As the victor over Goliath David enters at once into public life. From, the humble position of shepherd he rose to be really the chief in Israel. Saul might still be chief nominally, but it was by David that Israel was raised from the depths of despair and fear, and a song of triumph given them. Even so will Messiah at the right time raise Israel from lower depths and give them a more triumphant song. He had already been anointed, and the Spirit of Jehovah rested upon him. The same Spirit led him to the battle and gave him victory. Jesse had no thought but to inquire after David's brethren, but the thoughts of God were far above the thoughts of Jesse.
So the Lord, our David, after He was anointed by the Spirit descending as a dove and abiding upon Him, was likewise led by the Spirit into the wilderness to meet in single combat the antitype of Goliath in his defiance of Israel and of God. And even as Goliath must first be slain before Israel could rejoice in victory, so must the devil first be vanquished before blessing and reinstatement in highest earthly privileges can be brought, to Israel. If David be the type of the Messiah, no less is Goliath a symbol of Satanic power. Christ's victory in the wilderness was His first act in His path of service, even as David's first public act was the slaying of Goliath. The great enemy, though not yet banished from the scene of Messiah's glory, must he made to know the power of Israel's future king. In the wilderness the Lord Jesus Manifested His power and gave the pledge of His future triumphs. There it was overcoming the tempter, as in resurrection breaking the bands of him who wielded the power of death: pregnant presages of His coming kingdom and power and glory.
But that which gives us a practical lesson even in our every-day life is that both David and Jesus our Lord overcome the foe by the sword of the word of God. The same sword abides for us, and faith nerves the arm to use it. “It is written,” said the Lord. “I come to thee in the name of Jehovah,” said David. God had written His name on Israel's banner, and that was David's Confidence. The sure word of God gives us victory in every conflict. Faith rests upon it, and by faith we overcome the world and its prince.
David's victory was in presence of Israel and of their human foes. Christ's victory was unseen by human eyes, but in the presence of God and of the angels—He was seen of angels. Perhaps even the demons beheld the defeat of their Chief, as they did afterward confess His Person and His power, “I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” But the day is coming when men shall be eye-witnesses of His power and glory, and all then shall know that He is Jehovah.
When the Lord Jesus returned from the wilderness, it was not to receive the praises of men, but their hatred. They did wonder for a little moment, for there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about, and at first He was glorified of all (Luke 4). David was met with acclamations of joy, but the hatred of Saul prevailed. And with the Lord the scene immediately changed, His path was quickly marked with sorrow. Herod had put John the Baptist in prison, the one who claimed the position of a “friend” (John 3:29). And His first recorded preaching after His return from the wilderness was in Nazareth where they sought to throw Him from the brow of the hill. A similar path awaits David. It was after his victory over the defier of Israel and of the Jehovah of Israel, that he entered upon that special path of suffering, and tasted of that cup which Messiah drank to the dregs. David might taste, and for that must be sustained; a greater than he drained the cup.
But we must repeat a remark made before, that while David's path of suffering as a whole is typical of Messiah's rejection by the Jew, when we come to details we find how blended is the imperfection of the saint with that which prefigured the perfect path of the Lord in similar circumstances. To distinguish between these surely needs the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Yet, even the saint's imperfection only serves, by contrast, to place in brighter light the absolute perfection of Him who was ever the Faithful and True Witness. David failed quite enough to have been set aside as a type of the Perfect One. But we see in his course the sovereignty of grace towards a much-tried saint, as well as the foreshadows of God's purpose concerning Christ and the supremacy of Israel in the coming age. And though in many points of his life the “type” is most distinct and clear even there let us never forget the saint's responsibility. It is even so with us now. Not that we are types in any sense whatever, but we may be instruments of God as the channels of blessing, and of conveying truth to others; ourselves, like David, perhaps not conscious at the time of the purpose of God in thus using us. Yet in every case a certain amount of moral responsibility rests upon us measured by our intelligence in the ways of God. David as a type of the Messiah, and as a saint with whom God is dealing for his present and immediate profit, must both be before our minds, or we shall fail to learn what God has written for our learning now, and the unfolding of His purposes in Christ for Israel's glory; perhaps lose altogether the blessedness of being called “friends” (John 15:15), to whom the Lord discloses the counsels of the Father.
As during the life of Saul the sufferings of David prefigure those of Christ, so does Saul set forth the unrelenting hate of the leaders of the rejecting and persecuting nation. There was no open idolatry during the king's life; he maintained more or less the external order of the appointed worship. The priests, if not the prophet, were with Saul. But in his heart was hatred of God's anointed. And during our Lord's sojourn here below, there was the absence of idolatry, and with the Pharisees, the dominant religious faction, a hypocritical zeal for the law in external duties and ceremonies, but with that a fiercer hate of Him who is greater than David. The house was swept of its idolatrous abominations, but garnished with hypocrisy (see Matt. 23). Saul at first pretended to be zealous for God, at the same time that he, as in the case of Agag, disobeyed His commands. At first he would extirpate those who had a familiar spirit, at the end he sought their counsel. The Lord foretells that in a similar way the guilty nation will fall again under the power of the unclean spirit, and with it seven other spirits still more wicked. The downward course and miserable end of Saul are a picture of the evil generation that, rejects Christ their Messiah while David and his company, who are eventually exalted, show the portion and destiny of the few that followed Christ in His rejection (Matt. 12; 25).
Israel's praises of David brings Saul's hatred to a point and gives it form. With the quick eye of jealousy he sees David as the future king of Israel, and thereupon seeks to kill him. The wise men from the East came to worship Him who will born King of the Jews, and Herod is troubled, and devises means to slay the young child at Bethlehem. Deceit and treachery marked both Saul and Herod, and each sought to slay God's anointed, whether the type or the great Antitype. Saul told David to fight Jehovah's battles and to be valiant. But he hoped that David would fall by the hand of the Philistines. Foolish Saul! Had he forgotten that David slew Goliath? Herod told the Magi to bring him word when they had found where the young child was. Worship was on his tongue, but death in his heart. Both seemed to feel instinctively the advent of the true and rightful King. Saul tried by means of his two daughters to bring about David's destruction. With the second he imposes what he thinks an impossible task. David brings double the number required; whereat Saul is yet more afraid of David. He proceeds to give a direct command to his servants and even to Jonathan, that they should kill David. How strikingly: similar many of the circumstances here recorded are to those which the Lord passed through. The Pharisees gave commandment to their adherents that if they knew where Jesus was they should take Him. They also consulted to take Him by subtlety.
For a brief moment (19:7) David had respite. Not for long; the evil spirit again dominates the miserable king. David seeks shelter from the king's fury in his own home, but as quickly leaves it; for even there the hate of Saul would reach him; he flies to Samuel. Three times messengers were sent to slay him, and three times God interposed in a wondrous way. The messengers of death are turned into prophets. Saul dares the manifest power of God, as if he said that God might turn aside his servants, but should not turn him! No act of his rebellion went beyond this. The mightiest man is only a reed in the hands of the Almighty. Saul must prophesy, he is no stronger than his servants, though his evil heart still retained his purpose against David. But God put a hook in his nose and turned him in a way he would not, as He did the Assyrian in a later day (see 2 Kings 19:28).
The officers that were sent to take Jesus (John 7:32) came under a similar power, and were also turned from their purpose. Astonished they return, saying, “Never man spake like this man.” We do not know that saving efficacy accompanied in this case the words of the Lord any more than it did the constraining power of the Spirit in the case of Saul and his messengers. In each we see God using the enemy to bear testimony to His power according to His will. What a vain thing is man! When the rulers take counsel together against God's anointed, He has them in derision. For the decree is gone forth: God's king must sit on the holy hill of Zion. David is under the panoply of God, nor can Messiah be touched till the appointed time. David must be preserved all through, he must suffer but not die, for he had not life in himself. Christ had, and was able to go through death in His way to the Throne. How very partially each type can set forth either the depth of His sufferings, or His power and glory. There was that in the path of Christ where no man could go, a cup which none but He could drink, a baptism which was His alone. Death under judgment was His. Many have followed Him in death, but not in judgment. These were not typos but disciples. The Master must be first and alone; “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward” (John 13:36). He bore away the judgment; then others, His disciples, could follow through death. As regards types Isaac came nearest for he was actually bound and laid upon the altar, but there is essential difference between the figure and the reality of death. It was only in figure that Abraham received his son from death (Heb. 11:19).
Returning to David, how suited to the circumstances is his deliverance. He was with the prophet whose function is not to fight with the sword, but to bear testimony and, if need be, suffer! God delivers David in an extraordinary way. Saul becomes another man, foregoes his purpose, and in appearance and according to the uninstructed voice of the people is numbered with the prophets, as of the same company with Samuel and David. Not to the discerning eye, for his behavior savored rather of the frenzy of the prophets of Baal. Here is no providential mode of escape for David as when surrounded by his pursuers in the wilderness of Mann, Saul is called away by tidings of the invasion of the Philistines. Saul; himself under the direct and immediate hand of God, becomes the instrument of deliverance. May we not say here as Samson when he found honey in the lion's carcass, “Out of the eater came forth meat” God delivers His saints in unexpected ways, ever for His own glory, yet always in keeping with the position and circumstances of His saints.
Jonathan's love (ch. 20.) was an oasis to David in the desert of persecution which he now feels in its acutest form. Driven from home, a wanderer, a fugitive, he had nowhere to lay his head. The power of Israel wielded by Saul is against him. So it was with the Lord Jesus. Foxes had holes, birds of the air had nests, the cunning and the unclean had a place in this world; He, the Lord, had none. Yet to Him there was a house at Bethany, a little green spot where He could meet with hearts that responded to His own. Of them it is said, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” Of only one other is this intimacy of affection spoken-of the disciple whom Jesus loved. Precious to the Lord was this communion of love in His path of sorrow. The loves of David and. Jonathan are but shadows of the Lord's love for that family, and of their love for Him. Yea, however close Jonathan's love to David may be to their love to the Lord Jesus, David's love to Jonathan can be only a faint image of the Lord's special love for these highly favored ones at Bethany.
In this sorrowful yet deeply interesting meeting of David and Jonathan there is more than their mutual love. In Jonathan we see the godly in Israel owning their king. They confess Him before they see His glory; and they are themselves weak and in fear. Simeon, Anna, Nathaniel, confessed Him; but Nicodemus is most like Jonathan, for he also, for fear of the Jews, came by stealth to the Lord Jesus, as Jonathan to David, fearing his father, and unknown to him and to the nation at large. He acknowledges David as the king of Israel. He had before stripped himself of the emblems of royalty and given them to David. Now he acknowledges that his life is in the hand of David. It is complete and perfect submission. There could be no fuller confession of David's rights as king of Israel, for he pleads not only for himself, but also for continued kindness to his house forever. He expected to see David's greatness. “And thou shalt not only while yet I live show me the kindness of Jehovah that I die not; but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever; no, not when Jehovah hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth,” “and I shall be next thee.” Jonathan entreats, but his entreaty is in accord with the counsels of God, and therefore his prayer has a prophetic aspect. We see in this the covenanted blessings of the saved remnant in the age to come; not of those who share in the rejection of the Lord, the Messiah, to whom He said, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” David's company became princes in the kingdom. Jonathan never took that place, he returned to the city, and did not follow David. None loved David, more than he; but he is used, and (I believe) it was so ordered by God, that he should thus prefigure the future remnant of Israel who never know the reproach of Christ, that will he brought back to the land in “the kindness of Jehovah,” and of God's counsels concerning them. The promise is given, repeated, and confirmed with an oath—two immutable things.