HIS ESCAPE FROM SAUL, FLIGHT TO SAMUEL
AND THENCE TO AHIMELECH.
The life of David, illustrated by true expressions of his inmost feelings and experiences, is of peculiar interest; and this we have by inspiration of God. One of a nation whose existence was the fruit of the unmerited love of the Lord, he was almost alone among his contemporaries in the open confession of that love. Difference there was in him from the mass, especially from Saul who in earthly things, a mark of blessing to an earthly people, was richer than he. The mind seeks in vain to discover what made him to differ. Had he not his faults as other men? At times the gravest. A study of his life changes the question. The heart, touched by it—and it is a life to move the heart—asks rather, who made him to differ? No merit of congruity can be found in him. He defined his own condition clearly when he, said, “I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.” A study of his life thus becomes a study of the mercy of God; and here cold reasoning is out of place. There is a divine congruity between the God of mercy and an object of mercy; between Him Who, with every provocation to anger, delighteth in mercy, and the broken and contrite heart whose only hope is in His mercy. But then, this confiding trust in the mercy, of God is marvelously sustained in the soul under every strain. Whence comes it then? He who sustains, implanted it: the whole is the work of His hand. Election, the doctrine most repugnant to the natural mind, becomes more and more intelligible to the lowly heart by the story of this life, a most eventful life in a most eventful period of Israel's history. May our study of it strengthen our faith, not in the mercy of God only, but in the God of mercy, or, as David would say, “the God of my mercy!”
His wrongs at the hand of Saul began before he was driven out to be hunted, as he said, like a partridge in the mountains. More than once, as he sought to soothe the king's troubled spirit by the melody of his harp, he had to avoid the spear which was hurled at him. Plot after plot to bring about his destruction failed; and at length Saul openly proposed, not only to his servants, but to Jonathan, to kill him. David was thus driven from the court and sought shelter in his house. At once “messengers were sent by Saul to watch him and to slay him in the morning.” Informed by his wife, Saul's daughter, of his danger he escaped, and from that night he never again had a settled abode while Saul lived. This is history (1 Sam. 18; 21). Psa. 59 gives us much more. According to the title it was composed on the discovery of Saul's plot, and with a knowledge of his emissaries. He describes them: men without fear of God— “for who, say they, doth hear?” —men of blood, heartless and unscrupulous, with whom his innocence would avail nothing. It was a moment of supreme danger; but no expression of alarm or anxiety escapes him.
A remark however is called for as to some parts of the Psalm. While the source of David's piety is the same as that of the Christian, the character and expression of it differ in some respects. This will force itself on the mind in reading the passages in which he pleads with God to intervene in judgment on his adversaries, not as opposed to him personally so much as enemies of the kingdom and rejecters of the counsel of God concerning its true king. Such passages look on to the final conflict of Israel with the apostate nations and their allies. The Christian's blessings are not here, but in heaven: there he is to lay up treasure, while in present expectation of the Lord Jesus to come and receive him to Himself to be with Him forever.
Some knowledge of the ways of God is thus most desirable, nay more, most important; but it is by the knowledge of Himself, now in Christ perfectly manifest, that rest in the changing scene is given to the spirit. The wonderful thing is that, in the time of the law dispensationally and of Israel's degradation historically, one so young as David (he was only thirty when he came to the throne) should be so deeply, that is, experimentally, taught. While Saul's messengers were prowling round the house, like dogs greedy for their prey, he, far from being afraid, scornfully anticipated their defeat and disappointment, and rejoicing in the power of the Lord and His mercy, prepared a song for the morning appointed by Saul for his death—
“But I will sing of thy power,
Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning,
Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing:
For God is my defense, and the God of my mercy.”
We pursue the history. David first sought refuge with Samuel. We can understand this. In the day of adversity fellowship with a kindred spirit is doubly sweet. Moreover, at Naioth, whither they withdrew for greater safety, there was a company of prophets and the power of the Spirit was manifest among them. What a little sanctuary it might have proved but for the cruel jealousy of Saul who did not hesitate to seek his victim there, notwithstanding the presence of Samuel and the mighty influence of the Spirit of which for the time neither he nor his messengers could resist! How evident it was that he was fighting against God! David had again to flee, an outcast now let him turn where he may. He was however comforted by meeting with Jonathan and by receiving from him a signal proof of his unchanging affection; but learned that not even his influence with his father could change his determination. He then fled to Nob, the place where the tabernacle was and the priesthood, and where he might inquire of the Lord from Ahimelech the high priest. Doeg, an Edomite, an official in Saul's service, was there at the time, who told his master of the help given to David, but so wickedly misrepresented it that Saul suspected all the priests were in league against him. Terrible was his vengeance. Eighty-five were slaughtered at his command, by Doeg, and Nob was devoted to destruction, every living thing in it, man and beast, put to the sword. Abiathar the son of Ahimelech alone escaped and told David all (1 Sam. 21; 22). Some incidents are here omitted for the present to maintain the connection of this visit to Nob with its results.
Doeg is of bad pre-eminence in this history. In Saul we may learn the powerlessness of the flesh, whatever external advantages it may possess, to overcome its evil passions. Prophecy he despised, the priesthood he destroyed, and, notwithstanding moments of softening and compunction, he pursued the downward tendency of a godless course to the bitterest end. But Doeg is a treacherous foe: one who has learned that there is not a more potent weapon for the destruction of the innocent than the tongue. He is a type no doubt, of a terrible enemy of the remnant in Israel in the latter day. To learn the Holy Spirit's estimate of him, and David's by the Spirit, we must turn to Psa. 52 He was a proud boaster, magnifying himself because of his position and resources, and “he made not God his strength.” He was a lover of evil and of falsehood. In the tabernacle and before the Lord he was contriving the work of destruction, preparing his tongue, like a sharp razor, to slay the guiltless, a grievous wolf, not sparing the flock.
The sudden turn in the first verse from “the mighty man” to “the goodness of God” is a beautiful touch in the picture. The word translated “goodness” in the A. V., is rendered “mercy” in the R. V. Another has said— “It is not the goodness of Jehovah in His relationship with Israel but what is in the nature of God.” And here we may venture a question. Is it altogether a fault in the A. V. of the Psalms that so many words are given as renderings of one in Hebrew? Thus we have “mercy,” “loving kindness,” “merciful kindness,” “kindness,” “goodness,” “favor,” as translations of one word. May it not be a confession on the part of the translators of the difficulty of conveying to the English reader the exceeding wealth and fullness of meaning of that one word? Anyway, we are no losers by it. We learn more of “what is in the nature of God,” what He is as revealed and known in O. T. times, and what was the ground of the confidence that we find in men of faith like David. With the perfect revelation of God in Christ, the bright light of the N. T. on our nearer relationships to Him in Christ, and with the power of the Holy Ghost given, how we fall short of even their attainment!
We cannot pass over the closing words of this Psalm. It would appear to be David's conviction by the Spirit that the only effectual answer to the false tongue is practical life and godliness. The possession of grace, its silent growth and practical fruits, will affect others for good more than words however eloquent. He speaks of himself in contrast with Doeg, not as merit, but as the result of divine discipline:—
I am like a green olive tree in the house of God,
I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever,
I will praise thee forever, because thou hast
done it.”
These words— “because thou hast done it” refer, we think, primarily to what he suffered from a false, because faithless, step when he left Ahimelech. He was restored before the coming of Abiathar who told him of Doeg; but of this in our next, the Lord willing.