard, as it were—he found his place in the house of Saul and Jonathan, and had therefore the opportunity of seeing the king’s son constantly. For a time he was probably in the camp with them, and it may have been there—in the greater freedom of tent life—that Jonathan and he made a covenant, to confirm and cement the friendship which began on the day when from the valley of Elah David returned in triumph, having delivered the whole host of his countrymen from their foes.
To ratify the covenant, it may be, Jonathan strips himself of his princely robe, and clothes the son of Jesse with it, and also puts upon him his own sword and bow and girdle, putting David thus in his own place, for his loving, unjealous heart had no shade of fear as to any possible rivalry between them. His one thought seems to have been to do honor to the one who had braved a danger no other would face, and who had become the deliverer of all Israel, and bound Jonathan’s heart to himself for his whole life, as one who shared the same dependence and faith.
Saul also honors the one who had set him free from the. Philistine bondage, and places him over a company of the army, where he goes in and out at the bidding of the king. Obedient now in the royal household, as he had been in his life of a shepherd in his father’s home, he gains the esteem and respect of all Israel and also of Saul’s household. Great rewards had been promised to the man who should slay the giant Goliath; but the danger was no sooner over than these promises appear to have been forgotten, and no more is heard of them, and David himself would never remind the king of them.
The camp near the valley of Elah was at last broken up, and the march homeward to Gibeah of Saul was begun. The distance between the two places is about twenty miles, as what has been identified as the place of the conflict with the champion of Gath lies about fifteen miles southwest of Jerusalem, while the city of Gibeah, which no longer exists, was on the hill Gibeah about four miles north of Jerusalem.
The land of Israel was not then the desolation it has since become, and though now the traveler passing over the same route might go for miles without seeing anything more than a few miserable huts, then the whole face of the country was either cultivated ground with fertile and luxuriant crops, or covered with thickly populated cities and villages. As the army of Saul returned in a sort of triumphal procession the women came out of all these cities and met them with songs of joy, and playing on their tabrets and other musical instruments they sang a refrain in answer to each other of “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”
The jealousy of the king is immediately aroused, and full of anger he is intensely displeased with the women’s song, and not caring to hide his wrath he says, “They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?” From this day he cherished bitter feelings of jealousy against the son of Jesse. Did he understand that David was “the neighbor” of whom the prophet Samuel had told him years before when he had disobeyed the command of Jehovah respecting the Amalekites? Samuel had then said to him, “Jehovah hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, better than thou.”
Saul may have remembered this, and the song of the women, who though they paid honor to the king yet justly gave to David what was his due, was the means of arousing a terrible jealousy, to which he gave way until it completely mastered him. Satan quickly takes advantage of what he sees in the monarch’s mind, for now the evil spirit came back upon him on the morrow after the return home to Gibeah. Those around him, who knew how David’s playing on the harp had once dispelled the gloom and caused the evil spirit to depart, now get him again to use his skill as a harpist, hoping the remedy might be as effectual as before. So the strains of the sweet music rise and fill the place where the king is sitting in somber silence—javelin in hand—while David is trying his hardest to divert the mind of his master from what evidently troubles him. Alas! all he does is in vain. The jealousy Saul has been nourishing has become hatred so deep that the deadly javelin is cast at the one who had risked his life for him a few days before. Saul casts the javelin at David, saying to himself he would smite him to the wall. A second time this was done, and a second time David was able to avoid it, for God would not allow him to be touched.
Finding that he cannot get rid of his faithful servant by means of the javelin, a dread of David comes upon the unhappy man, and he will not have him in his own guard but removes him to the ordinary troops and makes him general over a thousand of them, where he is ever before the army and goes in and out with them. Thus the slight that Saul put upon him was really turned to account by God to fit him for the day when he should bear rule over the army, and the whole kingdom. In all his duties as leader of his troops David was taught of God to behave himself wisely and all Israel and Judah learned to know and love their fearless, self-forgetful young general or captain, who went out and came in with them, and cared for their welfare as tenderly as he used to care for his father’s sheep.
The wisdom with which he bore himself made Saul still more afraid of him, and he seems to have been ever on the watch for an opportunity to destroy him. Nothing of this terrible hatred, however, altered the lowly loyal allegiance of the one who was the chosen king of Jehovah, but who, for the time, was to serve and obey the man whom he would eventually succeed; and so he patiently endures all the jealousy and dislike which is ever shown him by the king. The love of Jonathan must have been the one solace and comfort of his life at this period, and many a time probably would the friends leave the city together when the military duties of the day were over, and go out into the open country where they could unhinderedly speak together of what was dearest to them, the glory of the God of Israel, who had brought His people up out of Egypt—the house of bondage—and given them the fair fertile land of Canaan, of which in neglect of His will they had never fully taken possession, and indeed had well nigh forfeited by their sin and disobedience.
From the heights around the city the stronghold or fort at Jebusi—now better known to us as Jerusalem—would be visible, and though when Joshua had divided the land amongst the tribes Judah had conquered Jebusi and burnt the city with fire, yet they had allowed the Jebusites to regain possession of the fort, and in Saul’s time they were masters of the place. To the young and ardent David it must have been a strange and sorrowful fact that so much of the land of promise was in the hands of the enemy still, and the view of the distant hills may have caused the beautiful words of Psalm 125:22As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. (Psalm 125:2), “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so Jehovah is round about his people from henceforth even forever.” Then why should they fear their foes?
It was this consciousness of the abiding nearness of the presence of God, that enabled David to pass through all the difficulties and dangers that the hatred and malice of the king so often involved him in, in quietness of spirit, un-tinged by resentment or opposition. In all this David shows his true greatness, though it was—we need hardly say—the fruit of the grace of God in him. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Prov. 16:3232He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. (Proverbs 16:32)). This is a greatness, too, open to most of us. Though very few can have such a place as David’s otherwise, they can in this respect.
Finding that open violence is of no avail against his young “chief of a thousand,” Saul now tries what craft will do, and seeks to send him on warlike raids into the land of the Philistines, hoping that he might rashly go into danger that would prove fatal. In doing this he offers to make David his son-in-law by giving him his daughter as wife. In his reply the true humility in his heart shines out, for he esteemed it a very great honor to be in relationship to the king who had once been owned of Jehovah as His king, and for David it was in this that all his greatness consisted. So he says, “Who am I? and what is my life, or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be son in law to the king?” As the conditions Saul desired of David in order to his marriage with his daughter were those with which he could comply, being the destruction of the power of the enemy—the enemies of Jehovah and of His people—Saul’s proposal is agreed to by David and becomes the opportunity of a successful inroad into the country of Philistia, from which he returns victorious, having slain two hundred of the enemies.
The hatred shown by the king to him happily was not shared by Saul’s family; for Michal, his daughter, loved David, and now became his wife. Even this new bond, which would have naturally been a cause of affection, failed to be so with the jealous Saul. He saw and knew that the Lord was with his faithful young son-in-law, and he knew that his own daughter loved him as a wife should, and for her sake one might have thought he would have cast away his envy and dislike. Alas! the scripture tells us “Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David’s enemy continually.”
There is little doubt that the state of matters in the king’s household was well known, even amongst the ranks of the foes, and possibly thinking the domestic differences might weaken the hands of Saul the Philistine princes proclaim war again, but now they have to meet one whom God has endowed with wisdom and might, and his wise generalship is so beforehand with all the strategy and schemes of the adverse princes that they are unable to gain any advantage. Thus David’s name was much set by. He proved himself wiser than all the veterans in the service of the king. He tells us the secret of this when we hear him say, “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.... He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms” (Psa. 18:32-3432It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. 33He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places. 34He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. (Psalm 18:32‑34)).
Throwing off all pretense of friendship, at last the king openly speaks to his son Jonathan and to his servants that they should kill David. To his son such a desire was most terrible, for David was the delight of his heart, and he loved him as a brother; so while he has to warn him of danger, Jonathan so intercedes with his unhappy father that even his obdurate heart is touched. He reminds Saul of the day of terror and dismay in the valley of Elah, when the young shepherd took his life in his hand and went down to meet and overcome Goliath-when Jehovah wrought by him a great salvation for all Israel. Saul saw it all then and rejoiced with the rest, and now his son says to him, “Wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?”
Reasoned with thus, the better feelings of the king for a little time return, and he relents towards David, and tells his son, “As the Lord liveth, he shall not be slain.” Glad at heart for his friend’s sake, Jonathan goes and tells him all that has passed between his father and himself. Ever ready to forgive, David shows his freedom from any bitter feeling by going to the king with Jonathan and then by taking his usual place in the court. How long this time of peace lasted we do not know, but the time came when war again broke out with the Philistines, and again the son of Jesse becomes the instrument of a great deliverance. He is used of God to completely overcome the massed ranks of the enemy and slays them “with a great slaughter,” so that the remainder of their army is unable to face the victorious Israelites, and they retreat to their own land.
Now we see how well nigh impossible it is for one who has cherished a spirit of envy and jealousy to escape from it. Saul may have been sincere for the moment when he sware to Jonathan that his friend should be left unharmed, but he had put himself under the power of one who was completely his master now, and who used the fresh distinction gained by the successful campaign of David to re-awaken the animosity which was only slumbering in the heart of Saul. When first he became king, Saul had for a time acted in obedience to God, and then had been used to gain victories over many foes. Thus he had acquired a reputation as a skillful soldier which he had vainly attributed to himself, without owning the real source of his power. David’s success thus touched all his foolish pride, for he felt himself injured by another getting a glory which he once had alone.
The evil spirit now manifests itself in the sullen gloom on the face of the monarch, which must have made all in his household tremble. David is sent for, and only thinking of how he can give relief to the man whom he seems to have truly loved—spite of all his hatred—he again plays upon his harp to soothe if possible the melancholy madness which seized him, poor tool of Satan as he had now become.
All is in vain. The deadly weapon again cast at him by the king shows David that his life is still in jeopardy while he remains there, so he escapes to his own house, and when the messengers are sent by Saul to take him, Michal his wife is obliged to let him down by the window from an upper room to ensure his getting away from them in safety. Where shall the son of Jesse find refuge now? To go to his father’s house at Bethlehem would have been the desire of his heart, but this would have involved them in danger, he knew, and would have been no safe place for him, so he resolves to go to the one who was the revealer— for many years—of the mind of Jehovah for His people.
To the aged Samuel at Ramah, the prophet whom God had commanded to anoint His chosen king, David now turns, knowing that God alone can protect and shield him, and owning thus his own dependence upon Him. Naturally he might have felt that with troops at his command who loved him, and would follow him if he called them, he might soon have been able to defy Saul and all his power; but such a course would have been to take himself out of the path of faith, and so without any shadow of resistance to that power which was still permitted outwardly of God, though in reality already judged and doomed, David bends before the storm, and quietly submits to become an outcast in the kingdom of which he is the anointed king.
The time for his being received openly in the kingdom has not yet come, he has to suffer many things first, and thus he becomes a type—faint though it be—of that One who “was in the world.... and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not”
Welcomed with all the kindly affection of Samuel, who must have grieved deeply over the terrible depths of evil to which Saul had now descended, David does not long remain in the house of the prophet, but together they go to Naioth, where there was a school or college of the prophets, who all recognized Samuel as their head or chief. He may have thought that they would be safer there than in his own quiet home at Ramah, for Samuel knew something of the implacable nature of Saul, and may have felt that at Naioth they would be secure from his intrusion.
It soon became known that David had taken refuge with the aged Samuel, but casting off all respect even for him now, Saul dares to send men to arrest David to the place set apart for those who were the special servants of Jehovah. Now they are met by a power that lays hold of them and renders them utterly incapable of doing their master’s bidding. They see all the company of the prophets, and Samuel standing as their appointed head, and these messengers of Saul are seized by the same spirit and compelled to utter prophetic words also in spite of themselves. No thought have they then of taking David—they have to own their entire defeat, but Saul will not hear, and sends others, and yet others, who all meet the same discomfiture.
Driven on by Satan, the king now ventures to go himself, only to be in his turn humbled and mastered by the same power that had met his servants. The Spirit of God laid hold of him and he was forced to prophesy before Samuel, instead of slaying David. Then, stricken with weakness, he lies down—stripped of his kingly robes—all that day and night, unable to do that for which he had come. It might have been hoped that this would have wrought a change in the heart of Saul and led him to repentance, but it was not so. He had resolutely closed his eyes to the light, and is allowed to remain in the darkness he has chosen. He at last leaves Samuel and the company of the prophets, even more hardened in evil than before, because he had been in the presence of the Spirit of God and had resisted His power.