We may but briefly note the remaining events of David's life, and those only as they prefigure the Messiah. In all there is much for profitable study, much instruction for our walk as saints. Indeed there is nothing either before law or under law that does not take the form of admonition or of encouragement for saints now. And all point to Christ, though some less directly than others. The wisdom of. God has made prominent in David's life those events where we may trace a likeness (only in measure) to the sufferings and grace of Christ, and thus would lead our thoughts to Him Who was before the mind of the Spirit when He inspired the historian to write the life of David. Christ was the Object; it is He whom we see, and David, interesting as is his history, is but, secondary in the mind of the Holy Spirit.
David is brought out of his difficulty which he created for himself in fleeing to Achish, and now in the land, his true place, becomes the center of all that God owned. The priest and the prophet come to him and join the feeble company, and he becomes captain over them; and, above all, the power of Jehovah is with him. But what a scene is presented to us! Saul with the might of the nation, the acknowledged king of Israel, and here the leader of the religions world, the opposer of God's counsels, the enemy of God's king on the one side; and on the other God's anointed one persecuted, his life hunted, in distress fleeing from one place to another; yet with him the power of God which in due time seated him on the throne, and raised the despised ones with him to be princes, and honorable, and mighty men of valor.
Saul said to his servants, “Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds;” He had distributed his favors among the men of his own tribe, but now appears to distrust them, and appeals to their self-interest. Would the son of Jesse enrich and honor them? No, not the followers of Saul, but his own who followed him and shared in his sufferings, whatever their former condition and character, these David appointed to the honorable places in his kingdom (2 Sam. 21). Again, we turn to the words of our Lord, which He spake to His suffering chosen ones, “Ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:2828And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)). And again, but including the church's more blessed portion, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.”
Though he had sought refuge among the Philistines, David's heart was true to God and to Israel. He hears that the Philistines are robbing the threshing floors of Keilah, and he immediately prepares to go against them. But he first inquires of God. And here, as ever, when faith seeks to know and to act according to the mind of God, it is met with objections and doubts. How natural the fears of David's men! Human wisdom and prudence endorsed their objections. The effect upon David is to send him again to God, and his faith is confirmed, and victory assured. Saul—religious Saul—hearing that David is in Keilah, hastens to destroy him, saying, “God hath delivered him into my hand.” He thought there was no escape for David, and said God had done it! What a fool man becomes when he attempts to understand the ways of God with His saints, he himself being an enemy! Yes, God did bring David to Keilah, but He also knew how to bring him out of it, not for Saul, but for His own glory and for Saul's confusion. The base men of Keilah would have delivered him to Saul. But he again seeks and finds direction. God led him both to befriend the roan of Keilah, and to flee from their ingratitude. The Lord Jesus met with the same ingratitude from those that He befriended. Among them is the impotent man (John 5) whom the Lord so graciously healed. He told the Jews “that it was Jesus who had made him whole.” It was the spirit of betrayal, only he had not the opportunity. The hour was not yet come. This base man was of the generation of the men of Keilah. Doubtless David felt keenly when assured from God that the men whom he had delivered, forgetful of his kindness, would deliver him up to Saul. But how much more did the Lord feel from a baseness and an ingratitude still deeper! Listen to His words of sorrow, “Yea I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy” (Psa. 7:44If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:) (Psalm 7:4)). And, yet a more touching cry when the betrayal is accomplished— “Yea, mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me” (Psa. 41:99Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. (Psalm 41:9)) words of which the historical occasion was the defection of Ahithophel, but which pointed onward to the greater sin of Judas (John 13:1818I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. (John 13:18)).
Then follows a glimpse of the grace which without interruption marked all the life of our Lord. Circumstances, which seemed to have brought David into extremist peril, in reality put Saul in David's power. But he will not avenge himself, on the contrary he appeals to Jehovah; let Him “therefore be Judge and judge between thee and me, and see and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand.” So also the Psalmist where we see the Spirit, of Christ, of Him who would not save Himself, but committed all to God, “Plead my cause, O Jehovah, with them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me,” &c. (Psa. 35). The same cry for help and deliverance again, “Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; oh deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man” (Psa. 43:11Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. (Psalm 43:1)). Saul's better feelings prevailed for a moment, but deceit in some form or other always has marked the persecutor; perhaps even deceiving himself, for not long after a very similar scene occurs (see 26.). But there was a transient effect produced, for even the cruelest heart may have its seasons of relenting, though generally succeeded by the same old, if not a greater, hatred. It was so with Saul, in whom we see the persistent enmity of the natural heart, spite of known truth. “I know well that thou shalt surely be king.” Yet after this he sought David's life.
A different picture is presented now (chap. 25.), which, while not dissevered from the kingdom, looks to a higher thing which is called into existence when every outward link with Israel is broken. And so this chapter fittingly opens with the fact of Samuel's death. He was the visible link of the people with God, after, the death of Eli, the priest. There was a new link preparing, but he was in the wilderness of Paran, as yet not received by the nation. While still the rejected king, the Holy Spirit brings before us the story of Abigail and her ultimate blessing. She is not the type of the church as a whole, but seems to prefigure church position during this present time. In her we see those of the remnant who as a kind of first-fruits were joined to the Lord, and were added to the church (Acts 2) soon to share as the Bride in the exaltation and glory of the Bridegroom, though now for a season despised. Some of the characteristic marks of the church are found in her. She renounces her own position, whatever it was after Nabal's death, to share in the sorrows of David, whom Nabal (Israel) despised, but whom she knew to be chosen of God. David's present circumstances has no weight with her. He was suffering because God had called him to the throne, and that was enough for Abigail's faith.
To partake of the sufferings of Christ is our privilege, though how little our measure. We all, more or less, fail individually to follow in His path of sorrow; shrinking from the cross, but loving the blessing.
If Abigail represents the few that clave to the Lord, before the great apostle of the Gentiles carried the word to them, Nabal, making merry in his own house and refusing David, is a symbol of the despising Jew, boasting of his riches, vaunting his own-righteousness, resisting the grace of God, and denying the title of Jesus, the Messiah. Abigail acknowledged and bowed to David as the King. She is as it were reproduced in Nathaniel, and in the thief on the cross, who both confessed Christ as King of Israel. Nathaniel's confession went farther than the kingdom; the omniscience of God was there in the Person of the Lord, and he bows before Him as Son of God; but He was also King of Israel.
There is a remarkable “touch” in the supplication of Abigail to David, and in the prayer of the thief. Their common thought is, the kingdom and the coming king, but the faith of the dying thief is higher than that of Abigail. For though David was at that moment a persecuted man, derided by all the Nabals in Israel and hiding from Saul, yet he was at the head of six hundred men, and able to chastise the churlish ingratitude of Nabal. If Nathaniel saw Jesus to be Son of God as well as King of Israel, the thief saw quite as clearly that the question of death had nothing to do with the certainty of Christ exalted as King (save as the appointed way). Abigail saw not a dying man, but one with energy and power, and she says, “When Jehovah shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine, handmaid.” David's answer is not, I have accepted thy gifts, but thy person.
There was no external circumstance which could have given the remotest probability to the mind of the dying malefactor that “Jesus of Nazareth,” on the cross—as he says “in the same condemnation” —was the true King; but there was a divinely given faith which pierced the covering of sorrow and shame, and saw His glory, and he says, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.” Neither Abigail nor the thief had to wait for the kingdom, there was immediate honor and blessing for both. She became David's wife before he came to the throne, and to the thief the Lord said, “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” How beautiful to see in the briefest recorded circumstances how the grace of the Lord was prefigured ages before He was manifested.
Yet with the resemblance contrast is intimately connected. David had vengeance in his heart, his purpose was not to leave a single male alive. He was arrested in this by the submission of Abigail, and vengeance was delayed. When the Lord accepted the person of the thief, and promised him more than he asked, His heart was full of love and pity, He was accomplishing redemption. His errand was grace, not judgment. Vengeance will come, will overtake the murderers and despisers of God's King, when He appears the second time. But first He came to save, not to, judge. David's purpose was set aside by Abigail, the Lord's purpose of grace was abundantly proved and manifested when He accepted the thief.
Two facts are now given (vv. 43, 44) which, if the Holy Spirit had merely meant to show how wonderfully David had been delivered from all his foes, might have been omitted without detriment to the record of God's grace and loving-kindness. But the primary object of the Holy Spirit is not David but Christ. And every event must be brought into His life if we would learn the thoughts of God. “David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives. But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti, the son of Laish, which was of Gallim.” Abigail and her attendants may represent the remnant of Israel which clave to the Lord before the church began. What then is Ahinoam, for she also was wife to David? I judge they both together (two witnesses) point to the remnant in the days of our Lord, and to those converted by the preaching of Peter, before the special position of the church was declared. For though the church was formed on the day of Pentecost, Peter's preaching goes not beyond the gospel of the kingdom. Upon their repentance Christ would bring in the times of refreshing and restore all things. It is Paul who begins with the foundation truth of the church, Christ the Son of God; nor is the union of the church with Christ set forth by David's union with Abigail and Ahinoam. For they are two, the church is one. The church is called the Bride, the Lamb's wife, but she has not yet made herself ready. (Rev. 19:77Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. (Revelation 19:7)). The church is as yet a chaste virgin. David's two wives cannot typify the church’s present position, for the marriage of the Lamb is not yet come, neither are they typical of the future position, for Christ will then appear in His glory. David was still a wanderer when he took them. They are the remnant, the few which followed Christ when here, and swelled to five thousand through Peter's preaching (Acts 4.) and then, losing their special standing as “godly remnant,” are merged in the new thing—the church of God, at that time declared, but again to appear as a remnant when the church is gone, and to pass through great tribulation, till they come forth as the restored nation, i.e., Michal brought back to her first husband.
Ahinoam was of Jezreel, a place early associated with the enemy (Jud. 6:33); afterward prominent for iniquity, being stained with the blood of Naboth, nor less marked by the judgment of wicked Jezebel. The prophet Hosea declares the gladness of the land in the millennial day; the blessings that come from Jehovah the source reach the utmost, even to Jezreel (see 2:22). This seems to put Jezebel in the lowest place; but the blessing descends in the same way as the cry went up, and Jehovah and Jezreel are again connected. For His blessing will reach the limits of Israel. Ahinoam is not the figure of this fullness of blessing, but she and Abigail give the position of the remnant before the king reigns, and more than anticipate the joy and glory of the kingdom, inasmuch as they shared in his sufferings (see 30:5). So the line of believers that runs through Israel share in the sufferings and rejection of their Messiah, though the same sufferings have a higher character, as of the church, and therefore higher glory awaits them, as awaits us all.
Hence the words of Abigail (25:24-31) go beyond the thoughts of the remnant in the latter day. There is the deprecation of revenge, taking the iniquity upon herself, the blessedness of simply trusting in Jehovah, and of being bound up in the bundle of life. All this partakes of church character. Abigail shows the faith of those joined to the Lord before He reigns; the Jezreelitess the moral condition out of which they were taken. During this time Michel is given to another; the outward link between Messiah and Israel is broken, but only for a time. When the blessing from Jehovah reaches Jezreel, Michal—the separated wife—will be brought back (Hos. 2:1919And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. (Hosea 2:19), &c.).