Notes. Division 1. (1 Samuel 1:1-28; 1 Samuel 2:1-36; 1 Samuel 3:1-21; 1 Samuel 4:1-22; 1 Samuel 5:1-12; 1 Samuel 6:1-21; 1 Samuel 7:1-17.) Samuel: the Representative of the Divine Sovereignty. Samuel the prophet fittingly introduces the story of the kings, -fittingly crowns the first kings himself. He is the representative of the higher throne from which alone they derive their authority. The prophet (see Deuteronomy 18:15, sq., notes), as such, chosen from any class among the people, raised up of God as needed, not deriving his office from any of his predecessors, but from God alone, necessarily expresses the sovereign will of God. Samuel, in the circumstances of his birth, peculiarly does this; still more, under those in which he is brought forward by the Spirit of God, when the priesthood has failed, and the ark is no more sought after, and he has alone to stand in the terrible gap thus made. But he is also thus the witness of the divine sufficiency. All else has failed, but God has not failed. In the very lowest estate, the Ichabod of the nation Samuel, with nothing to help or accredit him except that God who spike into his ear, lifts up the nation into triumph and blessing. And here a new title of God is found, which, in connection with those related and contrasted "kingdoms," which in the Septuagint give such fitting title to the books, claims for the divine not merely supremacy but totality of power. This is "Jehovah of Hosts," or "Jehovah, God of Hosts": where there is no need to speculate whether stars or angels, or even the hosts of Israel, are intended. "The God of Hosts" claims all these for Him. In this title the divine kingdom reveals itself in contrast with all others, which are sustained or confounded as they move in subjection to it or not. Thus the moral of the book is given at the opening of it. 1. Samuel's origin and birth are carefully given to us: we may be sure, not as matters of simply historical interest. What importance, in this case, can we attach to this genealogy of unknown names? Let us remind ourselves that we are in the kingdom of God, where wheel is adjusted to wheel in His chariot of progress. How good it is to be permitted to escape from the babble of the unmeaning into a world like this, where everything is significant! There may be, no doubt, here depths and heights which we cannot explore. Still we are encouraged onward, and at every step gain something in view. How wonderful are these Scripture histories in this way, as making us aware everywhere of the pervasive presence of the Almighty and All-wise! (1) Nothing, in fact, could be much simpler than is Samuel's genealogy here, or the steps by which we reach the Nazarite prophet. Reading the five names in reverse order, and remembering that we have thus to read the numerical order also backwards, we find in the fifth place, under the number of responsibility, Zuph, "the watcher," or "observer." It is the only name of which the meaning is at all doubtful. Most, perhaps, would render it "honeycomb," the Hebrew word standing for this. On the other hand, the derivation is as simple for the other meaning; and the alternative reading in Chronicles (Zophai in 1 Chronicles 6:26, and Zuph or Ziph in verse 35), with its presumed connection with Ramathaim-zophim, leads us back to the former, also. In its spiritual connection, certainly, to be an "observer" in the sphere of responsibility is the beginning of all blessings. Zuph is an Ephrathite, therefore "fruitful"; and we cannot wonder that his son Tohu, under the number of experience, speaks of being "low, sunk down," -humiliation; and this being ever the way of blessing and of the knowledge of the Lord, the next name, under the number of manifestation, is Elihu, "my God" -or my Mighty One -"is He." Still, in the way of progress, and under the salvation number, we have then Jeroham, "he is tenderly loved"; and we end here, under that of obedience and divine sovereignty, with Elkanah, whom "God has purchased," or "acquired." How easily, of such a stock as this, comes forth a Samuel! Elkanah's town is that of Samuel afterwards, -Ramah, or ha-Ramah, "the height." The name we have had elsewhere, but not the place, which here we find in its full title to have been Ramathaim-zophim, "the two heights of the watchers." The prophet's place was always that of a watcher, and the prophet's face always toward the slowly coming dawn; and the "height" is in natural connection with the place: those who are in it are, by that very fact, lifted up out of the world. All this is in perfect keeping with Samuel's association with Ramah. For us, also, the connection of the dawn with the kingdom for which still we wait is necessary and obvious: but why "two heights"? May it not be that there is the positional height of our place in Christ, of which other Ramahs have already spoken to us (pp. 133, 150), and the spiritual elevation answering to this? Certainly God has thus provided for the Elkanahs, His "purchased" ones today; and this is the place for a Samuel -should there be any now to exercise the judge's office in Israel. For any right judgment of things at large, the coming of the Lord must be before us, we must be watchers for Him! Is not the state of Christendom, and the cause of that state also, depicted in His own words, -"but if that evil servant shall say, in his heart, My Lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken" (Matthew 24:48-49)? How unutterably solemn the warning that follows! We are next told of Elkanah's two wives, who repeat in some respects the story of Sarah and Hagar. If Sarah be, as we have seen in its place, the principle of grace, the very name of Hannah is "grace." And she, too, is naturally a barren woman. Peninnah differs, however, in many ways, from Hagar. She is no bondwoman, and would not seem to stand for the principle of law; but is, on the other hand, the "adversary" of her rival, which could not in the same way be said of Hagar. Similarly she flourishes while Hannah is barren, but grows feeble after she has become fruitful. Her name, Peninnah, is of doubtful meaning, but probably signifies "shining, glittering"; and she may represent the earthly objects which so easily distract the heart even of Christians from that which should alone hold it. Would that Elkanah's bigamy were less easily to be applied to Christians! That it was openly indulged as lawful, instead of marring, this does in fact only make the lesson more forcible: "happy is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth." After all, Elkanah did love Hannah: but grace cannot be reconciled to a barren love without fruit. (2) No wonder if the going up to worship the Lord always provokes afresh this sorrow. But now she can bear it no longer: out it bursts in a vow of Nazariteship -of separation to the Lord of the child she covets. Would that all brought forth from us, even by grace, had thus the sign of consecration to God upon its head, the confession of entire dependence upon Him attached to that which is brought forth! The last of the judges, Samson, who had "begun" to deliver Israel from the Philistines, had been, as we know, a Nazarite also; and we have seen (p. 239) the meaning of this. Here that alone is particularized in which Samson had so signally ailed. How easily the strong man fails in this grace of dependence just by reason of his strength! Samuel is, in fact, the very opposite of Samson. If anything more than another characterizes him it is the spirit of prayer. Was he not himself the fruit of it? Is not that which is brought forth from us all naturally the incarnation, so to speak, of the spirit in which it has been conceived? The first glimpse of the priest here is already a sad one. Eli, meaning "high," or exalted," expresses the moral condition of the priesthood, as we are shortly to be made to see. Personally he had a heart for the Lord, but not sufficiently to stand for Him; and with him the whole order to which he belongs is becoming decrepit. His spiritual sense is blunt, as is his nature. He cannot discern the character of the sorrowing woman before him; sees, indeed, but the moving of lips, and misconstrues it; pronounces a judgment which has speedily to be recalled. Yet this awakens in him no self-judgment, no discernment of his own levity: and this we shall find in Eli all the way through. The ordered way of blessing is being closed up, and God is finding new channels for His grace to be poured into. Such is His way; for His grace must not lack expression while the need is there that demands it. The cry of distress may be misinterpreted, even by His people; but His own ear cannot be stopped. (3) We come immediately, therefore, to the realization of this: Samuel is born, and named by his mother "heard of God." What she says is evidently not the interpretation of the name, but the reason for her giving it him. The name speaks of God as El, the Mighty One, who in might has answered her; the reason speaks of Jehovah. Indeed, how much beyond her prayer has been the answer! For she does not appear to have looked on to this child becoming, as he does, the deliverer of Israel. Perhaps she never lives to see him in this character. God acts in the fullness of His own love and wisdom; and what a light will eternity throw upon the issue of our prayers! Samuel is born to be in a peculiar way the servant of the Lord; but he must be weaned before he can become this, and we cannot refrain from thinking upon the one hundred and thirty-first psalm here: "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, even as a child is weaned from his mother; yea, my soul is even as a weaned child." That is says Perowne, "As a weaned child no longer cries, frets, and longs for the breast, but lies still and is content, because it is with its mother, so my soul is weaned from all discontented thoughts, from all fretful desires of earthly good, waiting in stillness upon God, finding its satisfaction in His presence, resting peacefully in His arms." This surely is what is required for proper service: the childlike spirit, but the spirit of a weaned child. Alas, how few, proportionately, of the professed servants of Christ have attained to this! The weaning accomplished, Samuel is taken and presented to the Lord, with a bullock for a burnt-offering. The type of whole-hearted consecration in service is easily to be read in this; but it is Christ of whom it speaks, in whom alone servant and service can be accepted of God. He who serves best will be most conscious of this. The servant, too, to serve aright, must be trained up in the sanctuary. There alone we can get clear eyes for it, and the light of heaven. So, as we will remember, the Levites were given to the priests; and the book of the Sanctuary, Leviticus, precedes the wayside service of the book of Numbers. The last words of the Chapter refer, I suppose, and as the connection would imply, to Samuel. He would be, according to the commentators, about three years old, which in Palestine would be, however, proportionately older than with us. Hannah's heart is full, and bursts out in prophetic song, in which God's ways with her are expanded into general principles, which, in the end, are applied to the purification and blessing of the earth under God's King -Messiah. The king and the kingdom thus are introduced at the beginning of the book, and yet go beyond David or any successor of his in the days that immediately follow, and take in the whole breadth of the earth, and the final rule of Christ over it. The song has four parts, -the first of which celebrates as the God of her salvation the faithful, omnipotent, and omniscient God (verses 1-3). Her heart is joyful, her strength is raised up, her mouth utters boldly her challenge to all enemies. Jehovah is her joy and exultation: for it is He who has become her Saviour. None is holy as He; nay, none can be put beside Him: the rock is a faint image of His faithfulness, who is not simply her -but "our" -God. Well may man's pride be abased, and the loose ungoverned speech hushed before Him: for all knowledge is His, and actions are weighed by Him. The second is the salvation part (verses 4, 5), -which includes in it, also, the bumbling of the adversaries. The bows of the mighty are broken: their weapons of war are no more; they that stumbled for very weakness, are, on the other hand, given a strength that girds or braces them up for activity. They that were full to satiety with bread have now to hire themselves out to obtain it, while the hungry now are in turn filled. Now she comes to her own case, though not, of course, in the details: the barren has borne seven, and she that has borne many is grown feeble. These, of course, are simply specimen deliverances; but we have to go further to find the full thought, and that resurrection is a principle of the Lord's ways: he is the God of resurrection. That He should abase pride and destroy the wicked, that is easy to understand; but resurrection means that for the righteous also the way of life must be first of all a way of death. Pride in them, also, must be abased: they must learn in themselves what man is, and the righteous penalty for what he is; in the prostration of human strength they must learn the power and grace that consist with holiness in the Lord's salvation. So now the third part (verses 6-8 a): — Jehovah kills and makes alive, too: He brings down to Hades, and brings up out of it. And from the poor and needy -from the dunghill itself -He lifts up those that He makes His princes, and sets on a throne of glory. These principles are of the widest application, and will receive the widest application in a coming day, when the strife between good and evil shall be coming to a final end: and this is the thought of the fourth part (verses 8b-10) For the pillars of the earth belong to Jehovah: that is, the foundations of the dry land which are set up in the deep, and upon which the world that men inhabit stands. All that sustains the present condition of things, she tells us, depends upon the will of Jehovah, unchangeably holy as He is. Thus these principles will finally and everywhere prevail. He keepeth the feet of His saints, and the wicked are silent in darkness [such is the day that is rapidly drawing near]: for by strength shall no man prevail. They that strive with Jehovah shall be broken in pieces; out of heaven shall He thunder upon them; [now we see the day in its broad features]: Jehovah shall judge the ends of the earth; and shall give strength unto His King, and exalt the horn of His Anointed." Here is plainly the day of Christ; and the regeneration of the earth will exhibit fully all these principles. Israel must herself go down into the depths, and come up in resurrection. All the pride of man shall be abased, and the Lord alone exalted in that day. To this Hannah, with her prophetic eyes, looks on, and the whole of the "books of the kingdoms." How clearly is their character marked by the song of this Israelite woman! 2. We have now put before us, in manifestly contrasted paragraphs, the degradation of the priesthood and the rise of the prophet that is soon to be. God has thus provided that the link between Himself and His people should not be snapped even in the awful disaster that is about to overtake them. How good is He, and how righteous in His goodness! Yet how easily may we mistake Him, too! He who would judge with God must not judge by the appearance: the moral and spiritual are the only means of it; and this must seem a thing so evident as to need no enforcement; yet the apostle did not think so, and the history of Christianity in every generation shows abundantly the need. The moral degradation of the priesthood is here shown as complete. The mercy of God warns repeatedly, in vain, of impending judgment. Eli is morally weak; his sons utterly profane; and alas, the people, save a small remnant, are away from God. Many are the lessons of such a contrast as is here presented to us. (1) This one verse, with its simple statement, may seem too insignificant altogether to form even the smallest section. But even this may serve to point a moral in such a connection as this. God concerns Himself with what is little: yea, there is nothing that is too little for Him. And here was a fresh affirmation in this new beginning, -His power to exalt and to abase, His refusal of evil wherever found, and the individuality also of each soul with Him. What a gospel in the Old Testament for children is in the notice and acceptance of this little child! A little child this, that ministered not to Eli merely but to Jehovah, and finding his record in the inspired Word! (2) In contrast with Samuel's service is now shown us the sin of the priests, a profanity which, in its essential features, has been often enough repeated since. External nearness to God, without the knowledge of Him, has ever been the occasion of the worst departures from Him. To one away from the sanctuary some sense of the divine would naturally more attach to it, which in the daily intercourse with sacred things tends more and more to pass away. Eli's sons are thus practisers and preachers of a godlessness which at first shocks and then communicates itself to the people round. A holiness that is but external is the worst unholiness. Here nothing but the rites remained to speak of God; but even these were impiously violated by the rude hands of those whose duty it was to lead men in obedience. Shamelessly and openly they made themselves fat with the offerings of Jehovah's people, and that with violence which defied Him to His face. (3) The narrative returns, after this recital, which has shown the moral state leading to the collapse of the priesthood shortly in Israel, to show us Samuel, clothed anticipatively with the priestly ephod. This was, as we have seen (Exodus 28:5-14, n.), essentially the shoulder-piece, and which held (in the case of the high-priest) the breastplate also. Girt about the person, it was the expression of a service whereby the people of God were sustained before God in a love which never forgot that which was due to Him. It was the mediator's robe, and the priests were thus characterized as those who "wore a linen ephod." (ch. 22: 18.) No other did this besides the priest,* except here Samuel, and upon one great occasion (2 Samuel 6:14) David, and these two cases are strictly parallel: in each it showed that the burden of Israel's maintenance before God had devolved upon the person wearing the ephod. \ It is true that the materials were different: there was here no beauty of various color, nor gold, as in the high-priest's dress, the full blossom of the priestly. But on the other hand, the simple white linen* was that in which the priest went on the day of atonement into the holiest of all, and speaks of the absolute purity fit for the presence of Him who dwells in the sanctuary. Thus, while it points to Christ, the antitype all through here, -priest, prophet, king, alike, -it clearly marks the contrast between the man of God's choice and the licentious priesthood that gives way to him. \ The coat, which year by year his mother brings to him, is in harmony with this. It is the meil, which was also part of the high-priest's dress, the "robe" of the ephod, although kings, nobles, and others wore it also. The robe of the high-priest, like the ephod, had its distinctive characters; as to that of Samuel we have nothing told us: the connection, however, cannot well be doubted. The ephod must have been furnished by the sanctuary; and thus two witnesses united here their testimony to him. The higher kingdom was thus already manifesting itself. Hannah also, significant in her name and history, as we have seen, now becomes fruitful. She has three more sons, -four sons, therefore, and two daughters, the presage of the triumph of divine grace. None the less must the holiness of God's ways be affirmed, and the corruption of the priesthood have its answer in judgment. But "Samuel grew before Jehovah." (4) The further fact is now developed that, the priesthood being such as we have seen, there is no power over them to stand for God, and restrain the evil. Eli is in the threefold relation to these wanton transgressors of father, high-priest, and judge in Israel; but he does nothing but expose his incapacity. Nor is it mere age that can account for this. It is significant that for the contempt of Jehovah's ordinances, which has been already before us, we do not even hear of a rebuke. When to this is added the immorality so naturally connecting itself with it, Eli argues with them and protests, but that is all. He uses not the rod which is put into his hands, and which might have even saved his sons themselves. He leaves them to go unchecked to the divine judgment which he foresees, but does nothing effective to avert; and, in fact, the judgment comes upon them. Again Samuel is noticed, briefly but in comprehensive contrast. The record anticipates what, long after, is said of the Lord in His childhood, that he grew up in favor both with Jehovah and with men. He is thus every way the opposite of the God-forsaken priests. Though but a child, he is uncontaminated with the evil in the presence of which he grows up, a witness of the individuality that belongs to us, though amid a multitude, and apart even from the restraint and discipline of home. He is a child, but thus with his inheritance in the future, while the priesthood is failing and passing away. (5) The sentence upon Eli and his house is now pronounced. Of "the man of God" who now comes forward to utter it we know nothing more, -not even his name. The sentence is a decree of degradation for degradation, with the cutting off of Hophni and Phinehas, the chief offenders. God would raise up for Himself a faithful priest to walk before His anointed, -a second intimation of the coming kingdom. Joshua had stood before Eleazar (Numbers 27:21); and, for the time, the high priest had had the foremost place in Israel. This is to be changed, and even the "faithful priest" is to walk before the king. Priesthood has failed to maintain the link between God and His people. Now the king is to be the link, although he, too, will fail and pass: only the "threefold cord" of prophet, priest, and king, as found in Christ, will not be broken; and power put into His hand cannot fail or be forfeited any more. Toward this all these types point, though Christ is not directly spoken of here. The "faithful priest" was raised up in Zadok, as the representative of the line of Phinehas and Eleazar: Eli was a descendant of Ithamar, Aaron's fourth son, and not of Eleazar, who thus for a time had lost the high-priesthood promised to Phinehas forever (Numbers 25:13.) Phinehas has thus the promise fulfilled to him, as it were, in resurrection and abidingly: in the kingdom yet to come, the sons of Zadok will again keep charge of the sanctuary. (Ezekiel 44:15.) Through all, the typical meaning distinctly shines: for God throughout is thinking of His Son. Eleazar, as we have seen fully elsewhere, is as Aaron's third son, -in whom, also, after the death of Nadab and Abihu, the priesthood revives, -the distinct type of Christ as a risen Priest, whose intercessory place is the fruit of His work accomplished. His resurrection means the acceptance of His atoning death; and thus He is Eleazar, the true "help of God" for His dependent people. Ithamar, the fourth son of Aaron, as that, and according to his name, "where the palm is," implies a practical righteousness, which is connected with practical walk. Now as long as Eleazar retained the high priesthood, Ithamar could serve in his lower place well and acceptably, for "to do good and to communicate," and thus the whole Christian life, are "sacrifices," which, as priests, we are called to offer up to God. But these are entirely dependent upon that one only propitiatory sacrifice which Eleazar, the risen priest, reminds us of. Let Ithamar displace Eleazar, then Ithamar himself loses himself hopelessly. Eli, the "exalted," Hophni, "my fist," and quite another Phinehas, "mouth of brass," from the one of the higher line, sufficiently characterize the history here; while the line of Eleazar, when it revives revives in Zadok, "the righteous one," -righteousness in the right line and Person, "Jesus Christ, the righteous," -and all is again secured. Precious it is to see Israel's sorrowful history written in golden letters such as these! Thus the higher kingdom is in action all through the book, not merely in the lives of individuals, but in the ordering of the state at large. Unto it the lower, when it comes, must be in complete subjection, representing it in character truly among men, or pay the forfeit. 3. The priesthood being thus adjudged, we now find the prophet openly brought forward, God thus providing that there should be no lapse on His side, fail as all else may. Samuel is therefore now called, and established before all Israel as the mouthpiece of Jehovah to them, before the predicted judgment falls upon Eli's house. (1) The call comes suddenly at night, when men are asleep, but not the Shepherd of Israel. The dim eyes of the priest, the suggested near failure of the tabernacle-lamp, are no mere embellishments of the picture. Such was the state of things which necessitated the new interposition of the Lord. Eli was there in his place, but the Voice addresses not Eli, -not even though the message concerns him intimately and sadly. For the face of God is averted from him. To Samuel we find the Voice is something audible, -not a simple intimation or impression on the heart. It is, at the same time, very human: the youth imagines it is Eli that is speaking; and that three times over, for he has not yet learned to recognize Jehovah. Eli himself is thus made also to understand that He is speaking, before the subject of the communication is made known to him, -though his heart, as we see afterwards, presages but too well. Yet this divine-human Voice, how sweet it is! In all dispensations it is the same. Calling one, too, by one's name, for by name He knows His sheep. But may we not also, like Samuel here, mistake the voice divine because it is so human, -expect it as afar off, miss it because it is nigh? (2) The message confirms the previously announced doom of Eli's house. But what need to repeat again what had already been so fully said? Is not once said enough for God? Does it not imply that God yet waits, even though the thing is said, upon man's repentance? expects men to cry to Him, to give Him, as it were, opportunity to repent? Why should He warn at all, if not for this? But Eli, though he bows under God's hand, does not turn to Him after this fashion. His spiritual sense is dulled, so that he cannot discern the undertone of pity in the threatening wrath; nor has he energy to take up the authority entrusted to him, and act for Him whom he has so long ignored. Thus judgment takes its course. Samuel, though with a natural fear in which different elements would unite together, approves himself as able to stand for God, and tells him all. His first message is of evil, and to those with whom he has grown up. It is needed, perhaps, for himself, in view of the place that he is to take in the crisis at hand. And though he fears, he does not listen to his fears, nor refuse the burden laid upon him, but bears it faithfully. (3) Thus Jehovah is with him, and his prophecy finds a wider field. Jehovah reveals himself through Samuel; and thus, on the very eve of judgment, appeal is made anew to the hearts and consciences of the people. It did not avail to prevent disaster; but it did surely to maintain faith in a remnant, and bring some hearts to the living God. But whatever might be the result as to the people, God at least glorified Himself in goodness, as He ever does, and has left us as witnesses of a love, which to us, indeed, has been how much more wonderfully displayed! 4. (1) But now the day of inevitable ruin comes, and Israel is smitten before the Philistines. It would seem by the language as if Israel had provoked the conflict. In striking contrast, and yet in as plain congruity, with what takes place afterward, we are told that they encamped beside Ebenezer, doubly emphasized by two articles, "the stone of the help." Samuel, we know, actually set up the stone afterwards in commemoration of victory; and this makes the anticipative mention of the name so significant. According to the unchanging nature of God occurred the victory then, the defeat now. Self-confidence goes along with departure of heart from Him, as generally is the case, and insures the issue. Once more smitten with considerable loss, they ask indeed why Jehovah has done this. They realize it to be from Him, and yet do not seriously inquire of Him, nor humble themselves in His presence. Stranger than all, they would bring this God who has smitten them, unappeased, into the camp to fight in their behalf! Perhaps their thought is that this very reliance upon the ark will propitiate Him. How vain, in any case, is such a hope! True, it is the "ark of the covenant of Jehovah"; and, as such, they appeal to it. But was there not the "vengeance of the covenant" as faithfully promised as the blessing for obedience? What a sign of disaster that, as it is written, "Hophni and Phinehas," with their already predicted doom hanging over them, "were there with the ark of the covenant of God"! On the other hand, it is no wonder that the Philistines are as much disconcerted, for the moment, by the presence of the ark, as Israel are encouraged. With them the deity was inseparably connected with the symbols of His worship, and they remembered yet the power displayed in Egypt. Jehovah's witness to Himself there had not been in vain, though men might, after all, refuse it. Alas, they did! Alas, not they alone have done so! So they stiffen themselves in pride, and will be men, -yes, indeed, too surely, "men," -and are unexpectedly successful: they gain a great victory, slay thirty thousand men, and capture the ark of God itself, -little imagining that they are but fulfilling His word, and instruments in His hand, after all: a lesson in "evidences," which should at least make us careful. Hophni and Phinehas are slain, and the priesthood necessarily collapses, and is for the time set aside. (2) Eli's death ensues upon the news of the disaster. The circumstantial detail fixes the attention and impresses the heart, and is designed to do so. The old man, who has left the glory of God in the hands of his profligate sons, and let the ark go from him at the will of the people, yet manifests at the last the good that is in him, and is taken away from the evil to come. Shiloh passes also out of the history, and the sanctuary of God from Ephraim, the lesson of which has been already suggested (Joshua 18:1, n.) (3) A woman's voice pronounces the word of distress, stamping it upon the fruit of her womb, Ichabod, "no glory." This was, indeed, what Israel had brought forth, the fruit of her departure from God: His glory had, in turn, been removed out of their midst. "For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, He was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel, so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men; and delivered His strength into captivity, His glory into the enemy's hand." (Psalms 78:58-61.) All dooms presage the final doom, and so it is here. The "outer darkness" will be when those who have said to God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways," shall have their awful prayer fulfilled! And who can imagine what this means? But "there," we are told, "shall be the wailing and gnashing of teeth." 5. The history goes with the ark into the Philistines' land. Their victory becomes their own defeat; which yet, as a testimony to them, might be mercy, -the only mercy that their hostility permitted. They themselves would find, and would have to own, the powerlessness and folly of their idols in the presence of God, with whom they also had to do; although we know of no permanent effect of it, except their restoration of the ark, with offerings for the trespass they had committed. (1) The ark is taken to the city of Ashdod, the "spoiler," and put as spoil into the temple of Dagon, the chief Philistine god. Though they know Jehovah's power as a reality, they look at Him as now subdued by the great might of Dagon: for the gods of polytheism could war against one another, as we know. In thus placing it beside their deity, there seems intimated, however, a certain respect. All the more would be their confusion on finding, the next morning, Dagon prostrate upon his face, as if worshipping before the ark. But they are willing to think it an accident, and they replace the idol in its old position. Next morning it is prostrate again, but not to be so easily replaced, for the human parts -the head and hands -of the composite fish-god are cut off, and lying on the threshold, and only the Dagon, the fish-part, is left him. The confusion man has made is thus undone; the human joined to the bestial is seen to be but contemptible and to be trodden under foot, and the creature is prostrate in the presence of the Creator. How well for them, if they had learnt these lessons! Instead of this, where the desecrated head and hands have lain, the worshipers in Ashdod no more dare to step! So little is idolatry a thing of the mind merely, that, face to face with God, they will pick up and reverence their mutilated idol. "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." This is the spiritual genealogy of idolatry, wherever it is found. And such is man! (2) The Lord's hand falls, therefore, next upon the Philistines themselves; and they are smitten with boils or tumors, which cannot be, apparently, more clearly defined. As with the similar plague in Egypt (Exodus 9:8-12, n.), the external plague may naturally symbolize and lay bare the inward condition, the corruption which consumes the sinner, and underlies all his departure from God. Unwilling to humble themselves fully under Jehovah's hand, they send the ark about from one place to another, only spreading the evil wherever it goes, until they end the unequal conflict by its restoration to the Israelite territory. (3) Seven months the ark had been in the Philistines' land. At last they call together the priests and diviners, and inquire how they are to send it back. Their advice is to send back with it a trespass-offering, after their heathen fashion, five golden images of their boils, and five golden mice, which were at the same time ravaging their fields. But, after all, they speak somewhat doubtfully, for where will not unbelief find an argument? -and propose an expedient by which it may be tested whether possibly yet it might be a chance that had happened to them. In result it is proved conclusively that Jehovah is the God. of Creation, supreme above all the natural instincts: the kine, though unaccustomed to a yoke, take the cart with its sacred burden directly away from where their calves are shut up, even while lowing after them, and take the straight road to Bethshemesh, a priestly city near the Israelite border. There, at the border, they stop, still under the eyes of the Philistine lords, at a great stone upon which the Levites place the ark, and where the kine are offered up a burnt-offering to Jehovah. Thus the Philistines have Jehovah's sovereignty demonstrated to them in the precise terms which they have themselves chosen, -the goodness of God thus meeting them with what should have turned them from idolatry forever, and brought them to His feet. But they go back, after all, to worship instead the humbled Dagon. But the men of Bethshemesh also incur divine judgment for their profane treatment of Jehovah's ark, and follow the example of the Philistines in sending it elsewhere. The men of Kirjath-jearim respond to their invitation, and there it abides for long in the house of Abinadab, kept by Eleazar his son. There David found it afterwards "in the fields of the wood (jaar)" (Psalms 132:6). Yet the long-suffering of the Lord endured. He had already provided, as we know, the instrument of deliverance. \ \ 6. (1) Twenty years now elapse. A long discipline of sorrow is required before the humbled people turn with their heart to God. During all this time Samuel is patiently laboring for Him, urging upon them whole-hearted return, and the absolute putting away of all strange gods, the necessary hindrance to their deliverance. At last the Baals and Ashtoreths are put away, and throughout the land Jehovah alone is served. Then the deliverance, which would have been else but a letting loose for evil, is ready to be accomplished. (2) Samuel now distinctly takes the place of mediator. He is, of course, ideally the prophet, not the priest; but in every type of Christ something of His full place is seen. In connection with the prophet, who brings the message of God, the subjective side of salvation is emphasized -repentance and turning to God; but Samuel turns to God also for the people, and offers even the priestly sacrifice. There is not a hint of what some imagine -the intervention of a priest in this latter case; and in the case of Gideon and others, though not so formally, we have had already the performance of priestly acts. Samuel is the child of prayer, and he is ever also the man of prayer. The repentance of the people enables him confidently to take the place of intercession for them: "Gather all Israel to Mizpah," he says, (the outward manifestation of the heart-unity now existing among the people), "and I will pray Jehovah for you." He is, like Samson, the Nazarite, set apart from the womb to Jehovah, and in whom, as not in Samson, the spiritual side of this is shown. He is thus victorious in a strife in which Samson fails, and "not by might, nor by power," but through the Lord in whom he trusts. All Israel are gathered to Mizpah, and draw water and pour it out before Jehovah, acting out the piteous plea of the woman of Tekoah afterwards (2 Samuel 14:14): "We must needs die, and are as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." But here they own that the dissolution of their lives in vanity and misery is the consequence of their sin: "We have sinned against Jehovah"; and now, according to the principle which has been before announced as to the Lord's deliverances, that when He delivered He raised up a judge, the judge appears again: "Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah." This brings about the inevitable conflict. They had not gathered for battle; and were, in fact, in the extreme opposite condition to their former self-confidence in which they had provoked the Philistine attack. On the other hand, nothing more surely provokes the attack of the enemy than united Israel suppliant before the Lord. Accordingly, at once we hear of them in movement, while Israel, scarcely armed and helpless, can only urge on Samuel to cry ceaselessly to God for their deliverance. Happily they can say now, with truth of heart, "Jehovah our God": when did He fail to appear for those who could say so? Samuel's reliance is not on spear or shield. He takes one sucking lamb, and offers it as a whole burnt-offering to Jehovah. This is his plea, and thus he cries to God for the people; and Jehovah answers. The offering does not, as most commentators say, represent the newly pledged obedience of the people, -poor ground of confidence as it would be in such a strait: but Christ, from his birth, the absolutely devoted One, the "Lamb," as in the perfect youth of glorious manhood. How blessed a Substitute for the tardy and spotted obedience of our best performances! While Samuel offers, the Philistines draw nigh. Who shall convert the crowd of feeble and affrighted people into warriors? All the more shall the Lord, therefore, Himself be seen: Jehovah thundered with a great voice on that day against the Philistines": how would all His former witness in their land interpret to them this voice! "And they were smitten before Israel." No great victory, after all, for Israel to boast of; except they will boast themselves in the Lord: a victory, therefore, safe and glorious, -the very best that could be. "And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them as far as below Beth-car," -the "house of the [skipping] lamb": Israel, seen now as identified with the lamb sacrificed in their behalf, housed and happy. So Ebenezer at last gains its name -the "stone of help." "The Philistines were humbled, and came no more into the border of Israel." The cities taken by them are restored; and Jehovah's hand is against them all the days of Samuel. With the rise of the king, matters assume, as we know, another aspect. (3) Samuel is now the prophet-judge in Israel. The judge shadows the king, although not that; and thus we see in Samuel, as a type of Christ, the intimation of what in Him are united in full reality, -priest, prophet, king. It is only an intimation, not the reality, and thus points, as does the whole Old Testament, beyond itself. All types must, for this reason, be imperfect: the "shadow, and not the very image." (Hebrews 10:1.) Yet the shadow has its proportional completeness: the high priest, as answering by Urim, became in so far the prophet and judge, -two things which naturally come together; the king, as we see him in David, is fully the prophet, while he orders the priestly service, and brings the ark to Zion. But here, for reasons we may see afterward, the type cannot be so complete. There are four stations at which, in yearly circuit, Samuel judges the people. Let us notice, as illustrative of the exact method of Scripture, that three of the places are distinguished from the fourth, which is his own abode. They should thus stand the numerical test throughout; and being in circuit, show, perhaps, an orderly connection in their meanings also. Let us see if this hope be justified. Naturally, as judicial stations, they will speak of different points of view, according to which judgment will be exercised; according to which Christ, as Son of man (for all judgment is committed to him as that) views the people He has redeemed. This will probably show us, also, why it is the fourth place at which he abides, -Ramah. Bethel is the first station. It is a name which we are well acquainted with, as with what it stands for. Bethel is the "house of God" (El, the Mighty One), and we see in Jacob the discipline connected with it, as well as the mighty work that is done by this -the transformation of Jacob into Israel. In the order of the Genesis-histories Jacob follows Isaac, in whom we have, as Paul in Galatians teaches us, the children of the free woman, born into the liberty of the sons of God. Bethel is thus a keynote word, which tells of the rule of God as Father over His house, with the blessed consequences of this. But Christ is "Son over the house of God,"* and this character of judgment must belong to Him. We begin, therefore, first with that which is first of all our place. Children of God, and with the Spirit of adoption, we must be His children (Matthew 5:45), acting in character, and showing likeness to Him, as "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The Father's judgment is to develop and maintain this in us; and this, therefore, is plainly the first judicial station of our Samuel. \ The second is Gilgal, where the reproach of Egypt was rolled off Israel; and this, as we have elsewhere seen (p. 43), was the reproach of slavery. In what we have just now considered, we have already had implied for us the liberty of sons (and this is the connection with the present); but it is circumcision that at Gilgal brings into practical liberty. Circumcision it is that makes Gilgal; and circumcision is the "putting off the body of the flesh" (Colossians 2:11, R.V.), "having no confidence in it." (Philippians 3:3.) This goes with what is the positive side for the Christian, the worship of God in the Spirit, and glorying in Christ Jesus; and thus the free, holy, happy service of love is maintained. The negative attainment without the positive is impossible; but it is the negative that is here insisted on: as the second place implies, the deliverance, the setting free. The judgment here is thus the complement of what Bethel has shown us. The third station is one more difficult to realize in its exact meaning. Mizpah (or Mizpeh) means simply the "watchtower," and the general thought is susceptible of different applications. (See pp. 104, 134.) The third place, which naturally connects itself with the sanctuary and the presence of God, would suggest, however, that the watching is to be taken as in Habakkuk 2:1, "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me." The gatherings to Mizpah in the book of Judges (Judges 20:1-48), and just now, according to the word of Samuel, have both, more or less, this character. It would appear, therefore, that what is implied in it is the watchfulness of one to whom the path of faith is a reality, and thus the positive guidance of God from day to day. So were Israel guided, as we know; and even more does the promise on His part speak the need of it, "I will guide thee with mine eye." (Psalms 32:8.) For this there must be patient and steady watching; and the whole difference between a right path and a wrong is implied in it. Abstract right and wrong are by no means the whole question, and do not settle the matter for us. Beyond this lies all the will of God, personally, for each one of His own, with which is involved His whole right over them, but also the display of His wisdom and goodness abidingly in their behalf. Here, then, is a distinct ground of judgment from either of the former, a third station for our Prophet-Judge. The fourth is Samuel's own city, Ramah, the "height." The name is, in its full length, Ramathaim-zophim, the "two heights of the watchers." Here we are in connection clearly with the last thought. The meaning and application we have already had. It suggests the place in Christ, linked with his appearance as Man in the presence of God for us, the dwelling-place of the Son of man, that it is His as Man being emphasized by the fourth place here. Yet we have traveled, in fact, in circuit, as Samuel did: for this we cannot disconnect from His own saying, "My Father, and your Father; my God, and your God;" or from the end designed by God, "that He should be the first-born among many brethren." We are looking, therefore, toward Bethel again. But here is the abiding ground of judgment, even as "walk ye in Him" is our peculiar responsibility as Christians. With this the circle of responsibility is complete. Here, too, is the altar to Jehovah, our place of acceptance and worship. The Lord make us realize in all this the fullness and depth of His precious word! The Books of the Kings. F. W. Grant. Division 2. (1 Samuel 8:1-22; 1 Samuel 9:1-27; 1 Samuel 10:1-27; 1 Samuel 11:1-15; 1 Samuel 12:1-25; 1 Samuel 13:1-23; 1 Samuel 14:1-52; 1 Samuel 15:1-35.)Saul, the People's Saviour, but not the divine. We come now to the demand of the people for a king, and the history of Saul, the king given them according to their request. Though pointed out by God, in the recognized way of ascertaining His will, namely, by lot, yet he is exactly the king they have in mind, as even his height of stature shows. In this way alone could their desire be tested aright, to have a king, like all the nations. He is not after God's heart, but after the people's heart, and so He says: "I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath." (Hosea 13:11.) The lesson was not for that generation only, however; otherwise, it would be of little importance. In all this proving of Israel, as we have again and again been called to realize, it is man as man that is proved, and the depths of his heart unveiled. As to the people, their choice here is really such as they displayed at a later day, when they cried, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" "They have rejected Me," says Jehovah. It was not that God had not designed them to have a king. The express provision in Deuteronomy is at least proof that one was permissible (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). The song of Hannah has already anticipated it. God's purpose in Christ could only be so fulfilled. Moreover, we have already seen that this was to be expressed in the history anticipatively. The king also, when in truth He shall come, will not only be in full accord with the divine throne over all, but will be the complete expression of it. The evil was in the evident unbelief on the part of the people; and, as naturally connecting itself with this, the total opposition to God in the king they wanted. Saul, the Benjamite, carries us back indeed to the book of Genesis, where we have seen in Benjamin the type (when separated from Joseph) of that Messiah to which Israel clings, a deliverer by power merely. As such they would have received Christ, yea, "taken him by force to make him a king," a manifest sign of the king of their choice. Barabbas, had he had the power, would really have suited them, as Barcochba afterwards* did suit them. God, and the whole relation of their souls to Him, they would gladly have left out. \ This is the significance, then, of Saul, and it is wider than any merely Jewish one, while yet the Jew is necessarily in the fore-front. 1. (1) The occasion of the demand for a king is the misbehavior of Samuel's sons whom in his old age he had made judges in Beersheba. Joel and Abiah, corrupted by opportunity, take bribes, and pervert justice; a thing which comes into view in the last days also, in connection with the coming of Christ as King, to exercise the judgment of God among the people (Psalms 89:1-52). Their names stand for what they were responsible as judges to maintain, -Jehovah as the Mighty God (Joel), and the Father of the people (Abiah).* The people should have reasoned better: if so it were with Samuel's sons, what hope of man at all? and should have fled to God as the only righteous One. But they do not: instead of this the whole nation, as represented by their elders, come to Samuel, seeking a king to judge them, like the nations round. Their peculiar privilege of direct leaning upon God alone they are more than ready to give up for an arm of flesh; and though their plea is "to judge us," they must have been well aware how far judgment was exercised among the nations by their kings. In fact, as comes out afterwards, there was another cause in the threatening attitude of the Ammonites again, as in Jephthah's time (1 Samuel 12:12). In any case there was lack of faith in Him who had so constantly, whenever they had turned to Him, come in for them. As they looked back they could, indeed, see many reverses, and long captivities. The holiness of God had shown itself as Joshua had declared it would. Doubtless they would rather have something that they could cling to, other than this which involved the necessity of persistent obedience. This has been found again and again among the people of God. They could not stand before "this holy Lord God," and they unanimously preferred distance. The story is so old as to have become a trite and common thing; but it has not lost its significance, though it may its power to impress. \ There are prayers that have to be granted, but in judgment: so with this prayer for a king. But care is taken that even self-deception shall be hardly possible. They are to have testimony from the Lord Himself of what all that is around them bore patent Witness also -the manner of this king that they desired. Samuel is instructed to declare all this to them, that their decision may be in the plainest light that can be given. (2) The testimony is, after all, simple enough. Man being what he is, honor cannot be given him but he will debase himself with it. Put him in a place of service, he will serve himself first of all. Combine these two, as in the case of a king, self will shine out in him in the fullest way. This is nothing strange, alas, but the commonest experience. But here a people with Jehovah Himself the King, deliberately accepts the yoke of another! 2. (1) The king in Israel, however, must be chosen of God, for he is to be the minister and viceroy of God. He must be pointed out to himself as the chosen of God, that he may realize aright his responsibility to Him, and be made to realize in quiet, before exaltation comes, the purpose of it. God will do everything possible to make untrue His own prophecy of the king that is to be: and to this end comes all this preparatory dealing with Saul. Saul's genealogy is carefully given us for six generations back, himself being the seventh, Shaul, the "asked," complete in all that makes man naturally to be desired of man. This genealogy is surely in its meaning, therefore, moral, and scarcely favorable in its significance. Its interpretation is somewhat difficult, and yet may be suggested, and its numerical character, which by this time we may assure ourselves of, will help and test the attempt to understand it. Meant to be understood it necessarily is, appealing with all Scripture to man as the rational creature of God, who needs yet continually to be taught of God. The numbers read naturally backward, according to the actual descent, Kish being the sixth and not the first in the line given here. To understand it, therefore, it would seem that we should trace it in the same order. We begin, then, with one who is simply given as "a man of Benjamin," leaving more than the "higher critics" to wonder if the name has not dropped out. For the moral purpose, the omission of a name may itself have meaning. We have been taught of the Spirit Himself so to think of the omissions in the account of Melchizedek, and have seen it to be so with the nameless servant of Abraham (Genesis 24:1-67) and the nameless city in Reuben (Joshua 13:16); and so it may well be here. The significance of Saul's descent from Benjamin we have briefly glanced at; and at the outset Kish is set before us here as a "man of Benjamin": the repetition here we may conceive, therefore, to have another meaning; and from what has been said, not in any sense an evil one. We may well be carried back to him who was before any failure, to show us the better the failure itself, and how it came about. A "man of Benjamin," as that, conveys no suggestion of evil, and there being no name beside, forbids the thought of any departure from the character implied in the tribal name. How good a sign of integrity for a child of Benjamin to be known only as that, with no intrusion of self to destroy simplicity! Here, then, we have got back beyond any evil development, if afterwards we should find this; while even here, however, we may have what enters into the making of Saul the "asked": for those who can build the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers slew, can take pleasure in saintly lineage while far from saintliness. The second name in descent is that of Aphiah; and if we have been right thus far in interpretation, then we may find the initial point of departure in this second name, the contrast with the first. For Aphiah means most legitimately (as the causative of puah), "I will utter," or "speak out" and if we think of that name unuttered which heads the genealogy, it is natural to put these things together. We have now in opposition to the lowliness forgetful of self, the self-importance which needs must find utterance. And is not this always the point of departure from God, the true fall of the creature, -which is, indeed, to take up the taunt of the enemy, ever a "fall upward," -the creature lifting itself out of its place, in obedience to the suggestion, "ye shall be as God"? The step here, in such a history as this, vindicates itself, therefore, as at least the image of truth. The third name, under the number of manifestation, reveals the true character of all self-assumption in a child of God. It is Bechorath, "primogeniture," the claim of nature, not of grace, of first against new birth. The order is "first, that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." (1 Corinthians 15:46). In the book of Genesis we are familiar with the fact that the first-born constantly thus loses the birthright, -Ishmael to Isaac, Esau to Jacob, Reuben to Joseph, Manasseh to Ephraim. If the child of God betray self-confidence, it is always and of necessity "confidence in the flesh." The principle of the new nature is faith, and faith's object never can be self. Even faith can, alas, be gloried in; but it cannot "glory," save in Christ. Zeror, under the fourth number, which is that of the creature, means "tightly enclosed," or "pressed together." It is thus used for a "stone," because of the compression of its particles. It speaks here, therefore, as it would seem, of the narrow sphere and restricted limits of the old creation, shut in between birth and death, confined to the things seen and temporal. Yet men hug these chains, alas, and deliberately shut out heaven and eternity, and count themselves wise in doing so. Here is the sphere of their "primogeniture," however, and they cannot, if they would, transcend it. But in this sphere still how much space is there for self to display itself in. As an acre of ground may be an ant's world, so the contraction of man's desires gives him scope enough for the petty being into which he has shriveled up. If, moreover, the surface of the ground is actually narrow, he can do as in our modern cities, -build into the air. Great he must be, though it were only in imagination; and here, under the fifth number, that of capacity, we have Abiel, -not, as the name might signify, "God [is] my Father," but rather "Father of might": one whose strength is in himself. Such are the contradictions, such the possibilities and actuality of this strange being, man! With all its contradictions, this is still the character of the Sauls of whatever day. Kish ends the list with the assurance implied in his name, "ensnaring," of the magic for deception that abides in all this for those for whom the light of the divine presence has not dispelled the illusion, and brought face to face with the holiness of truth. This Saul, this man of the people, has, beside all this, many rightly attractive qualities. We shall find him shortly tested under the hand of God, -surely not unmercifully, that were absolute impossibility from Him; yet so that he collapses utterly, and shows himself the poor lost creature that he is, -even so, not turning to Him, nor seeking the honor that is of God only. As he is the man of the people, so before the people he lives the sham life that men count really life; when the bubble breaks all is gone, out of the wreck nothing saved, the freightage of a soul precious to God, and worth Christ's sacrifice to save it, gone irretrievably, and forever. "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The overruling of God is clearly seen in the way Saul is led up to meet Samuel, ignorant of the hand that is guiding him, -ignorant of the very person of Samuel, as it would seem, and all his memorable history. Suited king for such a people, who were deliberately ignoring God's mercies to them in the past, of which the prophet had been the divine instrument. Saul is seeking his father's she-asses which have gone astray, and finds an intractable and rebellious nation, worse by far than these, put into his hand without seeking, to be brought back to God. In both cases he is unsuccessful: yet, had he sought the last with the same energy with which he had sought the first, he might have had the success which was now reserved for one to come after him. A suggestion may be made as to the places of Saul's vain search. There are four places in which he searches, but these are divided into three stages only, Mount Ephraim and the land of Shalisha being put together. In the land of Zuph, which comes significantly, therefore, as a fourth stage (the number of testing and failure), he does not search, but abandons his quest; and the name Zuph means "honeycomb," the type of the sweetness of natural things, which have overcome many more than Saul. Thus there is a gleam of light which should encourage us to look further. The first stage gives us, under the number of obedience, Mount Ephraim, the "fruitfulness" which God seeks in us, with the "land of Shalisha," ("third part," or "divided into three,") which I cannot interpret. Here "they found them not." The second stage may speak of "humiliation," where confessed failure in obedience would naturally bring the soul; and the name agrees with this, Shaalim, probably "hollows" or "deep valleys": but "there they were not." The third stage is the "land of Jemini," ("my right hand,") the place of dependent exaltation to which the "valley of humiliation" so often leads, through grace: but there, too, "they found them not." Israel was, indeed, astray; nor could he find them whom the sweetness of nature beguiled from the search. But at this point the servant's voice is heard, counseling, as the true servant will, to "ask of God." Saul does not think of this, nor know the man who can declare His mind. All this is characteristic; as it is that with the servant should be found the fitting present for the man of God: little enough, only the fourth part of a shekel, at still the "silver" of atonement, -current coin in the kingdom of God. So they are provided. A parenthesis is introduced here to let us know the identity between the "prophet" and the "seer." The latter term simply implied the knowledge which the prophet had, not the source of it. The nahbi, the prophet, was the mouthpiece of God, whose word filled him and "bubbled forth" from him. The people of the time here indicated spoke but of the "seer." It was a day of decline, when carnal men thought at least much more of the effect than of the cause, and sought the one while they ignored the other. God had spoken long since of the "prophet"; the people eared but for the "seer." Saul, upon this low ground, approves what he could not initiate. He, too, seeks the seer"; while the prophet, taught of God, is seeking for Him this blind man, brought by a way he knows not. (2) To meet the seer they have to go up to a higher level, and Saul finds himself an inquirer in a strange place. First of all, there meet them on the ascent young maidens going forth to draw water, and from them they obtain their first answer. By the wells all through we have communications of grace, simple enough when we know for what the well stands. Those who draw water are, of course, those who seek and use the living waters of the Spirit; and with these is the knowledge of the things of God. From these Saul learns not only of the seer, but of the sacrifice, and a feast upon the sacrifice, the great lesson of communion for a king to learn. We have long since looked at the peace-offering (Leviticus 3:1-17 and Leviticus 7:11, seq.) where God and men sit, so to speak, at a common table, brought together by the work of the cross, and with common delight in Him who has made peace by it. But this is the foundation of the reign of peace, the reign of God in righteousness and peace among men. When it really comes, the Lamb, the Victim, will be on the Throne; and upon this foundation only can there be the least anticipation of this blessed time. Of all this, therefore, Saul must learn, to be fitted for his kingdom. He must himself participate in this peace. The link that unites God and man is the only link that unites man and man. God is speaking in His love, seeking to win for himself this goodly creature of His hand. He reveals to Samuel, the day before Saul comes, that He is sending him, and that He means through him to minister to His people's need. The prince shall be the saviour. And that he may be fully such, God would bring him to have first to do with Himself, before he comes to stand in the presence of the people. Thus by degrees He breaks to him His purpose: a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and made so by dreadful penalty exacted for a dreadful crime, He will take him with all the littleness which should keep him lowly, and mindful -as what Benjamite could be unmindful? -of the discipline through which they had all passed, and set him at the head of all the people. Samuel salutes him thus with the surprising news that upon him is fixed the desire of Israel. This can only mean that what they sought in a king he was the very man to answer to. He was in this way really the man of the people's choice, the very style and pattern of the king they craved. But being such, God would, if he met this desire, make him much more, -desired to have him for Himself and with Himself, and for this was meeting him after the manner here. Now he is called to feast upon the sacrifice. To feast upon love's provision for one's need, freely partaking of what has cost so much to give, is the way of acquirement of the spirit of sacrifice -of service which is that. So the special part which has been reserved for him is the burden-bearing shoulder, the priest's portion (Exodus 29:27): for the priest's heart must go with the kingly office; in Him whose representative Saul is to be, king and priest are united together. (3) Saul abides with Samuel for the night, and early in the morning is sent away. Samuel anoints him, -at once the assurance of power which he shall have, and the character of it, and the dependence upon the Spirit which it implies. Then the first kiss of subjection is on the part of the man of God, just now the judge of Israel. He gives him also three "signs," which, when they come to pass, he is to do as his hand finds, in the full conviction that God is with him. These signs are, of course, to be more than mere foreseen occurrences. They are to have in themselves a voice, which will, however, depend upon himself for its significance: he must have in himself the understanding heart, or he will miss the meaning. "How often there is a meaning, a language, perfectly intelligible to one who has ears to hear, but which escapes us because our gross and hardened heart has no spiritual intelligence or discernment! And yet all our future hangs upon it. God has shown our incapacity for the blessing it involved. Nevertheless the means were not wanting." ("Synopsis.") From this necessity on our part, moreover, divine grace itself cannot release us. It would not be grace to do so. Yet how much of our lives are barren of meaning because we have not had capacity to read this language, or quickness to discern the voice that was speaking to us! Nor is this only true of the facts of the world around us, or of the events of our own lives: Scripture itself, with all its wealth of blessedness, is given "that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Even its plainest parts need spiritual discernment; and how much of it is written in a way that is not plain, but which needs and calls for spiritual intelligence and diligent inquiry, in order to any proper apprehension. Saul then is left to his ability to read these signs; not as if the Lord were not ready to endue him with all the ability needed; of that we require no assurance: but here is the mystery of that dependent, yet free and accountable being of which we are possessed. We share with Saul this nature, with all its privilege, and with all its responsibility; and the Lord's ways are equal, let us remember, with us all. The first sign, in accordance with its numerical meaning, carries him back to Benjamin's origin. He was the son of his mother's sorrow, -she had died to give him birth; and where her grave stood there his inheritance began,* -at Zelzah more strictly, which interprets the thought as "shadowed brightness." The world is shadowed when heaven stands revealed; and so in the Cross, the deepest shadow ever cast upon it. He also that will save his life shall lose it; but he that loses it in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. The self-renunciation Saul so needed is here enforced for him; and here two men meet him to let him know that, apart from his labor, the asses that he sought are found, and his father's heart is yearning for his son. God can as easily work without us as He can with us; need of us He has not, but that heart of love to which our human affections, given of Him, truly, if feebly, testify. Many lessons, from different sides, concur here, evidently for one purpose -that Saul may be in the hand of God the free but devoted instrument He seeks. \ The second sign yields its lesson in due order, that to the one so yielded up to God fellowship and help shall come from those who seek God. Here three men appeared instead of two, for they represent the whole Godhead, though seen in His people, acting in the strengthening of His servant; and they go up to God to Bethel, where Jacob learnt that God was -not simply his God, but the God of His own house, governing it for Himself. It is with those who seek God there that there will be found the apprehension of His mind; and with these, at the oak of Tabor, the living strength that unites with "purpose," the man of God will have recognition. These may be few indeed; they ordinarily are few: but they represent, as we have seen, the fellowship of God Himself. Their gifts -what they have for God -are to be noted: three goats, one for each man, for the sin-offering; the bread, which they can share with another; the drink-offering wine, which is to be poured out to God. Such a company speaks plainly of its faith, and may be recognized by those who have hearts for it. The third sign shows the work of the Spirit of God, even in a scene in which the Philistine has his posts at the very hill of God itself.* The presence of the enemy at such a place is the sad evidence of the state of things in Israel; but the remedy therefor is not, in the first place, by power, but by return to God and subjection to Him. He must be exalted where He has been dishonored; and this is what the spirit of prophecy does. Saul meets here, therefore, a company of prophets, and their various instruments of music show the joy and boldness that accompany the return of heart to God. How small a thing is the enemy in the presence of God! And this joy in Him is the sure sign of the overthrow of all that opposes itself to Him. Jehoshaphat's singers and trumpeters are in the forefront of the host, and it is to these that the Lord hearkens and gives victory. (2 Chronicles 20:22.) What a lesson for the Benjamite warrior, Saul! \ At this point the Spirit of Jehovah would come upon him, and he would be changed into another man, gifted with needed ability for the occasion, according to the place in which God had put him for the blessing of the people. Then he was to act as his hand found opportunity, for God was with him. But there follows a needed limiting of power, which might easily, in a time of such disorder, be carried too far. And here Samuel's words look on to a time of special testing for Saul after he shall have been confirmed in the kingdom. In fact, he failed then, and his failure forfeited for him the continuance of the royal power in his house. He was to go down before Samuel to Gilgal, and there wait for him to offer the offerings needed. Seven days he would have to wait, and God would guide him through the prophet as to what to do. From this it is manifest that Samuel remained the representative of the kingdom over all, even when Saul took the lower kingdom: and this was the more necessary to be insisted on in view of the spirit of prophecy coming upon Saul also. But the men themselves were total contrasts; and here the two kingdoms show their possible opposition to each other, -a possibility to become actuality at an after time. All these signs followed, as Samuel had foretold, and the same day. But "Saul among the prophets" became an ominous proverb in Israel, in spite of the prudent question of the bystander, who infers that God is the Source of the prophecy, thus the Father of the prophets. To his uncle,s questioning he replies, without divulging the secret of the kingdom. 3. The third subdivision gives the open manifestation of the king: first, by the lot, the way in which the divine choice was ascertained; then in the deliverance actually effected by him, -the work, in part, which he was needed and raised up to do. This confirms him in the place which God had given him. (1) We have seen the lot used in the apportionment of their inheritance to the tribes of Israel, and to discover the guilty one in the case of the appropriation of that which was devoted to the Lord at Jericho. The account here is very brief: first, we hear of Benjamin being taken, then of the family of Matri (only mentioned here), and then of Saul, the son of Kish. Matri means, probably, "Jehovah is watching." The place of gathering being Mizpeh, the "watchtower," the significance of which we have seen as implying the people watching what Jehovah will say, here we may be reminded of the converse truth. Jehovah, in fact, was not speaking out His mind. He had done so, and they had given no heed. Now, even while He indicated Saul, it was as their choice, rather than His. He is forced to silence, and to await the result of their self-will. So Samuel once more warns them that in seeking a king they were rejecting the Lord. The lot has lost, therefore, its true meaning: it is not properly Jehovah's choice; and little can be said about it. When Saul is announced, he is not to be found, until the Lord answers their inquiry by letting them know that he is hidden among the baggage. In truth he was, -a mere "vessel" among the dead, inanimate "vessels," (as the word means), which He can use, who can make all things serve Him, but without the life and spirit of service. However, when he is brought out, for thews and sinews he is a man indeed, and towers over the heads of all the people. Samuel points out how well he answers the ideal that they seek, and the people shout in answer, "Live the King!" But it means as little as the king himself does. Just so far as Saul has risen above them they have shrunk. Their colossus is but a shadow over them. Could he be aught else, when they had put him between their souls and God! But all is settled, and they must abide their choice. And indeed the godly can own God in it, and thus escape the shadow. Samuel tells them the manner of the kingdom, and writes it in a book, and it is laid up before the Lord. Then he sends them to their houses; and Saul returns to Gibeah, to his house. There is no exuberance of loyalty. What men set their hearts on, they often need only to have to find how little it is. God touches the hearts of some, that they follow Saul; else none would have done so! And the children of Belial ask now, what the men of piety would have asked before, "How shall this man save us?" Before, that question would have honored God; now it leaves Him out. With all "powers that be," faith recognizes, even in Saul, "a minister of God for good," and knows the omnipotent love that makes all things work for good. How could it "despise," as the men of Belial do, the "minister of God"? Saul's new-found greatness sits well upon him too, just now. He is as a deaf man to all their murmurings. (2) The deliverance from the Ammonites it is that shows Saul to be the deliverer for whom the people are waiting, and which confirms the kingdom in his hand. With the Ammonites we have been already made familiar, especially in connection with a former deliverance by Jephthah, and their significance cannot now be doubtful. We find them here once again attacking Israel, under their king Nahash, whose name, almost identical with that of Nahshon, prince of Judah in the wilderness, means "divination, augury." Nahshon, however, as we have seen in the book of the wilderness, is to be understood in a good sense, as Nahash the Ammonite cannot be. The divination of the heathen was assertedly the interpretation of a divine answer, though given through material signs, and the character of this is indicated in the identity of this word with that which was the general term for "serpent." The spirit of all doctrinal heresy (of which the Ammonite speaks) is indeed Satanic. As the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of truth, and by the truth it is that men are sanctified, so on the other hand, Satan is the father of lies, and destroys men with the poison of falsehood. Scripture, in entire opposition to the natural thought, emphasizes more strongly by far the condemnation of doctrinal than of moral evil, closely connected as these are; and it is not hard to understand why, if by the word of truth we are new begotten and sanctified. The lusts of the flesh bring with them -at least wherever the light shines -their own condemnation; but Satan's lie is the darkness which covers and shelters all the rest; or the false light that lures to shipwreck. The attack of Nahash is naturally not upon the strongest part of Israel, but the weakest. Jabesh-gilead contributed no warriors to the Benjamite war, and was visited with ruthless destruction at the hands of united Israel at that time. Since then, it had recovered itself, but has here little strength of faith to oppose the enemy. Gilead, "the heap of witness," speaks of memory that should be fruitful; and in fact the country is so, even at the present day; but Jabesh, "dry," often "dried up, withered," speaks of the reverse of this, and it is there where the truth is not productive, -where decline has begun in the soul, -that the attacks of error are most easily effectual. Jabesh will surrender, if that be all that is needed, and serve the king of Ammon; but the king will not agree, except they come to his terms, worthy as they are of an Ammonite. He must thrust out all their right eyes, and lay it as a reproach against Israel. Spiritually read, a reproach indeed, if we interpret, according to what we have had elsewhere (vol. 1. p. 389, n.), the right eye as the eye of faith. Reason and faith are in fact the double witness in man which, where the soul is right with God, like the vision of the two eyes, accord in one image. But the following of man, which all heresy in its essence is, puts out therefore necessarily the eye of faith: for this sees God and not man. Nahash in his requirement speaks, therefore, quite intelligibly here. But even the men of Jabesh demand a seven days' respite, to see if there be no deliverer in Israel yet; and this the arrogance of Nahash grants; for he has not a dream of any rescue. The messengers of the straitened city come, therefore, at once to Gibeah, Saul's city, with the news of these conditions. As he hears, the Spirit of God comes upon Saul, and he summons the people with a threat to follow himself and Samuel. We see clearly that there is no energy in the people, and the energy in Saul is not of the highest kind. He leans on Samuel, and puts his name forth, though after his own, to enforce obedience, appealing to their fear as the most successful argument, and indeed not without cause; and in fact the fear of Jehovah it is that falls upon the people, so that they come out in mass. They gather (significantly) in Bezek, the place of the "fetter," -under constraint, not willingly; and Saul sends word to the men of Jabesh that they shall have help. (3) In result, the Ammonites are thoroughly beaten and scattered; and Saul becomes in this respect the people's saviour, who therefore go off into a vehement enthusiasm for the man they had despised. But the Ammonites are but an incident in the history here. They do not give character to the condition of things in Israel, and do not test the king of their choice. We shall see in a little while what does so, and then how entirely Saul fails. Speaking according to the spiritual meaning, the deliverance of the people of God from heresy, however necessary, does not put them right with God; for this, much more is needed than orthodoxy, even of the strictest kind. Yet this is a deliverance, and the people rightly may rejoice. Saul, too, uses his triumph wisely and with moderation. Samuel uses it to draw the people to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there. Gilgal is where the "reproach of Egypt" of the bondage of the people there, was rolled away. Circumcision, the renunciation of all confidence in the flesh, there enabled them to be the "Lord's host," the free servants of His will in opposition to all the hosts of evil. Thus the Captain of the Lord's host, -greater even than Joshua, how much greater than Saul! -could take His place at their head for the career of victory now opening before them. The application is easy enough here. What should hinder things coming into their place as then? Let there be only subjection, all would be as then. Let Saul be as Joshua, the lower kingdom be in truthful obedience to the higher, God still remained for them Jehovah, the Unchanged, Unchangeable. Such, surely, was the thought in Samuel's heart, for people and king. Thus only could their "sacrifices of peace-offerings" have meaning. But alas! there were too plain indications of another spirit than this; and if "Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly," nothing is said of him whose joy would have been deepest had the material of it been there. If Samuel rejoiced, it must have been indeed with trembling. And so his words now show. 4. A new section opens here. For now the new king must abide the rule of the higher kingdom, and be tested as to his fitness to fulfill its requirements. So it has ever been. So, in regard to God's governmental dealings with man in this life, it ever must be. Even the Church, though the witness of divine grace in its fullest character, yet as the responsible vessel of this on earth, has not escaped, nor could escape, this testing. "Unto thee goodness, if thou continue in His goodness," says the apostle of the Gentiles, the special "minister" of the Church (Colossians 1:25), otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." (Romans 11:22.) How she has answered to this test, let her history, in the light of the word of God, decide. Saul did not stand, we are called now, for our own profit, to consider the cause and manner o his fall. These things are written for our admonition: may we have open ears to receive the admonition! (1) Samuel now stands forth before the people, rejoicing because of their deliverance, to use the opportunity to effect one much greater, namely, from the sin which is always the degradation and destruction of a people. Their own had never yet been realized, in asking for a king and now their rejoicing in the king they had got was likely to blind their eyes yet more, and God's mercy toward them become only an occasion of worse departure from Him. Samuel for this, therefore, first of all, makes them own the uprightness of his own conduct in the place which God had given him among them. They were thus without excuse as to that which they had demanded, for although they had pleaded that the prophet's sons walked not in his ways, such failure allowed of easy correction. Indeed, as he shows presently, without condescending to any direct notice of it, it was not the true ground for what they had sought at all, but their fear of the Ammonites, and their inability to trust Jehovah for protection. This cowardly unbelief would naturally be cowardly enough in self excuses, and he does not honor them by even noticing them. (2) His integrity being allowed on all hands, he bids them stand forth while he reasons with them for his God. Jehovah's deeds were known well enough. He does not need to speak of them in order or at length. That they had been brought out of Egypt, brought into the land they now possessed, he had but briefly to allude to. After all this, they had left their own victorious Jehovah for the dead idols of the defeated Canaanites. In the land which was His gift they had forgotten Him, and that again and again, after repeated deliverances. Their present sin was but a repetition of that of their fathers: its root was in insubjection of heart, and unbelief. \ (3) He appeals to God Himself for confirmation of this. In Israel they, as a matter of course, gathered in their wheat in peace, but now the wrath of God would be manifest in sending thunder and rain. These signs come to pass the same day, and produce a transient effect upon the people. In a spasm of fear they own their guilt, and deprecate the death which they anticipate. Samuel reassures them, bidding them only fear Jehovah with a fruitful fear, productive of obedience, and lie would be with them; on the other hand, if still they did wickedly, they and their king alike would perish. \ (4) Saul is now fully installed: he is accepted of the people and in the flush of a first victory. But the testing time has thus now come, and he must stand the test or be set aside. He does not stand the test, for he has no true faith in God, and is thus under the power of circumstances. He is slow and undecided when prompt action is called for, and then is forced into doing when he ought to have waited. Thus he openly disobeys God, and is of necessity set aside. In natural courage he is not deficient, but natural courage without faith only begets self-confidence, and leads astray, while just where needed it is apt to break down and leave one in the lurch. Here, too, a man's religion, which without faith is only superstition, becomes a hindrance, as we shall see in Saul. His first act, after the victory over Nahash, judged by natural wisdom, is prudent enough. The rally in behalf of Jabesh-Gilead has brought together an ill-armed and undisciplined multitude, which, however effective under a sudden impulse, could not be trusted for a prolonged and regular war. To have kept so large a number together, had it been feasible, would have surely provoked a Philistine attack, and being unmanageable, the greater mass would have produced a worse defeat. Saul sends them all home, therefore, except three thousand men, too few to rouse the suspicion of those who had been rapidly assuming to be masters in Israel, and yet enough to occupy some central strong points, of which there were many in that mountainous land, and to be the nucleus of a trained and efficient army. The old days of Samuel had already passed away. The fruits of unbelief are not long in showing themselves. And in Saul's action we see not a return to faith, but the wise caution of worldly prudence and astute generalship. Every thing has to be calculated and provided for. God is left out, for He is a force not calculable; but being left out, He is still at liberty to come in and spoil these arrangements, as we shall see: though He act in mercy toward His people, as now He does; but just on that account the human machinery must be set aside. Two thousand men under Saul occupy the strong and important position of Michmash and Mount Bethel; a thousand are under Jonathan at Gibeah: and this introduces us to one in whom we have at this time -and Saul had also in close proximity to himself -the man of faith, through whom God works the deliverance which He has prepared for His people. Jonathan, or Jehonathan, means, "Jehovah hath given:" and he is truly the Lord's gift to Israel for the emergency; but also this is the language of his own believing heart, a sort of blank check, which can be filled up for every occasion. We shall find how fully he makes use of it now, though the first effect seems only to upset all the prudential device, and threaten disaster. But he is really with God, and we find in him what Saul should have been and was not. With him there is no tardiness, no prudence: put arms in his hands and he will use them. With one bold act of defiance, he precipitates the unequal conflict with those whose strength the nation had so often proved, -at this time comparatively at the strongest. He smites the Philistine post at Geba, and the Philistines hear. Saul cannot now lead: he must follow; but he follows in a path of which he has no knowledge, acting in the dark where he imagines he has full light. There is no caution now, no seeking wisdom from God. He has just dismissed the mass that had gathered against the Ammonites; now again he summons them in haste with the trumpet; but God has no use for them: a general fear falls upon the people; those that gather after Saul melt away again; he is left to his dismay; and the actual victory is gained by two people whose absence is only in this way discovered! What an object lesson of faith is given us here! While faith triumphs, as it ever does, things have gone disastrously with Saul. He sees not God, sees only circumstances; and where he moves most freely and confidently, is in fact moved helplessly by them. He must have a rising of the people to meet the wave of hostile invasion. He summons them as "Hebrews," not as Israelites; for of Israel, the people of God, he knows really nothing. They hear that Saul has smitten the post of the Philistines, leaving God out of the matter as Saul had left Him out. Unbelief awakens only unbelief; and then in opposition to Saul they naturally see the Philistines. Israel has come to be in ill savor also with the Philistines. They are called together after Saul to Gilgal. Where is the glorious Captain of the Lord's host that once met them there? Now they only realize the host of the Philistines, to their eyes innumerable, who presently take possession of the passes to the upper country. So seeing they are in a strait they scatter, hiding themselves in holes in the rocks and in the ground. And "Hebrews" make their escape altogether out of the threatened district, going over Jordan to Gad and Gilead. A company remain with Saul, but they follow him trembling. In this direction there is no hope. \ A grand opportunity for a man of God! and so it proves for Jonathan. It might have seemed that even Saul would be now driven to Him. Our extremity is still His opportunity, and this is what He would assure us of The conviction of helplessness contains oftentimes in itself the seed of faith and the famine and a world where no man gives, have been to how many prodigals constraining influences to bring about the cry, "I will arise and go to my Father!" But with Saul it is far otherwise, and the failure now is nothing incidental to the circumstances in which he is found, but the real and full manifestation of the man himself. He is now in the position of which Samuel had forewarned him before his anointing, (chap. 10: 8,) and in obedience to his injunction he waits till near the close of the seventh day, -till it has advanced so far, indeed, that it seems as if there was now no hope of Samuel's coming. The people are being scattered from him. His mind, sensitive as to external ordinances just in proportion to his inability to see beneath them, can only realize the failure (which was not his) in the matter of the sacrifice. In open disobedience he offers (or causes to be offered) the burnt-offering; and he has hardly done this before Samuel comes. (5) It was a plain breach of positive command. Saul might and does urge the scattering of the people, the failure of Samuel (too quickly assumed that), the gathered Philistines. With all this he had nothing at all to do. The king of Israel was but the representative of the heavenly King, whose people Israel really was, and whose will alone was absolute throughout all circumstances that might arise. How good, in fact, to have it so! How entirely at rest might a king be so governing! As to any lack of understanding of that will, there was given the utmost liberty of appeal to Him through known and readily available channels of communication. With consequences he had nothing whatever to do. Were ever any king's shoulders so entirely relieved of strain as those of the obedient king of such a kingdom? Saul had not the spirit of obedience, and there was no harshness, no undue severity in his rejection by God. As yet even it does not amount to present personal rejection. It is announced only that his kingdom should not continue, and that God had sought Him a king after His own heart, -manifestly one who would govern according to His will, which, in the main, was David's character. The two kingdoms must be in harmony. But Saul is yet left to recover, if it may be, the ground he had lost. Such is the mercy of the divine government, which we may see afterwards, even with a king so exceptionally bad as Ahab. (1 Kings 21:29.) Yet this mercy of God allows, too, the development of evil in the unrepentant and this we have to find in a striking manner in Saul. "Because judgment against an evil work is not speedily executed, therefore the heart of the sons of men is thoroughly set in them to do evil." 5. Side by side now, in contrasted development, we have in Saul the man without God, under the government of God, whose position as the ostensible, responsible head in Israel only emphasizes the lesson here. He is but the obstruction in the path of faith which we find in Jonathan, the man with God, whom Saul, though bound to him by every natural tie, would slay. Such is the essential opposition between what is natural and what is spiritual, even where, as here, it is not enmity, but a blind and superstitious zeal for God, -under which, however, all carnal and evil passions find ready lodgment. On the other hand, Saul's strength, such as it is, is easily seen to be based upon Jonathan's victories, which are crippled only by their connection with him, while Jonathan himself, though to the last attractive and interesting, soon ceases to have significance for the history at large, and at last expires under the shadow of a terrible humiliation upon the field of Gilboa. Impressive lessons, more than ever to be heeded today, when, through this very heedlessness, the history spiritually so often repeats itself. (1) In the first place, here we are made to realize the circumstances in the midst of which faith finds its opportunity. The land is prostrate. Unbelief has speedily completed its work. The deliverance wrought by Samuel is undone, and the Philistine spoiler is abroad over the country. Saul has, indeed, his six hundred men; but they are spiritless, and armed but with rustic and blunted weapons. This barrenness of resources is, however, only God's hand shutting them up to Himself. It is the prostration which makes Him their necessity; but, in general, there is no faith either to lay hold of Him. What would an army of such men accomplish? Nothing but their own defeat. Hence Jonathan, in whom faith is, will not burden himself with them: energized by God, he strikes with his own hand for deliverance, and strikes effectually. (2) Jonathan knows well that "two cannot walk together except they are agreed," that faith can take no counsel with unbelief; and when he starts against the Philistine garrison at Geba, he tells not his own father. Saul and his six hundred are shown us for a moment as he turns his back on them, Saul lying under the pomegranate at Migron (the place of "overthrow"); and with the failed king, the head of the failed priesthood, Ahijah ("brother of Jah"), son of Ahitub ("brother of goodness"), but the brother of Ichabod ("where is the glory?"), the monument of the sad history of Eli and his sons. With him is the ephod, expressly for communication with Jehovah, but there is none; and none among the people even know that Jonathan is gone away. Victory may be gained for these, not by them. They may enter presently upon a path which others have opened: open it they cannot. Jonathan therefore goes forth alone, with only his armor-bearer with him, in whom faith responds to his own faith. Two things, as we find by his words, animate him: that the Philistines are the "uncircumcised," the enemies of Israel, the people of God; and that "there is no restraint to Jehovah, to save by many or by few." He believes in an omnipotent God who loves His people, and upon whom to venture for their salvation can surely be no mistake. He has no express command, no open call to accomplish this: he reasons; but he reasons from premises which faith furnishes, and from the depths of his own self-sacrificing love to the people of God, which enables him sympathetically to realize the divine love. He does not at first speak with absolute assurance of success: he says, "it may be that Jehovah will work for us"; he knows God's heart better than His mind, gaining assurance as he goes on, willing to risk where the risk is all his own. Such believing love can never be unfruitful. He finally accepts the enemy's own decision of the matter as the Lord's judgment. If they say, "Wait till we come down to you," the energy implied will, at least, not show that He is opening the way before him. But if they say, "Come up to us," then, whether it be indolence, indifference, or self-security, he will take it as the assurance that God has given them up into his hands. There are abundant difficulties in those steep cliffs which overhang the bold adventurers' path. Two points, on opposite sides, are mentioned, -not surely as mere commemorative indications of the place for days to come, but with a deeper interest. One, Bozez, was named from its "shining" surface, which, on the north side, (that of the enemy's post,) would have the sun full upon it. The other, on Israel's, would be correspondingly in the dark, and was called Seneh, the "thorn," the sign of the curse. Israel was, indeed, in the shadow of God's judgment then, as, on this account also, their enemies were in prosperity: and such things have been difficulties in the path of many a Jonathan from that day to this. But there is a faith which can surmount all, working through the love of a devoted heart; and we find it in this son of Saul, not, clearly, by any assistances of nature there. The two discover themselves to the Philistine garrison in open day: for darkness does not favor the people of God, but the reverse. They are taunted with the cowardice that is not theirs, but is their brethren's, as the sins of professors merely are hurled at all times at the true confessors; and are bidden, "Come up unto us, and we will show you a thing": for with Philistines there is a height and superiority of knowledge inaccessible, in their judgment, to the "Israelite indeed." They know not that this is the sign that Jehovah has delivered them up, and that the battle is gone against them. Jonathan and his companion, therefore, climb on hands and knees to the attack: knees as well as hands are a grand necessity in climbing spiritual heights: and the Philistines fall before them. Fear and trembling fall upon the host; and the earth trembles and quakes; for God Himself is there: the victory is already accomplished. (3) As yet but two men have wrought, even the little band with Saul unconscious of their departure from them; but now the Israelites around begin to be awakened and to follow in the track that has been opened to them. The watchmen of Saul begin to realize the commotion and disintegration in the enemy's camp, and Saul imputes it to some human agency; but when the company is mustered, only Jonathan and another being absent, so slight a cause seems inadequate to the effect, and now he thinks of consulting God. But the noise increases in the camp, and the disorder among the Philistines being manifest, he abruptly stops the priest in the midst of his inquiry. He is pressed to God by great necessity; but he prefers much to do without Him. The matter is sufficiently plain for action. He gathers his company and goes out to battle, only to find that dissension has already precipitated disaster in the hostile ranks. The "Hebrews" recreant or captive among them turn against them; the Israelites who have been in hiding around swarm after the flying host. The broken wave of battle ebbs away toward the west. It is Jehovah who that day saves Israel. (4) But the spirit of Saul is in entire independence. If Jehovah work, it is for him He works; and in his short-sighted desire for vengeance upon his enemies, he freely imprecates Jehovah's curse upon the soul that does not obey his mandate to abstain from food until vengeance is executed. He thus makes the might of Jehovah's name to work against the very thing he would accomplish; and limits, as far as he may, the effect of that which he had no part in producing. He can meddle and mar, if he cannot make. In his profanity he would have God curse where He means only blessing, heedless where the curse may fall. The people are faint, and the victory is incomplete. Jonathan, the instrument of the divine deliverance, is the one who falls under the futile curse. Too far away from the scene to have heard his father's adjuration, he takes a little of the wild honey which offers itself by the way, and is refreshed. Told of his father's curse he reprobates it, and shows its evil consequences. Honey is the sweetness of natural things, not to be ascetically interdicted to the people of God, though to be kept in due subordination. The world is, indeed, a place of warfare for the Christian, in which he may "not entangle himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who has chosen him to be a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4.) We have need to watch lest we should be brought under the power of lawful things (1 Corinthians 6:12). But herein every one must judge for himself what is help, what hindrance, while it is grace alone that enables, and not law. Saul's prohibition leads to further evil. The famishing people, wild with hunger, fall at last upon the prey, and slaughtering sheep and oxen, eat them with the blood, in plain disobedience to the divine command. Thus an undue restriction leads to license, and the imposition of an arbitrary human enactment to a transgression of the divine: and these things occur not seldom in this way. (5) Saul builds now an altar to Jehovah: he has need of Him, and formally acknowledges Him. He desires and proposes still to pursue the Philistines, and gains the consent of the people. It is the priest, who urges that God must be consulted first. Saul asks, accordingly, "Shall I go down after the Philistines?" and his proud spirit chafes at there being no answer to the question. He realizes that there has been sin somewhere, and evidently divines that it is in the transgression of his own rash prohibition; seems even to imagine (perhaps from Jonathan's having been away when it was uttered) that it may be he: yet, instead of being smitten into the dust by the thought, or showing the least repentance for his reckless haste, boils over in a furious vow by Jehovah, that if it were in Jonathan himself, he should die. The people gaze upon him speechless. He brings it to a brief decision by putting himself and Jonathan over against the people for the lot to point out the guilty. He and Jonathan are taken: at the next casting Jonathan is taken: and Saul is face to face with the consequences of his deed. But he is still unsubdued: stonily he questions the deliverer of Israel, What hast thou done? and hears his simple, straightforward account: "I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand, and lo, I must die," to answer with another imprecation upon the self, dearer loved than is his child, "God do so [to me] and more also, but thou shalt surely die, Jonathan!" Then the people break out in a wave of astonishment and indignation, putting with emphatic decision their oath against the king's oath. What! Jonathan, who has wrought, in the power of God, this deliverance of Israel? Jonathan die for the breach of a command he never knew, and by which Saul's own madness had snatched the full fruits of the victory out of the deliverer's hand? Nay, "as Jehovah liveth, there shall not a hair of his head fall to the ground!" So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not; and Saul is left to his folly and shame. The whole matter, from beginning to end, has been one continued humiliation for the infatuated king. The man himself is unmistakably revealed; while on God's part how great is the mercy shown, -how tender, if solemn, is the rebuke administered! And the divine patience is not exhausted yet. 6. Another test is to be permitted Saul; and as, in the former case he was under the pressure of circumstances which might plead, if not convincingly, for him, so now he is forborne with till he has gathered strength. One readily perceives, indeed, danger for him in this; but it is the only alternative. What he is, and whether Jehovah's king for the people, must be proved; and nothing can prove so fully as when all constraint is taken off, and the will is allowed its fullest liberty. It is not meant, of course, but that lie is under the commandment of God: this is, of necessity, wherewith he is to be tried: the kingdom on earth is to be the true representative and executive of the kingdom in heaven: but obedience is to be made a question of pure will, with no hindrance to it from outside, no resistance except it be from the will itself. The means of the ordained trial we have in Amalek; and here, as elsewhere to have the full lesson, the spiritual meaning of the people must be taken into account. In both Exodus and Numbers we have seen that as the offspring of Edom Amalek stands for the lusts of the flesh (Exodus 17:1-16, Numbers 24:1-25, n.). In Balaam's prophecy it is when the Scepter rises out of Israel, and out of Jacob comes one who hath dominion, -in other words, when Christ comes again -that "Amalek shall perish forever." Till then his hand is "against the throne of Jah," and "Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." Thus the destruction of Amalek is a sign of the true King having come to Israel. The lusts of the flesh are indeed the very expression of the rebellious war against Jehovah's throne; and he in whom these are found can never be Jehovah's rightful king. There is but One, then, who can be this; and Saul is not even His typical picture -no, not for a moment. Of the issue of Saul's trial here we shall have presently to speak. (1) But first we are given to see his might. After the deliverance at Mich-mash he takes, indeed, the kingdom over Israel, and wars against all his enemies round about, and discomfits them, Philistines and Amalekites and all. "He did valiantly, and delivered Israel out of the hand of them that spoiled them." Externally he is thus a prosperous man; no enemy at this time prevails against him: but in all this prosperity we have no hint of any real dependence on the Lord, nor of the Lord's hand being stretched out for him. His resources are in himself. We read presently of his sons, his daughters, his wife, his cousin Abner, the captain of his host. There the record stops. He gathers no mighty men around him, as David does: he wins no heart, for he shows no heart. He is self-contained, self-centred; and thus the very king whom the people seek, though having found him, it is true he does not satisfy them. There is nothing in him to do so; and yet he is the perfect picture of what men applaud: "for men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself." (Psalms 49:18.) The Sauls make up the history of the world, though a few souls may cluster around David. Saul is a representative man, and thus we may well be interested in him. Not in vain does he occupy so many pages of an inspired history. His wars and his family relations, as given here, should all have meaning. As king of Israel he is in conflict with all the natural enemies of Israel, and here he shows his might. He discomfits them, but he does not destroy or subjugate them: even Amalek is not an exception to this, as we shall see. He is very far from leaving, as his successor does, "neither adversary nor evil occurrent." (1 Kings 5:4.) He dies in battle, defeated by the Philistines; an Amalekite claims to have given him his death-stroke; all the enemies have to be met afresh by the next king. He is under the law of nature simply, has his rise, culmination, and decline; but this with him, as with all under it, has a moral significance such as the psalmist attaches to it: "we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath we are troubled." (Psalms 90:7.) The secret is as to Saul in his growing alienation from God, which is manifest, an awful hardening of heart terrible to contemplate, yet not so exceptional as to make it in any wise unsuited for an admonition to us. For here is the man that the multitude crowns with glory, while for the true king they have the cross and the crown of thorns. And thus it is that we are in Saul's reign still, and not in David's; and the world occupies itself with laws and forms of government, while it knows not Christ, nor sees glory in God's Beloved. A democracy under Satan would certainly have the suffrages of the mass today, rather than the sweet despotism of the Son of God. Yet men go frantic over wrongs that are only the twigs and branches from the root of this first great wrong. Saul, too, could lash at Israel's enemies, but they survived him, pulled him from his seat, and conquered him at last; and so will the world's efforts at self-government break down in hopeless anarchy and confusion before Christ comes to lay his right hand of power upon the strife, and still it into peace. Saul's sons, as given here, are three, though we learn elsewhere of a fourth, who does not come into this picture, Ish-bosheth, -acccording to the meaning of of his name, the "man of shame," the only one who survives his father. The three here are his strength, but they all fall with him upon the fatal field of Gilboa. Of Jonathan alone do we hear anything; and of him, the hero of Michmash and the lover of David, more often as in conflict with his father than otherwise. Yet Saul, with such heart as he had, loved Jonathan, -though, as we have seen, he would have sacrificed him to his superstition and pride, and afterwards to his rage against David. Jonathan means "Jehovah hath given," the principle upon which, as we have seen, he acts at Michmash. Jonathan thus seems to represent the sovereignty of God, which, in fact, upholds as ordained of Him "the powers that be," which Saul represents, though in themselves as little according to His mind as Saul was. This ordination is, therefore, not that electing love which originates what He approves, but that which takes them up simply as existent, in that sense is the fruit of their existence, (for the "powers that be" are ordained of God as such), and so can be rightly imaged as a son of Saul, his firstborn, as Jacob says of Reuben, his "might, the beginning of excellence and of power." Yet it is clear that in this case Jonathan cannot be against David, even while he owns Saul, and why he expires with him upon the field where he expires. All this is simple. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/numerical-bible/ Subdivision 1. (1 Samuel 16:1-23; 1 Samuel 17:1-58; 1 Samuel 18:1-30; 1 Samuel 19:1-24; 1 Samuel 20:1-42; 1 Samuel 21:1-15; 1 Samuel 22:1-23; 1 Samuel 23:1-29; 1 Samuel 24:1-22; 1 Samuel 25:1-44; 1 Samuel 26:1-25; 1 Samuel 27:1-12; 1 Samuel 28:1-25; 1 Samuel 29:1-11; 1 Samuel 30:1-31; 1 Samuel 31:1-13.)The obedience of the destined king. For the king after God's heart suffering must precede glory. He must obey before he can rule; and, like his Antitype, learn obedience by the things that he suffers. But the need and manner of learning are as different as the persons are different. Here we must look beyond David to learn what David's history means. In Christ there could be no need of the discipline of suffering. Trial did not perfect Him in obedience, but showed Him perfect. Yet "perfected through suffering" He was, but as the "Captain of salvation," the "Author and finisher of faith," the One who goes before on and initiates the path upon which He victoriously leads His followers.* For this in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, "tempted in all things, like as we are, sin apart." (Hebrews 4:15, Gk.) How wondrous, how inspiring, such an example! God Himself become man to lead our feet in obedience on the path His own have trodden! In the peculiar sufferings of the cross He has gone beyond us, where none could follow; in all else we are called to enter into the "fellowship of His sufferings," and that as the way to share with Him, through His grace, the crown also: it is "if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." (2 Timothy 2:12.) \ The sufferings of David take up many chapters of the record here, -sufferings which exalt him in our thoughts much more than his after glories. We need, as knowing the deeper reality of which they speak, to search into them with special earnestness, and prayerfulness of spirit, and with the precious assurance that it is of Christ that the spirit of prophecy speaks through him: expecting ourselves, therefore, to find shining through the type the true David, God's "Beloved." The veil for us has been here, as elsewhere, really taken away: may there be not a remnant even of darkening veil over our hearts! 1. The first thing that we are called to see in David is his unique sufficiency for the hour of Israel's need. In the valley of Elah, even Jonathan, the hero of Michmash, has no help. All Israel are alike trembling and helpless in the presence of the Philistine champion, and David becomes indeed the captain of their salvation. The meaning of this we shall look at presently. Before it we are called to see him as the elect of God, qualified of the Spirit of God for the work before him. For it is never man simply that can accomplish anything: the creature was not meant to live apart from the Creator; man apart is man fallen, and in the ruin of that fall; his glory is to be nigh God, with God, and thus Christ is the only full and adequate thought of him as in the mind of God from the beginning; not an after-thought, but that to which creation from the beginning pointed. (1) If we have David before us, we shall not even mourn for Saul. This is what is contained in Jehovah's reproof of Samuel. It is not, of course, that he was wrong in manifesting such sorrow as the Lord Himself had over Jerusalem. It can never be aught but fellowship with Him, to weep the Redeemer's tears over human obduracy and its inevitable results. But put a Saul at his best outwardly, -and his best was but outward, -who could weep to see him displaced by a David on the throne of Israel? And much more when, as to man in general, we would lament for the crown of creation fallen from his head, -how can we do this when we see Christ assume it? Samuel is bidden then to fill his horn with oil and go to Bethlehem, and anoint there one of the sons of Jesse to be king. The horn is the familiar type of power, as oil is of the Spirit: it is from Him who has power that the anointing comes, from Him who will make good all that it implies, and whose king must be not simply naturally but spiritually qualified, -with whom power will be, therefore, power with God, that is, spiritual power. Bethlehem we know well as the "house of bread"; and its connection with Him who is the "living bread" makes very plain its meaning. How plainly, also, for Israel was David to be the minister of sustenance for faith, as well as for God's people at all times! Christ's power for us has been manifested in more precise ministry. From the Father's house, the true "house of bread," He came, to open the stores of it, and meet earth's famine with the bounty of God. Thus Jesse the Bethlehemite witnesses in his name that "Jehovah exists." Man has sunk down low enough; hope in him rightfully there is none: the more completely that is cut off; the more surely we come to the Omnipotent and self-sufficing God, ever living, and out of whom all that is lost may be restored. Samuel fears this errand; for Saul's character is but too well known. He is told, therefore, to take a heifer and go and sacrifice, and call Jesse to the sacrifice. Nor are we to look at this as merely a protecting veil thrown mercifully around the weakness of His servant. We have already seen such a sacrificial feast spread in connection with Saul's anointing, and know it as the sign of peace and communion between God and man. This is where Saul had failed so utterly. For him, too, all had been prepared, and he was an invited guest; but into the reality of this he had never entered. David therefore was to be now the guest, and to make up for Saul's deficiency. And the true King, when He comes, is more than David; for He is not only partaker of but spreads the feast. Samuel goes, therefore, to Bethlehem, but the elders tremble at his coming. Things are out of course in Israel, and an uneasy conscience finds in the approach of one who walks with God a cause of distress. But Samuel quiets this, and calls them to the sacrifice, for which also he sanctifies Jesse and his sons. They seem alone to have been present at the sacrificial meal that follows, when David is anointed. As the prophet sees the stately and striking form of Eliab, the eldest son, he imagines for the moment that this must be the one intended of the Lord; but Jehovah rebukes the thought. "Man looketh on the eyes," -the deepest well of thought and feeling to him, -"but Jehovah looketh on the heart." Abinadab next comes before him, and then Shammah, and so seven of Jesse's sons, but all to be rejected; and there is only one remaining, away with the sheep. When he is brought, at once the voice of the Lord is heard by the prophet, Arise, anoint him"; and David is anointed in the presence of all his brethren. Can we gain anything from this, save that the Lord sees deeper than man, and that he chooses often for His instruments those little among men? That is true, and also important, for we are prone to forget it: but is that all that we are to learn from these details given? If not, shall we be over-bold in seeking to find meanings somewhat deeper than the surface? For here is a great type surely, and a question raised, which, if we think a little, we shall find occupies men today: Who is God's coming King of men? And what principle does He stand for or represent? Or what is the message that He brings with Him when He comes? If it is said, perhaps, It is a principle, and not a person, that men are expecting, even so it will be found that principles also wait for introduction by a person, who identifies himself with these, and is identified with them; and that men think this a valid and important subject of inquiry still. It should not be strange, then, if God have a Person in His mind who is to bring in the reign of truth and righteousness and peace which still men look for, though it be so long delayed; and that He is identified with principles of infinite importance, of which God's heart is full, -so full that it has been overflowing to communicate them, before there were ears open even to receive the report, or the time had come in which it could be fairly uttered. Saul is yet upon the scene, and potent in his way too, we see, but doomed to be set aside. The man of the people has failed utterly under the test of God. His principle has been independence of God, reason such as he deems it unimpeded by revelation, the pursuit of his own ends by his own means, since God plainly cannot be trusted to secure these. Alas, all this is easily understood and confidently acted on all the world over, and will be, surely, (for at least there is no sign of change,) as long as human nature is what it is, or God does not come in to change by divine power the course of things. Kings have failed, so that it is the glory of the present age to have either superseded or taken in hand to fetter them. Aristocracy fails, for it is only a diluted and more moderate kingship, many-headed and less easily made responsible in proportion as its power is less direct. And democracy also fails, both because the more complete it is the less really is it what it assumes to be, the more multitudinous the less available as power, the more heterogeneous, All forms of government that man has tried or that are available to him, are but the endeavor to balance contradictory self-interests, and to restrain the spirit of the wild beast ever seeking to be loose. And this is the scriptural picture: the vision of the powers of the earth which the prophet sees, and representing them until the Son of man comes in the clouds of heaven, is of four wild beasts (Daniel 7:1-28). "Man being in honor, and understanding not, is like the beasts that perish." (Psalms 49:20.) What, then, is the remedy? Nothing, plainly, but the Son of man from heaven. Laws, the best and the worst, fail to execute themselves, and thy sons of men have no hope in them, so long as heaven is still and intervenes not. The Son of man from heaven is the only answer to the long unanswered question. "All judgment committed unto Him, because He is the Son of man" -perfectly intelligent and sympathetic as to man; but come to earth out of the open doors of heaven, in perfect sympathy up there, and so bringing heaven and earth into sympathetic union. And why has the remedy been so long delayed? It was offered almost two millennia since, and was rejected! offered with amplest demonstration of its reality; rejected with the practical unanimity of all sorts and conditions of men: heaven's gift, earth's King, hung up in the face of heaven in utter scorn and face to face rejection! "He saved others," they shouted, "let Him save Himself! He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him!" And so the world has had its free field for experiments in political economy ever since. They are nearly ended now. The Son of man, thank God, is coming back again, and it will not be left any more to the world's arbitrament, whether they will have Him. David's history shows us both these things, "the sufferings of Christ and the glories that shall follow." True history, it takes its place in the books of the former prophets," and is prophetical, as indeed in some sense all true history is. But there is less of this than we are willing to admit, available to our inspection: in that day when the books shall be open we shall find the true. The Christ? but who is the Christ? Saul, the man of the people, for faith is passed away. Which of this long family of Jesse is worthy to succeed? Eliab is the first-born, and has a beautiful name and a stately presence. Eliab means "God" -or, "my God, is Father," and we have had the name before in the captain of Zebulon's host in the wilderness, and in very different connection as the father of that Mahan and Abiram who were conspirators with Korah against Moses. "My God is Father" is a glorious reality, which may be on the other hand most terribly abused. As Creator He is the "Father of spirits," and men are in general in that sense "His offspring." Undoubtedly also He would have all men know Him in such endeared relationship. Yet if we take our stand on the ground of creation we ignore the fall; and such was the sin of the sons of Eliab in the wilderness. Granting there be a Christ, is He to be, can He be, Head of the old creation, restorer of the old relationship within the old limits? Notice, again, that this Eliab is the first-born, David at the other end, the eighth: but this is against Eliab, though his goodly presence may appeal even to a prophet. He comes under the law of Genesis, and exemplifies the rule, "first, that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." (1 Corinthians 15:46.) But there is no natural Christ, nor therefore of the old creation; the eighth speaks of the new, and Eliab must give place to David. Abinadab therefore also is foredoomed; although as the second son, he speaks suggestively of help or of salvation. His name too is good, and in accord with this, "my father is a liberal giver." And why, man argues, should not God, who is good and the Father of men, freely, of His mere good pleasure, remit sin? Why must the Christ be a David, an eighth son, owning in Himself the ruin of man, and descending to the depth of his condemnation to redeem him? But it cannot be: for sin is the dark and fundamental opposite of God, and He cannot dwell with it. To ignore is not to remove it, but to go on with it, and Abinadab can therefore be no sufficient Saviour. Shammah is the third son of Jesse, but his name is variously interpreted. It is also differently given in Chronicles (1 Chronicles 2:13) as Shimeah, or Shimma. This last word is near akin to Shimeon (Simeon), and should have the same meaning, "hearing," or "hearkening," which is often equivalent to "obedient." But Shammah is from another root, and means "desolation." If there be no mistake in the text, -and in the next chapter it is given again as here, -this, under the number that speaks of holiness, would naturally imply that the alternative of what Eliab or Abinadab expresses must be desolating judgment; but most certainly the Christ-King could not represent such a thought as this. No other names are given till the last is reached in David, the "beloved," the eighth, taken from the shepherd's place to fill the kingly one, -in God's thoughts still the Shepherd's. As eighth, he shows us Christ as Head of new creation, as we have seen: God's holiness thus expressed in the link with a new life received from Him, itself the condemnation of the old. But the King is no less the One in whom the Divine Love is shown out toward men. The "Beloved" must be indeed the King after God's own heart, and in Him of whom the type speaks here the higher and lower kingdoms come entirely together. David is anointed, and the Spirit of Jehovah comes upon him from henceforth. He is the king designate of God, although the road to the kingdom may be yet a long one, and lead deeply down into the valley of humiliation. (2) But the Spirit of the Lord departs from Saul, and an evil spirit from Jehovah troubles him. Evil as well as good has its commission from God, -not its existence, but its liberty to act, and the limits of its action. So we see in Job in early times, and in Ahab's case later; and comfort it is indeed to know this. It is thus the wrath of man is made to praise Him, and the remainder of it He restrains. Nothing can escape from the divine government by the fact or avowal of its being evil. How should it? Thus alone can we be at peace, assured that no waves can rise higher than the footstool of His throne. The work of the evil spirit with Saul was the execution of penalty, and had it led to self-judgment would have proved mercy also. The relief granted, with its known source, was surely that goodness of God which leadeth to repentance. The character of it shows that it was the tempestuous working of Saul's own spirit that gave the evil one his opportunity, -that brought Saul within the limit ordained him of God. David's harp does not act directly upon. Satan, but upon Saul. By its strange power of softening and subduing, though but temporarily, the savage temper of the rejected king, the power that assails him is driven back and shut off; for the time he is set free. The harp of David is the sign of nature even in its lowest and inanimate forms responsive and harmonious in the hand of man. It lies with him, the highest and intelligent creature of God, to bring out and express these harmonies, to make the silence vocal. If he take not his God-given place, the capacity of nature is not known, its depths are unsounded, God's design and glory in it are obscured and misconstrued. What will be its awakening when the earth is put into the hands of the Second, the ideal Man? How will our David make all nature His harp of many strings, and lead in the anthem of praise from all creation! But even now it is in His hand, obedient to Him alone, and so harmonious; and it is this, however little understood and realized, that alone checks and restrains the spirit of disorder and anarchy to which at times the powers ordained of God seem given up. Here, too, it acts by the power of that sweet mysterious charm of our David's melody over themselves -strangers as they may be to Him personally. The Sauls do not become Davids, but they are under the influence of David; and the mere reflection of the glory that shall at last cast out the adversary of men prevails to baffle and turn him back. How vivid is the picture here, and how completely the history justifies itself as prophecy according to, though far beyond, the Jewish conception of these books as the former prophets." Saul and David will nevertheless yet separate, each to his final destiny: Saul to the fatal field of Gilboa, David to the thus emptied throne, which he will raise to its highest glory. (3) We now come to the time of David's manifestation as the deliverer of Israel, the one who alone can meet their need in the day of distress. As a history it is a simple but glorious lesson of faith, and of what it can achieve with no help but that of God; as a type it is a deep and instructive parable of the wondrous salvation which Christ has wrought for His people. It is such an one as by no means carries its meaning upon its face. There are difficulties in it which seem always to have hindered the satisfactory exposition of what has been generally felt must be in it by those who believe at all in any rightful allegorization of these histories. There is a mingling together of different lines of truth which easily becomes entanglement if we do not discern with care. And the remedy for this will be found, not in simply picking out what seems consistent with the meaning we have given it, and dismissing the rest as belonging to the necessary faultiness of such allegoric method, a kind of reasoning which must be the reproach and ruin of the method itself, if it is to be accepted, -but on the contrary, in a fair and full induction of all the facts. While we may not be able to see meaning everywhere, we must not turn away from unwelcome difficulties or accept what is really contradictory to the evidence as a whole. Difficulties are plain when we look at what is the back-ground of a picture of Christ's salvation. We find a Philistine war; the adversary met by David vaunting himself a Philistine, if perhaps in fact he be something more; but indeed his Anakite descent (Joshua 11:22) does not emerge at all in the chapter before us. If the Philistines then be what we have represented them to be, and what so much scripture combines to assure us that they are, -the ritualistic and successional world-church, -how can it be a champion of this sort that Christ is seen here to meet and slay, and from which He delivers His people? The relation of David to Saul, and much else, if explicable, have yet at least to be similarly explained, before we have the elements of a proper exposition that can rightly challenge acceptance as to what is in the mind of God before us here. One thing is certain, if there be any truth whatever in the interpretation of this whole history as far as we have now arrived, then it is not against a blank wall that we have suddenly come: there is spiritual meaning here as elsewhere; and this belief will surely be justified as the result of the examination upon which we are entering. (a) The Philistines are the enemies of Saul throughout his reign, and he perishes at last in conflict with them. At this we shall be called to look another time; but that ecclesiasticism as we have seen it in them is ever hostile to the "powers that be," as represented in Saul, is evident. Always open war there is not, but it is always threatening, if not existent for the aim of the world-church is power on earth, and if it has an intoxicating cup for its kings, and can have wanton dalliance, even thus would it cast them down and prevail against them. "Her ways are changeable," says the wise man, "that thou shouldst not know them;" but ever one purpose abides through all. At the time we have reached, the Philistines are at open war with Israel, have invaded Judah, and are gathered together at Socoh in its territory, camping between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim, "the boundary of blood." The names here may, though not beyond question as to their meaning, give us more than a glimmer of light. Socoh we have taken elsewhere (p. 103 n.) to mean, as in Lamentations 2:6, "his tabernacle," and this is named as a principal point at which they aim, while their camp is between it and Azekah, the "fence" by which He would guard it. Now this guard is by the maintenance of the truth (as we have seen in the place referred to) that there are "two gates," "two ways," and correspondingly two ends: Christ the gate and the way to life eternal, -no other way than Christ; but then, alas! a wide gate and a broad way trodden by the many, and by which there will as surely be reached another end than this. Such is the guard which God has appointed to His sanctuary, the holy conditions which the grace of the gospel affirms, not sets aside. But Philistinism, that is, ecclesiasticism, does set them aside. It has a gate and a way which are not Christ, but which assume His name; which are broader than the true, yet narrower; and by which they penetrate between God's "tabernacle," which they claim for themselves, and the guard which He has set about it. Sacraments are made to give the "life," which He alone can give, and to sustain it. People are born of God by "water," the "Spirit" being taken for granted, and made subject to the will of man -the officiating priest. Bread and wine by an equal magic become in his hands the very flesh and blood of Christ. Here, in this Babel of unrealities which pass for realities, where the depth of the mystery is only measured by its irrationality, where faith in a sensual superstition becomes a debasing credulity, -here is indeed the entrenched camp of Philistinism, between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim, the "boundary of blood:" for so thorough is the opposition between the grace of Christ and this legal ritualism that to cross the border-line is a question of life or death: "in her," as the divine record is of Babylon, "was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." (Revelation 18:24.) Saul and the army of Israel are encamped in the valley of Elah, or "the terebinth," named like the oak from its strength, -if it be not rather the oak itself. Spiritually, the "valley" is indeed the place to find the power that is manifest in life. But it is one thing to be in the position, another to have realized the blessing of it, and this, under their failed head, the Israelites have not done. In the presence of the enemy they have no strength. A formidable champion now makes his appearance on the side of the Philistines, no doubt one of the old Anakite race, some individuals of which we are expressly told, survived at Gath, the place from which Goliath comes. Spiritually apprehended, we shall find him a giant indeed, and needing, not the might of man, but the power of God to overcome. He is the champion of the Philistines, and must therefore represent them in what is prominent in the principles for which they stand; but he is more than merely a Philistine also: a darker shadow as of vapor from the pit is cast over the picture here. The derivation of Goliath from galah has the consent of lexicographers; yet corresponding to the several meanings of the verb, there have been suggested several interpretations of the name, it being hard, as far as legitimacy goes, to decide between them. In such perplexity we are entitled to take that which brings light with it rather than what conveys no meaning. That which fits the lock will prove itself as ever to be the key of the lock, to those, at least, who are clear that there is a key somewhere. Goliath means, then, we believe, "banishment, exile;" to which the city to which he belongs adds intensity of significance. Gath means the "wine-press;" and we have before connected it with what seems its only explanation here, the pregnant saying of the Apocalypse, "He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God." "Banishment from God in His wrath," we may take as the true thought conveyed by the threatening figure of Goliath of Gath. Now the essence of Christianity lies in this, that as the fruit of accomplished redemption we are brought nigh to God. This is what the apostle contrasts with the powerlessness of the law of Moses, for which that was set aside: "There is therefore the disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof (for the law made nothing perfect), and the bringing in of a better hope, by which we draw nigh to God." (Hebrews 7:18-19, Gk.) As he goes on to show (Hebrews 9:1-28; Hebrews 10:1-39), the perfecting of the conscience so as to be able to stand in the presence of a holy God was thus what Judaism was wholly unable to effect. Of this the veil before the holiest bore constant witness. The work by which alone the conscience could be set at rest, was not yet done. But it is now done: "By one offering hath [Christ] perfected forever them that are sanctified." Hence there is rest and nearness. Only unbelief can bring in distance between the soul and. God, for we are in Christ, "accepted in the Beloved" unchangeably. But the knowledge of this is the destruction of Philistinism. The essential character of the false sacramental system is the revival of Judaism, the putting back under its shadows and into distance from God. Thus the church becomes the mediator between the unreconciled soul and God; the sacrifice and the priesthood, though with a juggle of Christian terms which are good for nothing but to conjure with, come back into the old place, but with a deadly falsehood now, such as in Judaism was not and could not be. The very essence of that was that it was predictive and preparatory: the old covenant was to give place to the new; there were "good things to come" that had not come: but this bastard Judaism claims itself to be that which was to come, connects itself with the precious realities of grace, only to degrade, contradict and displace them. It speaks of Christ, of His work, of His grace, ever to substitute its perversions for the truth, and in the name of the Lord rivet its chains upon the free. Here the Philistine leader becomes apparent. Goliath of Gath represents just the denial of reconciliation and nearness to God, which is so manifest in the modern Philistinism, with its Casluhite (p. 74) prate of forgiveness and grace, which is only the devil's wile to take all meaning out of such blessed words. The essence of Romanism and of all Romanizing systems lies in this, that there is no known and effectual reconciliation. You need the Church, and all the priestly train on earth, -you need the host of saints and angels up in heaven, as intercessors to bring you nigh; and with all this labor, as they quote from the funeral book of the Old Testament for their purpose, "no man knoweth whether he is worthy of favor or hatred." (Ecclesiastes 9:1, Douay Version.) The council of Trent condemned the assurance of salvation as the vain confidence of the heretics." If you do not drop out of their hands into hell, you will certainly go to purgatory, and there pay to God the uttermost farthing for your sins. "Exile from God because of His wrath:" this is indeed the champion of the Philistines. Heaven there is, but afar off, and with a dread uncertainty of ever reaching it. But how can the fear of this throw its shadow over the souls of the Israel of God? Alas! the type before us answers that sufficiently. Unbelief, the slighting of the word of God, the lack of any deep self-judgment, the mixture of the Church and the world: these are prominent and concurrent causes. Mid all the light that people vaunt today the shadows of superstition gather and their hosts stalk abroad, with the giant of Oath still champion of the host. Plain it is that it is the guilty conscience, ignorant of the power of the blood of Christ, that is the strength of all such systems. It is this that builds up priestly authority, and maintains the efficacy of sacramental "mysteries." Peace with God known, accepted consciously in the soul, the terror of wrath is gone, the giant of superstition slain, the arm of Philistia is broken: and thus we are led directly to the apprehension of the conqueror here, who is David, the "Beloved." The height of the giant may be noted, six cubits and a span, though it is only the number which is plain as that of the full development of evil, and (we may add) unrest. He is in armor of brass, so often connected with the unyielding character of judgment; his heart is shut in with scales of brass: we are too little practised in divine symbolism to go safely further in the interpretation here. He proclaims himself emphatically "the Philistine," as he truly is; and defies any one in the host of Israel to contend with him. And Saul and all the host shrink back in terror. (b) The history returns to David, and the memory is refreshed as to who he is. All this we are to keep in mind. and carry with us. The three eldest of his brothers follow Saul; but David mind, returned from Saul to his accustomed and significant occupation as shepherd of the sheep. God's king is in training, and not to be hastily detached from this. Forty days the Philistine presents himself, morning and evening. The testing of ability to encounter him is to be fully made. But now David, like Joseph of old -another type of royalty in Christ -is sent upon a mission. He is to seek out his brethren with food for their necessities, and see how they fare. Nor does our king yet disdain such service. He finds them in the ranks, going forth to the battle for which they have so little heart or competence, and sees the Philistine come forth, and hears his challenge. He is intensely and indignantly interested, and no wonder, and again and again questions the people there, "What shall be done to the man that smiteth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel?" And again and again they tell him what the king will do. If this is still to be applied typically, what is the meaning of it? What are we to say indeed of all this introduction of David into the reign of Saul and into the midst of such a conflict as has been already indicated between Israel and the Philistines? For all this has seemed, and with consistency hitherto, to speak of things that are or have been taking place in our own times and dispensation, and how could we introduce the Lord personally, as David would seem to represent Him, into scenes from which He is necessarily absent? There is here a difficulty indeed, but not an insuperable one. Of course it is true that it would be insuperable, if we had to conceive of our Lord as being here in the body when we know that He is in heaven: this would be entirely inconsistent; yet it is said in the closing verses of the Gospel of Mark just after we have been told distinctly of His ascent into heaven and being seated on the right hand of God, -"And they went forth and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." Thus still also, we are sure, the Lord works on; and this is no figure of speech, nor even a synonym for the Spirit's work in men: there is a difference which it is well to be clear about, and which will make what we have here also clear. Ministry is always under the Lord: "there are differences of administrations (ministries, marg.), yet but one Lord;" and this the apostle says just after he had said, "there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:4-5.) The two things are widely different: the power is of the Spirit; rule, superintendence, belong to the Lord. This title, Lord, is moreover, if we may say so, His David, His royal, title; for He is never called king in relation to the Church, but to Israel or the nations,* while in fact the authority which He claims and exercises "Lord" is fully royal. Thus we may rightly speak of His actings here, while He sits upon the Father's throne above; and these will show Him of course in the character of His rule, and make us realize the joy of being subject to Him. Such views of Him we may expect to realize in that which is before us. \ As acting upon earth, it will be natural also, to find Him identified with and represented by the servants who serve Him, and even in their sufferings too. While we must carefully remember the limitations which types according to their very nature have, and take heed not to strain the application beyond these. But as to all this we must speak of it in detail as the individual types come before us, and furnish the occasion. But it is plain therefore that the visit of David to his brethren at this time is not to be interpreted like that of Joseph, of the Lord's assuming flesh and coming into the world. We must rather take it as applying to what men coldly call a providential visitation. If there took place for instance at the Reformation such a deliverance as we find here from the giant of the Philistines, -if at that time the revival of a gospel which gave assurance and peace to souls delivered men from the distance and estrangement from God which Romanism maintains, and by which it effects its conquests, -then we may rightly consider this to be such a gracious visitation. The true David, the son of Jesse, (of the living and unchanging God,) surely then visited His brethren with the bread of Bethlehem, the Father's house of bread. Then was the question raised which received in result such unsatisfactory answer, "what shall be done to the man that smiteth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel?" The more this is examined, the closer will be found the application. Was not the answer too much in those days the assurance of what the king would do for Israel's deliverer? The failure of the Reformation -blessed work of God as there truly was in it -was it not largely in this that Saul, the secular power, and his promises were trusted in, and the princes of the earth sought to as the nursing fathers of the church? But what will they do, what have they done, for the Christ who delivered them? Alas, they sought not spiritual deliverance but temporal, though the means that could alone deliver them were in fact spiritual. The Davids were the divinely raised up champions of the truth, who descended solitary into the valley while the Sauls, yea, and Israel too, cowered in their places of shelter and looked on, to see the victory accomplished for them. In reality this victory was but one, and of One, One Christ acting in His poor followers, whom the Eliabs might insult for pride, and as leaving the few sheep to be exposed in the wilderness, while the work was being done. Yet there was a cause; and they had but to wait to see the vain seeming words become mighty deeds, the giant dead, and the Philistine host in flight! (c) The words of David are reported to Saul, and though half believing only, he grasps at them. Incredulously he gazes at the stripling whose strength, such as he sees it, is little enough to be measured with that of the Philistine warrior; but David is not dismayed. He has had already his experiences of Jehovah's deliverances, and his conflict in behalf of the sheep of the flock: so the Lord trains in private those whom He brings forth at last for public use; "not a novice" is His rule for leaders; and David, young as he might be, was none. There was with him the shepherd's heart which had made him venture his life, not before the eyes of many, nor for a great result, but for a single lamb only. How could he now shrink when the issue was so vast, and the people of God were looking vainly for a deliverer? His measure of the situation is the measure of faith. Here we find nothing of the gigantic stature of his antagonist, nor of his brazen armor, nor of his practiced soldiership: this has nothing to do with the matter; he is an uncircumcised Philistine, and has defied the embattled hosts of the living God. A very partial induction, it might be said; but for him it was ample. Faith has but to make one inquiry, Where is God in this matter? and having found this, nothing whatever on the opposite side can weigh against this. Even Saul has to own so plain an argument. He assents, and dismisses him with a pious wish, Go, and Jehovah be with thee! That, indeed, is the whole matter: Israel is not with him, nor Saul, nor anything that flesh values, or the world has confidence in; happy is he who in the face of all this can say, "The Lord is with me! is it not enough?" (d) But Saul shows that he does not realize this, and must at least clothe David with his own armor, that the battle may be upon more equal terms. And indeed, though not as he meant it, this would have been the case. Saul's armor was Philistine enough; and David clothed in it would have been novice enough. But he only puts it on to put it off again. He will not use what he has no acquaintance with. So he goes forth, a shepherd, not a warrior, not as one with whom war is a profession, though he may fight when the flock is in peril: with his staff and sling, and five smooth stones only, out of the brook. The means we use will largely tell the spirit we are of. In themselves of small importance, our making much of them will in fact make them much, though in a different sense from that which we imagine. Paul came not among the Corinthians "with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring the testimony of God." And in this there was not mere human weakness, but the distinct purpose that their "faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." All supplements of spiritual power necessarily carnalize the effect produced; and even where God is working, the result will show itself; perhaps not till after many days. Meanwhile, as with stung fruit, the ripening may seem quicker, while in fact the proper ripeness never is attained. David had tested his means before the battle. This let us remember, but apply it rightly too. For the word of God is that which must test everything for us, if our experience even is to be of any value. Little should we count it, comparatively, when we have unfailing wisdom of Him who sees the end from the beginning, to whom all things are naked and opened. How we should rejoice, indeed, in the unspeakable blessing of His word -His mind made known to us! As to the weapons of David, we shall see what they mean directly; but we may notice that the five stones already speak in the number of man in relationship with God, which accomplished, as even the person of Christ bears witness for eternity, the issue of the conflict before us is not doubtful. (e) The combatants now approach to the encounter, and the spirit of each is manifest. With David there is confident assurance, but it is in Jehovah, in whose name he acts, and who is with him, meaning to show Himself as the living God to all the earth, and to make Israel know that He saves neither by sword nor spear, but the issue of the battle is in His hand alone. So, indeed, has God wrought, and for such a purpose, in those great crises of human history in which His hand has been stretched out to break the power of the enemy and deliver men out of his grasp. But above all, when the deliverance has been from spiritual oppression and darkness, and the result of it the bringing of souls into the joy and peace of the gospel, how has God declared His being and name, and how clearly has victory been the result not of human effort or carnal means, but His handiwork alone! (f) But we must now consider more particularly the means of the giant's overthrow. This smooth stone from the brook, what is it? may we expect to find a definite meaning in it? It has evidently a most important place in the history: ought it not to have as much in the interpretation, if this is to be consistent, so as to have upon it the stamp of truth? A smooth stone from the brook is one which has been fashioned by the stream of running (which in Scripture is the same as living) water; and this last we know as constantly a figure of the Spirit of God. Here should be a beginning of understanding for us. Then a stone shaped by the Spirit of God would naturally make us think of the "living stones" of which Peter speaks, expanding for us the significance of his own name; stones built up into the spiritual house which is built upon the foundation of living stone, which is Christ Jesus. As stones, they are true and divine material for the house of God in contrast with Babel's bricks of human manufacture (Genesis 11:1-32), and are types of permanence and solidity. God's living stones will abide in their God-given place forever, a sanctuary of praise that will never be taken down or cease to manifest His glory eternally. If, then, we simply follow Scripture in interpreting Scripture, how well may this smooth stone from the brook in our David's hand destroy the dread shadow of wrath and alienation from God which the giant of Gath expresses! The stone speaks of divine work and a divine position, of settled nearness to God and indwelling glory! What a salvation indeed is this, and what a triumph over all the power of the enemy! The giant falls, and is slain with his own sword; for by death Christ has destroyed him that had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14): here the work of the cross finds its place in this grand type; what victory can be accomplished without it? and how plain that every victory of this kind is really His, who alone could handle such a weapon! At once the Philistines flee, and Israel has only to pursue a defeated foe. As has been said, the whole power of ecclesiasticism is broken for those who have seen the giant fallen. The apprehension of the true Church, and of our individual place in it, in abiding nearness to and joy in God, of necessity overthrows the would-be mediation of the false church with all its hosts of empty intercessors. The imposing array becomes at once but a routed rabble, who proclaim in their very creed their ignorance of God and of His Christ. Ominous now are the names of the places where the Philistine wounded fall, -Shaaraim, "two gates! "* Gath, the "wine-press" of wrath; Ekron, "rooting out." Not a name here but has its tale to tell; the picture is complete even in its minutest features. And how much would the people of God learn of His mind, if they would but set themselves in faith to understand these histories as prophetic scriptures" (Romans 16:26. Greek.) given by Him who sees the end from the beginning, for our instruction and admonition, to whom all the ages are appointed to minister, but who alas, so little heed the wondrous grace of God! \ In all this part we can see, whether Christ personally he before us or not, how it is He Himself governs all. If He be pleased to identify Himself with human instruments, yet they are only this, -the force, the power, is in Christ alone. Only so far as they hide themselves in Him can they fill their place or do their work at all. No wonder therefore if, just in the crises of the history, as here in the victory over Goliath, the Sun break through all veils, and the direct glory of the Lord shine on us. We think of the way of the Cross as the true valley of Elah, of him that had the power of death in the Philistine giant, of the resurrection as that which, enabling God to be with us, is the foundation of the Church itself, and the defeat of the foe, putting the sword of death into the Champion's hand for death's destruction. If we pursue this further we soon find the veil-cloud closing in again: yet here is the hiding of its power; and the connection with after events of human history only manifests this power as henceforth the ruling factor in the history of man. It is His own voice saying, as of old, "And behold, I am ever with you," and the cloud is but His chariot, -the Christ once humbled is now seen as throned. 2. Between the true king thus manifested and the one rejected of God there cannot be, for a moment, any true fellowship. The nearer they are brought together the more must the essential opposition between them be manifest. On the side of Saul it ripens into enmity which soon breaks through all disguise, and David is obliged to flee from the man to whom he has rendered such important assistance, a wanderer and an outlaw. It is only one form of that spirit which has been in the world since the day of Cain of which the cross was the full, ripe fruit; and which, under whatever partial disguises in professedly Christian lands, exists today the same as ever. Saul may sacrifice to Jehovah, and fill the role of an Israelitish king; but a true Israelite, a "prince with God," he cannot be. Christian governments today there are not, though they make their bow to Christianity and bring their offering: the true King and His representatives can never be in heart welcomed by them, though they may appreciate certain advantages received, and rejoice in some deliverances accomplished for them. These things we shall be called to consider in the fruitful history that lies before us. (1) At first there is naturally a period of favor and acceptance. There has been undoubtedly a great deliverance, and there is on every side the joy of it. David is in honor with Saul himself. Such a time was realized when the gospel gained its great victories in Reformation times. The papal yoke was broken from the neck of kings and governments; and it seemed as if they must joyfully bow their necks to Christ's yoke. Nations accepted evangelical creeds, and kings became protectors of the Church. It was not a sign for good, in reality; and yet it was quite natural to accept it as such. In fact, the Churches, in their zeal against popery and ill-considered enthusiasm over the favor of kings, assumed really the position with which the Philistine had reproached Israel, of being "servants to Saul." Nor does Romanism fail still to fling the taunt in the face of Protestantism. From the beginning, however, Saul shows how little David has been to him. Before the battle in the valley of Elah he had, as we know, been already debtor to him. His harp had broken the power of the evil one again and again, and set him free; and Saul, it was even said, had "loved him greatly." But there is nothing, perhaps, of more various quality than love; and nothing that more takes its color from the subject of it. What need the apostle feels to define for Christians what true love is! We "love" those who please our tastes, -perhaps gratify our mere selfishness; and this love can turn into thorough enmity as soon as self has to be yielded up to it in any wise. True love, on the other hand, "seeketh not her own": it is the very spirit of self-sacrifice; of such love Saul was not capable. It is not intimated that he has forgotten David: he asks whose son he is. He had known that also, but it had slipped away from him, because he had valued him for his services merely, never had that personal interest in him which makes all belonging to one an interest. In such a case, how easy to forget! If we think of the spiritual significance, Jesse's name is full of meaning. The "living God" is indeed the One whom the princes of the earth willingly forget, and the relationship of Christ to Him fades quickly out of remembrance. Hence Christianity becomes for them, at the best, a lifeless orthodoxy; and the captain of the host knows nothing aright of the infinitely greater Captain of salvation." But the soul of Jonathan is at once knit to the soul of David. Here is a harmony of soul with soul, which of necessity brings such together; and for David Jonathan strips himself, -a type of true and devoted love. Saul may give David an honorable place, -advancing, of course, his own interests thereby; but Jonathan abases self to exalt him. "He must increase but I must decrease," declares in the words of the Baptist the law which is written in the heart, according to the terms of the New Testament. \ Typically, the ordination by God of the secular power, which Jonathan represents, has, as we know, respect to Christ: in its very failure bearing witness of Him who must needs to come to fill aright the throne on earth; stripping itself, as it were, to invest Him with royal garments. With Him is its covenant; and it perishes to make way for Him. Meanwhile our David consents still to the servant's place; and in that place serves wonderfully, even to the blessing and glory of the kings of the earth; doing battle for them, also in behalf of the people dear to Him, with whom He is ever "accepted," sometimes also in the sight of Saul's servants, but only as a "man of war." (2) Saul's favor could not last long. His jealousy is awakened by the songs of the women, who exalt David in his deeds above himself. It was only the truth artlessly spoken, which is not because of that more agreeable to a jealous mind. What can he have more, except the kingdom? he argues. The anger of his soul exposes him once more to the attacks of the evil spirit, which for a while seem to have ceased, and now David's harp has lost its power: Saul casts the javelin that was in his hand to smite him to the wall, and twice David escapes out of his presence. Then fear comes upon Saul: he realizes that Jehovah is with David, and not with himself, and he gives him an inferior place away from him; but thus he is brought still more before the people, and into favor and acceptance with them: and Saul fears the more. All this may be difficult to interpret with exactness. The general thought it is not hard to see, -the jealousy which in fact the secular power has manifested of, the spiritual, to which it nevertheless owes a great deliverance. It is not within our aim to enter into the history, for instance, of the Reformation churches, which would prove this. Escaped from ecclesiastical control, the states which owed this to the gospel of Christ have speedily enough exhibited their jealousy of Christ's word, and even in moments of insanity launched the javelin against those who, first of all, would obey Him. The annals of dissent from nationalism and subservience to the state are full of evidence of this, which all who care may find. After which has come uneasy toleration, and perhaps distant patronage, designed to promote state-interests, but at bottom leaving still the breach unhealed. Alas, to heal this, the world must cease to be the world, as Scripture characterizes it, by its passions and its lusts away from God. (3) The next section has much greater difficulties. The first of these is: are we, or not, to see in David's marriage to a daughter of Saul a lesson of failure? Is the type a type of that? That Saul meant it for evil is plainly stated, though the Lord did not suffer what he hoped to come to pass; but the after-history shows but little good. She is said to have "loved" David, and we find her shielding him shortly after from Saul; but her justification of herself in that matter is not calculated to raise her in one's estimation. Her words might well leave Saul to conceive that there would be no obstacle found on her part to her union with another man; nor does anything that we hear of her lead us to imagine it. She is restored by Abner to David after years of dwelling with Phaltiel, only to be seen again mocking the king of Israel for his self-abasement before the ark, and to be heard of as under penalty for this for the rest of her life. On David's part we do not realize special failure, it is true; but neither do we find God's blessing on him in it: the history, with one exception, is one of evil and not of good. This being so, we naturally connect it, even as a type, with evil, and not with good. And this again would prevent us seeing in it a type of the Lord Himself, though it must be assuredly of that or those linked with Him and representing Him in the time of His absence now; and here, alas, even abundant failure is readily conceivable. Saul's promise had been given before the victory to make a conqueror of the giant his son-in-law; but that seemed to be forgotten. He renews it only in his enmity against David, to bring about his death at the hands of the Philistines. Even so, his offer of Merab again falls through, and she is given to Adriel the Meholathite, a chapter in history with a terrible ending. Merab, we know, means "increase," and speaks not of what is spiritual, but of temporal prosperity, which is indeed much of the strength of the Sauls, the kings of the earth, wherever found. But this could not be united with our David, or with those standing for Him in the day of His rejection. Yet Adriel, to whom she is given, has a name which sounds well, signifying "the flock of God"; yet here we should expect as a type a woman and not a man. Christ is the Man; the Church espoused to Him the woman: even "Babylon the great" is that. If then the flock of God be represented here (and the meaning of the name is precise), there must be significance in this also: the woman stands for dependence, the man for independence; and independent indeed must that be which can receive its Merab from the kings of the earth, when she is taken also from the true David to be bestowed upon it. To this we can add that Adriel is a Meholathite; and meholah signifies a "circling dance." So that all seems to agree in conveying the thought of a church which, without being Philistine, has become separate in interest from and out of fellowship with a rejected Christ; and such as a Saul can afford to honor. Adriel is under no obligation to fight the Lord's battles, to obtain the king's daughter. But Saul has another daughter, and for her he can yet make his bargain with David. There is much difficulty, however, as to what Michal stands for, or even the meaning of her name. Lexicographers in general give it that of "brook," from 2 Samuel 17:20. But that is the only occurrence, and the meaning is only gathered from the context. According to its apparent derivation it might mean "what holds," and then the word "water" following be needful to explain the application. A word, michla, near akin, means "sheepfold," and such a significance for Michal would seem more appropriate to the type than any: for many a David has been seduced by such an offer of protection for the sheep of Christ, which many a Saul has made and sought to fulfill. But a fold of this kind would be but a snare, and its connection with David loose enough in result. The ambiguity of Michal's name, which might be, interrogatively, "who can hold?" would thus have its appropriateness also. Nor need this contradict the force or application of the word as given before, there vaguer and more general, here specific. The names of Scripture, as we have seen elsewhere, have often a fullness and sometimes an ambiguity of meaning that adds to their force. Here to "hold" and to "measure" are meanings near akin. To "hold" God's sheep in the sense intended is in fact to "measure" them. Yet all this as to the interpretation of Michal is only put forth as suggestion; the difficulty of reading it consistently throughout is great, and this makes against it: verisimilitude is the only law of verification for a type. That this offer necessitates another encounter with the Philistines is, however, quite congruous with this meaning, and scarcely needs to be explained. During all these wars, moreover, David must be ever the great conqueror. The gospel and those who are identified with it are alone able effectually to deal with modern Philistinism; and in this way, in a wider circle than that of true disciples David's name is "much set by." (4) All this fails as a means of conciliation; and victories over the Philistines only inflame the king's anger. He is soon openly plotting David's death; though this is for the time stopped by the intercession of Jonathan, the true friend of both. Saul swears by Jehovah, the most solemn oath possible, that David shall not die; and again they are brought together. But a new victory over the Philistines arouses Saul once more, and the old scenes are repeated. David flees again from the murderous hand of Saul, and only escapes by the strategy of Michal, who deceives Saul's messengers with an image in the bed. But David is now a wanderer, and a new phase of his history is that which is for long to occupy us. 3. Cast out by man, David is the more cast upon God, who appears for him, and identifies Himself with him more and more, as Saul also ripens into more open defiance of God. By the slaughter of the priests and the escape of Abiathar, the means of consulting the divine oracle come into David's hands, of which he avails himself at Keilah and elsewhere. This time is one in which, as we know, many of his psalms were conceived and uttered, the fruit of exercise and manifold experiences, both of himself and of the goodness of God toward him; a time of truest sanctification and blessing therefore, the spiritual education of the King that is to be.* Here, typically, we shall assuredly find, with outshinings of the glory of Christ Himself, much of the spiritual history of those who have stood most truly for Him, in the day of His rejection: not a dispensational view probably, or the picture of any special period, but of what has been realized in the lives of those in all periods of Christianity faithful to the word of the Lord. And here, no doubt, the lessons will be best learned by those who have most the path to tread. \ (1) At the first step upon it the power which is over Saul is plainly evidenced. David flees, naturally enough, in the first place to Samuel, by whom he had been anointed, and who stood forth before all men's eyes in those days as, by his nearness to God, apart from all other men. Samuel, if any, had power to stand against Saul himself, and that he would do it there could be no question. Few characters in all Scripture equal Samuel's for that consistent walk with God, and ability to act for Him, which beget confidence on the part of others. David therefore makes known to Samuel all that Saul has done; and Samuel comes with him to dwell at Naioth,* the collected "dwellings" of the prophets, who gathered around Samuel. The word is a plural, and signifies both dwellings "and "pastures," suiting well therefore that thought of a prophetic "school" with which tradition ekes out the scanty notices of Scripture. Here we might imagine David's language to be what he generalizes in the psalm as to all those that trust in God: "Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man; Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." (Psalms 22:20.) Yet hence he is driven, to realize a better "hiding-place" in God Himself. (Psalms 32:7.) To his retreat Saul pursues him: after sending three times in vain his messengers, he follows them himself. But upon all alike the Spirit of God comes, subjecting them perforce to itself, so that they prophesy; and upon Saul before he has even reached the place, and with effect deeper and more lasting, -reviving the saying which had earlier gone forth about him, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" \ And how must Saul's mind also have gone back to those earlier days, before yet the Spirit had been grieved away from him, and when all the possibilities of the divine call to the throne of Israel were opening before him! What tender recollections to touch the heart with, and to bring, if it might be, this wanderer to himself! Then, how vain to contend with power such as this! Who ever hardened himself against God and prospered? On the other hand, what an assurance of One ready still to receive, -who would, even by force if it were possible, put Saul among the prophets! Yet against all this, as we know, Saul did harden himself, and became necessarily more evil in proportion to the grace resisted, according to the constant and inevitable law of cause and effect. For David himself what an assurance of the eternal arms, though invisible, that were around him! Yet he goes forth, for deeper experiences of God's living care, in the rough scenes beyond, than he could find even in that sheltered retreat, and in that atmosphere thrilling with His voice. Yet here we see for a moment, in a vivid picture, how brightly the spiritual life might manifest itself in Israel in a time such as this, and how near God drew even then to His people that sought Him. Is it too much to say,with the apostle's words in view (1 Corinthians 14:1-40), that now, when Moses' desire that "all the Lord's people were prophets" has found its practicability of accomplishment in the fulfillment of its other part, -"that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them," -there should be in every Christian assembly a display of divine power as great as this, and a glory of the divine presence fuller and nearer far? Oh that it were indeed so! Here we find that even then there were many more prophets than those whose voices have come down to us. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/numerical-bible/