AND in all this we see Israel; for (like prince, like people) Saul is the representative of Israel in apostacy, as he is the forerunner or type of their king in the latter day. This way of Saul under David's harp has been the way of Israel under God's ministers. Elijah raised among them for a moment the cry, “the Lord He is God, the Lord He is God,” but all was quickly “Baal” again. In the light of John the Baptist they afterward rejoiced, but it was only for a season; and when the hand of the Son of God Himself was among them to heal them and bless them, for awhile they flocked to Him in thousands, and when He preached they wondered (Luke 4), and when He entered their city they cried “Hosanna” (Matt. 21), but all soon ended in the cross. The evil spirit had been charmed, the unclean spirit had gone out, but the house was still ready for it, and for it only. And thus the harp of David and the grace and ministry of the Son of God were only the same stage in the downward paths of the king and the people. They were, both of them, disobedient and gainsaying still. And it was this case of David's harp, as I judge, which our Lord had especially in mind, when He said, “If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out?” thus likening to Saul that generation of Israel to whom He was preaching, and making the power of David's harp the same as the power of that preaching. And the parable of the unclean spirit going out and returning with others more wicked than himself, which the Lord then delivers (Luke 11), is thus a setting forth both of the history of Saul and of that generation. And so we shall find, that the spirit which now went out of Saul came into him again with increased strength, as the casting out of devils and cleansing the house of Israel for a time by the Son of God ended only in His becoming the victim of their lusts and enmity. For Saul was the man after Israel's heart, the full representative of the revolted and unbelieving nation.
But Saul's sin is not to hinder God's mercy. David has a work to do with the Philistine, which must be done, be the king never so unworthy. And in this we still see the way of the Son of God. He came to destroy the power of the enemy, as well as to heal the daughter of Zion; and though she, like Saul, may refuse to be healed, the Son of God must do His work upon the great Goliath. He must lead captivity captive. He must make an end of sin. He must break down the middle wall of partition and nail the handwriting to His cross. He must slay the enmity and abolish death. He must accomplish all this glorious triumph over the full power of the enemy, though He find none in Israel, who were His own, to receive Him, nor any in the world, that He had made, to know Him
This again is shame and comfort to us: shame, that we could thus treat His love comfort that His love survived such treatment. And upon this, I would further notice (for it carries another lesson to ourselves), that though Saul knew the power of David's harp for a time, he never knew David himself. He had not learned David, if I may so speak—David was still a stranger to him (xvii. 56). And how does this tell us of man and of Israel still! Man will enjoy the rain from heaven, and the fruitful season; but remain ignorant of the Father who orders all this for him Israel was healed of Jesus, but did not learn Jesus; many pressed on Him in the throng, who never touched Him. And all this is like Saul who could be refreshed by David's music, but still have to ask, “Abner, whose son is this youth?”
And this, beloved brethren, is truly sad and solemn; and I think I can say that I never felt more awed, while meditating on scripture, with thoughts of what man is, than in this meditation on poor wretched miserable Saul. The subject is indeed very solemn. It gives us the way of man, the way of a child of this world, who goes on in self-will, with desperate purpose of heart, to take the world for his portion at all cost. And it is no theory, nor singular thing. It finds its counterpart in our world every day; and would in ourselves, but for the gracious keeping of our God. And I do pray, beloved, that neither my pen nor your eye may travel on through these dreary paths of man, without our heart feeling what a thing it is thus to live and thus to die a lover of this present evil world. “He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Prov. 29:1.)
Through the next chapters (xviii.-xxvii.) David becomes the principal object; and all that we see in Saul is only the course of a vexed and disappointed man of the world, who by the goading of his own lusts rushes on to destruction, as a horse to the battle. He feels that he is losing the world, and that is everything to him He cared nothing for the kingdom, for its own sake; and he valued its welfare, only so far as that served the world in his heart and his honor among men. The evil spirit now returns with others naive wicked than himself Before, it was a spirit that troubled him, but now it irritates his lusts, and ill too strong for the harp of David. (xvi. 14, xviii. 10.) He had now become one of that generation who will not hearken to the voice of charmers; charming never so wisely. (Psa. 58) The song of the women had, the rather, awakened all the evil passions of his soul; and envy and wounded pride and hatred of the righteous work, and express themselves fearfully through all these scenes. That fatal song was to Saul what Joseph's dream had been to his brethren, and what the tidings of the wise men was afterward to Herod—it stirred up all his enmity; and David's first successes are, of course, only fresh irritations of his lust (xix. 8, 9); and nothing roots it out. Convictions, disappointments, resolutions all fail. And the ruling passion is strong even in death; for while he confesses that David shall soon have everything, and he himself be laid in the grave, still he says, “Swear now, therefore, unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house.” Truly, this is all a solemn warning to us. Saul's eye was set on fire of hell, and he kept it fixed on the righteous as its prey. “Saul eyed David.” And it is not in the power of the prospect, or the approach of death, to heal “the evil eye.” The spirit of envy and of strife will work in us, even to the very last gasp; and the only divine cure for it is, to learn through the Holy Ghost, with enlarged hearts, to cease looking to our own personal honor or interest, and to take our place in God's interests; to know that we have our honor, our enduring honor, only in that mighty and glorious system to which the ten thousands of others, and our own thousands are all contributing. That will give divine victory over the world. But the world was Saul's end, and he must get it at all cost. He knew nothing beyond “his own,” and had never learned the glorious and enlarging lesson, that all things are our's, if we are Christ's, for Christ is God's.
But Saul would have David fall by the hand of another, rather than by his own, for he had some stings of conscience in the business as it was; and beside that, he saw that David was “accepted in the sight of all the people.” He plots against his life first by the Philistines, then by his daughter, and at last solicits even Jonathan to be the executioner. But these failing, and only forcing David out from the court and the camp, he then proclaims him a traitor; and would have his people treat him as an outlaw. But no weapon formed against him can prosper. Every snare of the fowler is broken, no craft can surprise, no strength can overthrow him. When the officers of the Jews came to take Jesus, they had to return, saying, “No man ever spake like this man;” and Saul himself and his officers are turned into prophets, that every band that would bind this anointed of the Lord might be loosed also.
And David, in the exile and shame of an outlaw, gathers round him a company, in the world's esteem, as. dishonored as himself; but who prove the real strength and the only honor of the nation then, and who afterward shine in the brightest ranks of the people, when the kingdom is set up in righteousness. For it is to this David, this exiled David and his band of distressed and discontented ones, that Israel look in their trouble (xxiii. 1); and the enemy is made to know, that the presence of the God of Israel is with them. The Philistines are routed by them, and the Amalekites spoiled; but they defend and rescue their exposed and threatened brethren. (xxii. xxv.) Such and other famous deeds are done by them, and the priest and the prophet and the sword of Goliath (the symbol and the spoil of glorious war) are with them. As afterward with the greater than David, there was another dishonored company, who still were “the holy seed” of the nation, the publicans and harlots, the Galilean women, and she out of whom He had cast seven devils. Saul and his friends kept court, it is true, and the Scribes and the Pharisees sat in Moses' seat, but these were whited sepulchers; and the only place of real honor was to go without the camp, and there meet David and Christ, and their dishonored bands. For this is the blessed way of Him who stains the pride of man, and lifts the beggar from the dunghill.
But because David was thus the Lord's chosen, Saul is his enemy, the victim that his enemy lusted after; and the more wisely David carries himself, and shows that God is with him, the more with infatuated heart Saul fears him and hates him and would fain kill him; in all this, going the way of Satan who; knowing the Son of God in his day, trembled before Him, and yet sought to destroy Him. So fully was Saul found to be of “the children of this world,” and “the children of the wicked one;” a suitable king for the revolted Israel, his whole course showing us that nothing is too horrid for man, when God gives him up because of his wickedness. Does not the massacre at Nob, by the hand of his Edomite, show us this? Does not the massacre at Bethlehem by another Saul, show us this? And these are but samples of the ways of that “violent man,” in the latter day, who doing according “to his will” shall “go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many “
But Saul can weep when he meets David; but so did Esau when he met Jacob. There is, however, no trusting these tears. They may but indicate the stony ground at best, while all the time the heart is not right with God. David could not trust Saul's tears, but turned away from them to his hold in the wilderness, and says, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.” (xxiv. xxvii.) So with the Son of God; when many were believing in Jesus, beholding the miracles which He did, He would not commit Himself to them (John; so unworthy is man, though he put forth his best, of the confidence of God.
And Saul can prophesy too. But so have others of the same generation. Balaam the prophet prophesied while loving the wages of unrighteousness. Caiaphas the priest prophesied, while he was thirsting for innocent blood. Judas the apostle wrought miracles while he carried the heart of a traitor. And Balaam the prophet, Saul the king, Caiaphas the priest, and Judas the apostle, are all of one generation. A new heart, or “another heart,” as a gift for office, had been imparted to each of them, and in the Spirit they prophesied or wrought miracles. But all this tells us that it is not gifts that make us what we should be, and that nothing will do, if the heart be not with God.