comes back with the giant’s head, Saul has to ask Abner who he is; but after that he will let him go no more home to his father.
Then follows the beautiful story of Jonathan, Saul’s gallant son (1 Samuel xviii.), and his love for David. Then of Saul’s envy of David, and how, in a sudden fit of hatred, he casts his javelin at him. Then how he grows afraid of him, and makes him captain of a thousand men, and gives him his daughter, on condition of David’s killing him two hundred Philistines. And how he goes on, capriciously, honouring David one day and trying to kill him the next. While David rises always, and all Israel and Judah love him, and he behaves himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul. At last comes the open rupture. Saul, after trying to murder David, sends assassins to his house, and David flees for his life once and for all. He has served his master Saul loyally and faithfully. There is no word of his having opposed Saul, set himself up against him, boasted of himself, or in any way brought his anger down upon him. Saul is his king, and David has been loyal and true to him. But Saul’s envy has grown to hatred, and that to murder. He murders the priests, with all their wives and children, for having given bread and shelter to David. And now David must flee into the wilderness and set up for himself, and he flees to the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel xxii.); and there you see the Bible does not try to hide what David’s position was, and what sort of men he had about him—his brethren and his father’s house, who were afraid that Saul would kill them instead of him, after the barbarous Eastern fashion, and among them the three sons of Zeruiah, his sister; and everyone
who was discontented, and everyone who was in debt, all the most desperate and needy—one can conceive what sort of men they must have been. The Bible tells us afterwards of the wicked men and men of Belial who were among them—wild men, with weapons in their hands, and nothing to prevent their becoming a band of brutal robbers, if they had not had over them a man in whom, in spite of all his faults, was the Spirit of God.
We must remember, meanwhile, that David had his temptations. He had been grievously wronged. Saul had returned him evil for good. All David’s services and loyalty to Saul had been repaid with ingratitude and accusations of conspiracy against him. What terrible struggles of rage and indignation must have passed through David’s heart! What a longing to revenge himself! He knew, too, for Samuel the prophet had told him, that he should be king one day. What a temptation, then, to make himself king at once! It was no secret either. The people knew of it. Jonathan, Saul’s son, knew of it, and, in his noble, self-sacrificing way, makes no secret of it (1 Samuel xx.). What a temptation to follow the fashion which is too common in the East to this day, and strike down his tyrant at one blow, as many a man has done since, and to proclaim himself king of the Jews. Yes, David had heavy temptations—temptations which he could only conquer by faith in the Living God. And, because he masters himself, and remains patient and loyal to his king under every insult and wrong, he is able to master that wild and desperate band of men, and set them an example of patience and chivalry, loyalty and justice; to train them to be, not a terror and a scourge to the yeomen and peasants round, but a protection and a guard against
the Philistines and Amalekites, and, in due time, his trusty bodyguard of warriors—men who have grown grey beside him through a hundred battles, who are to be the foundation of his national army, and help him to make the Jews one strong and united prosperous kingdom.
All this the shepherd lad has to do, and he does it, by faith in the Living God, and so makes himself for all ages to come the pattern of perfect loyalty. And now, let us take home this one lesson—That the secret of David’s success is not his beauty, his courage, his eloquence, his genius; other men have had gifts from God as great as David’s, and have misused them to their own ruin, and to the misery of their fellow-men. No; the secret of David’s success is his faith in the Living God; and that will be the secret of our success. Without faith in God, the most splendid talents may lead a man to be a curse to himself and to his neighbours. With faith in God, a very common-place person, without any special cleverness, may do great things, and make himself useful and honoured in his generation.
XIII. DAVID AND NABAL, OR SELF-CONTROL.
“And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.”—1 Samuel xxv. 32, 33.
The story of David and Nabal needs no explanation. It tells us of part of David’s education—of a great lesson which he learnt—of a great lesson which we may learn. It is told with a dignity and a simplicity, with a grace and liveliness which makes itself understood at once, and carries its own lesson to any one who has a human heart in him.
“And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel”—the park grass upland with timber trees—not the northern Carmel where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal, but the southern one on the edge of the desert. “And the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.” Caleb was Joshua’s friend, who had conquered all that land in Joshua’s time. Nabal, therefore,