DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING

[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVI.  A COOL HAND ON A HOT HEAD
F. B. MEYER

2. DAVID, PRECIPITATE AND PASSIONATE.

One of the most characteristic features in David's temper and behaviour through all these weary years was his self-control. He waited patiently for the Lord. Year after year he stayed himself on God's promise, and left Him to fulfil the word on which He had caused him to hope. When summoned to relieve Ziklag, or warned to leave it, as well as on other occasions, he showed the utmost deliberation, calling for prophet or priest, and seeking to ascertain the Divine will before stirring a step. On two occasions he had controlled himself, when Saul lay in his power, and refused to take his life. But the rampart of self-restraint built by long habit went down, like a neglected sea wall, before the sudden paroxysm of passion which Nabal's insulting words aroused. In hot fury he said to his men, "Gird ye on every man his sword." And they girded on every man his sword, and David also girded on his sword, and there went up after David about four hundred men. He doubtless argued with himself as they marched rapidly through the silent wolds, "I am justified in this act; there is no reason why this man should treat me thus; he has returned evil for good, and added reviling and reproach; it is intolerable; I must assert my self-respect, and let this neighbourhood see that I am not going to be trifled with. I will bear from the king what I will suffer from no living man else."

At this hour David was on the brink of committing a crime, which would have cast a dark shadow on all his after years. In calmer, quieter, holier hours it would have been a grief to him, and an offence of heart, to have shed blood causelessly, and avenged himself, instead of leaving it to the Lord to sling out the souls of his enemies, as from the hollow of a sling. From this shame, sorrow, and disgrace he was saved by that sweet and noble woman, Abigail.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVI.  A COOL HAND ON A HOT HEAD
F. B. MEYER

3. ABIGAIL, THE BEAUTIFUL INTERCESSOR.

She was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance -- a fit combination. Her character had written its legend on her face. The two things do not always go together. There are many beautiful women wholly destitute of good understanding; just as birds of rarest plumage are commonly deficient in the power of song. But a good understanding, which is moral rather than intellectual, casts a glow of beauty over the plainest features.

It is remarkable how many Abigails get married to Nabals. God-fearing women, tender and gentle in their sensibilities, high-minded and noble in their ideals, become tied in an indissoluble union with men for whom they can have no true affinity, even if they have not an unconquerable repugnance. In Abigail's case, this relationship was in all probability not of her choosing; but the product of the Oriental custom, which compelled a girl to take her father's choice in the matter of marriage. As a mere child she may have come into Nabal's home, and become bound to him by an apparently inevitable fate. In other ways, which involve equally little personal choice, compelled by the pressure of inexorable circumstances, misled by the deceitful tongue of flattery, her instinctive hesitancy overcome by the urgency of friends, a woman may still find herself in Abigail's pitiful plight. To such an one there is but one advice  -- You must stay where you are. The dissimilarity in taste and temperament does not constitute a sufficient reason for leaving your husband to drift. You must believe that God has permitted you to enter on this awful heritage, partly because this fiery ordeal was required by your character, and partly that you might act as a counteractive influence. You must stay as you are. It may be that some day your opportunity will come, as it came to Abigail. In the meantime do not allow your purer nature to be bespotted or besmeared. You can always keep the soul clean and pure. Bide your time; and amid the weltering waste of inky water, be like a pure fountain, rising from the ocean depths.

But if any young girl of good sense and earnest aspirations who reads these lines, secretly knows that if she had the chance, she would wed a carriage and pair, a good position, or broad acres,. irrespective of character, let her remember that to enter the marriage bond with a man, deliberately and advisedly, for such a purpose, is a profanation of the Divine ideal, and can end only in one way. She will not raise him to her level, but sink to his; her marble will not change his clay, but coarsen to it.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVI.  A COOL HAND ON A HOT HEAD
F. B. MEYER

Nabal's servants knew the quality of their mistress, and could trust her to act wisely in the emergency which was upon them; so they told her all. She immediately grasped the situation, despatched a small procession of provision-bearers along the way that David must come, and followed them immediately on her ass. She met the avenging warriors by the covert of the mountain, and the interview was as creditable to her woman's wit as to her grace of heart, The lowly obeisance of the beautiful woman at the young soldier's feet; the frank confession of the wrong that had been done; the expression of thankfulness that so far he had been kept from blood-guiltiness and from avenging his own wrongs; the depreciation of the generous present she brought as only fit for his servants; the chivalrous appreciation of his desire to fight only the baffles of the Lord and to keep an unblemished name; the sure anticipation of the time when his fortunes would be secured and his enemies silenced; the suggestion that in those coming days he would be glad to have no shadow on the sunlit hills of his life, no haunting memory  -- all this was as beautiful, and wise, and womanly as it could be, and brought David back to his better self. Frank and noble as he always was, he did not hesitate to acknowledge his deep indebtedness to this lovely woman, and to see in her intercession the gracious arrest of God. "And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy wisdom, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from blood-guiltiness, and from avenging myself with my own hand."

What a revelation this is of the ministries with which God seeks to avert us from our evil ways! They are sometimes very subtle and slender, very small and still. Sometimes a gentle woman's hand laid on our wrist, the mother reminding us of her maternity, the wife of early vows, the child with its pitiful beseeching look; sometimes a thought, holy, pleading, remonstrating. Ah! many a time, we had been saved actions which have caused lasting regret, had we only heeded. And above all these voices and influences, there has been the gracious arresting influences of the Holy Spirit, striving with passion and selfishness, calling us to a nobler better life. Blessed Spirit, come down more often by the covert of the hill, and stay us in our mad career; and let us not press past Thee to take our own wild way, and we shall have reason for ceaseless gratitude.

The idyll ended happily. Nabal died in an apoplectic fit, caused by his debauch, or his anger at his wife's treatment of David and his men; and David made proposals of marriage to the woman, to whom he owed so much, which she gracefully and humbly accepted, not thinking herself meet for such high honour. "Behold," she said, "thy handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord." I suppose, that in this life, or the next, all God's idylls end happily. That, at least, is one cherished article of my creed.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVII.  A FIT OF MISTRUST
F. B. MEYER

(1 Samuel 27:1-12)

"Ever thus the spirit must,
Guilty in the sight of heaven
With a keener woe be riven,
For its weak and sinful trust
In the strength of human dust;
And its anguish thrill afresh
For each vain reliance given
To the failing arm of flesh."
WHITTIER.

THE PSALMS, which, with more or less probability, may be assigned to this period of David's life, are marked with growing sadness and depression. Amongst them may be reckoned the Psalms 10, Psalms 13:1-6, Psalms 17:1-15; 22, 25, Psalms 64:1-10, and perhaps Psalms 40, and Psalms 69. Those of the first group have many features in common. The scenery of the wilderness, the psalmist like a hunted wild thing, the perpetual insistence on his innocence and invocation of Jehovah's interference, the bitter description of his sorrows -- such are the characteristic features of these Psalms. But, besides, there is a tone of despair:

"Why standest Thou afar off, O Lord?

Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble?" (Psalms 10:1).

"How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou forget me for ever?

How long wilt Thou hide thy face from me?" (Psalms 13:1).

"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Why art Thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" (Psalms 22:1).

"Save me, O God: For the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me" (Psalms 69:1).
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVII.  A FIT OF MISTRUST
F. B. MEYER

These notes are sad, plaintive, and despairful; it is as though the sufferer were near the limits of his endurance. It seemed hopeless to effect any permanent alteration in Saul's feelings towards him, so long as Cush, and Doeg, and Abner, and others who had proved themselves his inveterate foes, were able so readily to instil their poison into the royal ear. It had become so increasingly difficult to elude the hot pursuit of the royal troops, whom long practice had familiarized with his hiding-places and haunts. And it became more and more perplexing to find sustenance for the large body of followers now attached to him. Every day he had to provide for six hundred men, besides women and children; and the presence of these more tender souls made it perilously difficult to maintain a perpetual condition of migration or flight. He had now two wives; and from what is said of the sack of Ziklag, shortly afterwards, we should judge that the larger porportion of the outlawed band consisted of those who had wives, and sons, and daughters, and property (1 Samuel 30:3, 1 Samuel 30:6, 1 Samuel 30:19, 1 Samuel 30:22).

In other days of healthier faith, these considerations would not have availed to shake the constancy of his much-tried soul. He would have stayed himself upon his God, and been strengthened with all power, unto all patience and long suffering with joy. But of late his faith had become impaired and the loins of his godly courage slackened, so that he said in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel; so shall I escape out of his hand."


1. LET US EXAMINE THIS SUDDEN RESOLUTION.

It was the suggestion of worldly policy. -- "David said in his heart." On other occasions, as we have observed more than once, it had been his wont to summon the priest with the sacred ephod, or to inquire of God through Gad; but in this resolution he had recourse to neither the one nor the other. In the matter of Nabal he had acted under the sudden impulse of passion; here under that of panic. He looked at circumstances, perhaps listened to the counsels of men who were attracted to him by the qualities of daring, bravery, and frank generosity, which made him the popular hero of his time, but had no sympathy with the deeper springs of his life in God, and faith, and prayer. Never act in a panic; nor allow man to dictate to thee; calm thyself and be still; force thyself into the quiet of thy closet until the pulse beats normally and the scare has ceased to perturb. When thou art most eager to act is the time when thou wilt make the most pitiable mistakes. Do not say in thine heart what thou wilt or wilt not do; but wait upon God until He makes known his way. So long as that way is hidden, it is clear that there is no need of action, and that He accounts Himself responsible for all the results of keeping thee where thou art.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVII.  A FIT OF MISTRUST
F. B. MEYER

It was very dishonouring to God. Had He not sworn to make him king, to cast forth his enemies as out of a sling, and to give him a sure house? Had not these promises been confirmed by Samuel, Jonathan, Abigail, and Saul himself? Had not the golden oil designated him as God's anointed? How impossible it was that God should lie or forget his covenant! By immutable pledges his Almighty Friend had bound Himself, seeking to give his much-tried child strong consolation, if only he would remain within the sheltering walls of the refuge-harbour which these assurances constituted; and it was easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or tittle of the Divine engagements to become invalid.

Surely, then, it was unworthy of David to say, in effect: "I am beginning to fear that God has undertaken more than He can carry through. True, He has kept me hitherto; but I question if He can make me surmount the growing difficulties of my situation. Saul will, sooner or later, accomplish his designs against me; it is a mistake to attempt the impossible. I have waited till I am tired; it is time to use my own wits, and extricate myself while I can from the nets that are being drawn over my path."

The resolution must have given great rejoicing to many of his followers; but all devout souls must have felt that the leader's despairing confession was in sad contrast to his exhortation, so repeatedly insisted upon, to wait on God.

"None that wait on Thee shall be ashamed;
They shall be ashamed that transgress without cause."

How much easier it is to indicate a true course to others in hours of comparative security, than to stand to it under a squall of wind! Dr. Tauler, the great preacher of Strasburg, before his second and deeper conversion, could be excelled by none in his delineation of the virtues of humility and self-denial; yet, when the humble traveller from the Oberland remonstrated with him for loving one creature, himself, more than God, he was offended, and his proud heart arose within him. It is an experience through which most of us have to pass, the contrast between speech and possession; between thinking we have, and having; between our directions to others, and our own behaviour when the dark waters are sweeping over our soul.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVII.  A FIT OF MISTRUST
F. B. MEYER

It was highly injurious. -- Philistia was full of idol temples and idolatrous priests (2 Samuel 5:21). It lay outside the inheritance of the Lord, the sacred land of Palestine, deemed by the pious Israelites of those days to be the special location and abiding-place of the Most High, and to be banished from whose sacred borders seemed like going into a wild and desolate land of estrangement and God-abandonment. What fellowship could David look for with the Divine Spirit who had chosen Israel for his people and Jacob for the lot of his inheritance? How could he sing the Lord's songs in a strange land? What share could he claim in the sacrifices which sent up the thin spiral of smoke on the sites of Nob or Kirjath-Jearim? Besides, their perpetual familiarity with the rites and iniquities of idolatry could not but exert an unwholesome and altogether disastrous effect on the minds of the unstable in his band. Poison must have been injected into many hearts, that wrought disastrously in after years. What was harmless enough in the case of David, who knew that an idol was nothing in the world, was perilous in the extreme to the weak consciences in his train which were defiled by what they saw and heard.

It was the entrance on a course that demanded the perpetual practice of deceit. He was received at Gath with open arms. Before, when he had sought the shelter of the court of Achish, he had but a handful of companions; now he was the leader of a formidable band of warriors, who might easily turn the scale of strength in the long struggle between Israel and Philistia. "And David dwelt with Achish, he and his men, every man with his household."

This proximity to the royal palace and the court became, however, extremely irksome to the Hebrews. Their movements were always under inspection, and it was difficult to preserve their autonomy and independence. Finally, therefore, David asked that one of the smaller towns might be assigned to him; and to his great comfort received permission to settle at Ziklag, a town in the south country, originally allotted to Judah, then transferred to Simeon, and latterly captured by the Philistines, but not occupied by them (Joshua 15:31; Joshua 19:5; 1 Chronicles 4:30).
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVII.  A FIT OF MISTRUST
F. B. MEYER

The sense of security and relief to these hunted men must have been very great, as they found themselves within the slender fortifications of the little town. For long they had known no settled home, their life full of alarm and flight, the weapon always at their side or in their hand, the senses alert to the rustle of a leaf, or the slightest movement in the covert; from all these there was now a grateful pause. For sixteen months they had a measure of repose and safety. The old men and women sat in the streets, and the shouts of merry children in their play were no longer instantly and jealously hushed lest they should attract the scouts of the royal army. "It was told Saul that David was fled to Gath, and he sought no more again for him."

David's mind was, however, kept on the stretch, constantly at work, weaving a tissue of duplicity and cruelty. He had really no love for Achish, no zeal for the maintenance of his rule; he had not deserted the chosen people, though he had fled before Saul; in his deepest soul he was still a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Maintenance for himself and his followers must, of course, be provided; and in those days of wild border-war, nothing was more obvious, to the Philistines at least, than to raid the land on which he had turned his back. This, of course, he would not do; and so he turned his sword on the petty tribes of the south country, who were in alliance with Philistines, but the hereditary foes of his own people. Amongst these were the Geshurites, and Girzites, and the Amalekites, all nomad tribes, living by plunder. To obviate any report of his proceedings reaching the ears of Achish, David was compelled to adopt the cruel and sanguinary policy of saving neither man nor woman alive: and when Achish, by virtue of his feudal lordship, required of him an account of his expedition, he said evasively that he had been raiding against the south of Judah, and instanced tribes, which were known to be under the direct protection of Israel. The fact of his having brought back no captives, the most valuable part of booty, was reckoned by the Philistines a proof of the passionate hate with which he regarded his countrymen, making him forgo the pecuniary advantage accruing from the sale of slaves, rather than the satisfaction of beholding their dying anguish. "And Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant for ever."

The whole behaviour of David at this time was utterly unworthy of his high character as God's anointed servant. It was also a barren time in his religious experience. No Psalms are credited to this period. The sweet singer was mute. He probably acquired a few new strains of music, or even mastered some fresh instruments, whilst sojourning at Gath, the memory of which is perpetuated in the term Gittith, a term which frequently occurs in the inscriptions of the Psalms composed afterwards. But who would barter a song for a melody, a Psalm for a guitar? It was a poor exchange. There was something in the air of those lowland plains that closed the utterances of the sweet voice that had sung to God amid the hills of Judah and the caves of Ain-jedi.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVII.  A FIT OF MISTRUST
F. B. MEYER

How precisely do these symptoms of old-time declension and relapse correspond with those which we have observed in ourselves and others! The way of faith may be irksome to the flesh, but it is free and glad to the spirit. It may have to trace its steps with difficulty among the hills, but a new song is in its mouth, of praise and thanksgiving. But when we descend to the lowlands of expediency and worldly policy, a blight comes on the landscape of the soul, a silence on the song of the heart.

From that moment we are left to maintain our position by our own scheming and planning; we ask God to help us, but dare not count on Him absolutely to provide for us; we are driven into tight corners, from which we escape by subterfuge and duplicity, such as we in our souls despise; we realize that we have purchased our deliverance from the pressure of adverse circumstances at too great a cost, and have bartered the smile of God for that of Achish, so soon to be turned from us; the munitions of Divine protection for the walls of Ziklag, over the ruins of which we shall soon be weeping scalding tears.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVIII.  THE MERCY OF GOD THAT LED TO REPENTANCE
F. B. MEYER

(1 Samuel 29:1-11, 30)

"Prostrate your soul in penitential prayer!
Humble your heart beneath the mighty hand
Of God, Whose gracious guidance oft shall lead
Through sin and crime the changed and melted heart,
To sweet repentance and the sense of Him."
CLOUGH.

THROUGHOUT that season of declension and relapse which we have been considering, the loving mercy of God hovered tenderly over David's life. When we believe not, He remains faithful -- He cannot deny Himself; and when his servants are wandering far afield, sowing for themselves thistledown, and piercing themselves through with bitter sorrows, He is encompassing their path and their lying down, solicitous of heart and compassionate, exhibiting the tenderest traits of his mercy and pity, as though to win them back to Himself.

This is particularly illustrated by the present stage of David's history. There was a special focusing of Divine gentleness and goodness to withdraw him from his purpose, to keep back his soul from the pit and his life from perishing with the sword. We will now trace the successive stages in this loving process of Divine restoration; and as we do so, we will believe that all these things doth God work still, to bring back our souls from the pit, that we may be enlightened with the light of life. In us also, David's words shall be verified, spoken as he reviewed this part of his career from the eminence of prosperity and glory to which God's goodness afterwards raised him, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." God's restoring mercy was evident.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVIII.  THE MERCY OF GOD THAT LED TO REPENTANCE
F. B. MEYER

1. IN INCLINING STRONG AND NOBLE MEN TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES WITH DAVID'S CAUSE.

"Now these are they," says the chronicler, "that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close, because of Saul, the son of Kish; and they were among the mighty men, helpers in War" (1 Chronicles 12:1). And he proceeds to enumerate them. Some came from Saul's own tribe, experienced marksmen, who could use, with equal dexterity, the right hand and the left, in slinging stones and in shooting arrows from the bow. Some came from the eastern bank of the Jordan, swimming it at the flood, mighty men of valour, men trained for war, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and they were as swift as roes among the mountains. Some came from Benjamin and Judah, assuring David that there was no ground for his suspicions of their loyalty. What a manly, generous ring there was in those reassuring words as uttered by their leader, Amasai, and which were probably the expression of the feelings of all the contingents of heroes which at this time rallied around David's standard: "Thine are we, David; and on thy side, thou son of Jesse: peace, peace be unto thee, and peace to thine helpers; for thy God helpeth thee."

Evidently the spirit of discontent was abroad in the land. The people, weary of Saul's oppression and misgovernment, were beginning to realize that the true hope of Israel lay in the son of Jesse. They therefore went out to him without the camp, bearing his reproach, content to forfeit everything they possessed in the assurance that they would receive it all again, and a hundredfold beside, when he came by his own. Thus from day to day "there came to David to help him, until it was a great host, like the host of God."

Thus, in silence and secrecy, loyal and true hearts are gathering around our blessed Lord, the centre of whose kingdom is not earthly but heavenly; who has gone away to receive a kingdom, but who shall certainly return; and when He is manifested in his kingly glory, then shall they also be manifested with Him. Who then are willing to leave the tottering realm of the prince of this world, soon to be shattered on the last great battlefield of time, and identify themselves with the kingdom of the Son of David, which is destined to endure as long as the sun?
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVIII.  THE MERCY OF GOD THAT LED TO REPENTANCE
F. B. MEYER

2. IN EXTRICATING HIS SERVANT FROM THE FALSE POSITION INTO WHICH HE HAD DRIFTED.

The Philistines suddenly resolved on a forward policy. They were aware of the disintegration which was slowly dividing Saul's kingdom; and had noticed with secret saris-faction the growing numbers of mighty men who were leaving it to seek identification with David, and therefore, presumably, with themselves. Not content, therefore, with the border hostilities that had engaged them so long, they resolved to follow the course of the maritime plain -- the long stretch of low-lying land on the shores of the Mediterranean; and to strike a blow in the very heart of the land, the fertile plain of Esdraelon, destined to be one of the greatest battlefields of the world, drenched with the blood of great leaders, as Sisera, Saul, and Joash, and of vast hosts, Philistine and Hebrew, Egyptian and Assyrian, Roman and Maccabaean, Saracen and Anglo-Saxon. "The Philistines gathered their hosts together for warfare, to Aphek; and the Israelites pitched by the fountain which is in Jezreel."

When this campaign was being meditated, the guileless king assured David that he should accompany him. This was perhaps said as a mark of special confidence. It would have been foolhardy on the part of Achish to associate David with himself on such an expedition, had he not conceived the most absolute confidence in his integrity. He had seen no fault in his protege from the first hour of his coming into his court, but had looked on him as an angel of God; he had no hesitation, therefore, in summoning him to march beside him, and even to be captain of his bodyguard. "Therefore will I make thee keeper of mine head for ever." It was a relief to the gentle nature of the king to turn from his imperious lords to this generous, open-hearted soul, and entrust himself to his strong care.

It was, however, a very critical juncture with David. He had no alternative but to follow his liege lord into the battle; but it must have been with a sinking heart. It looked as though he would be forced to fight Saul, from whom for so many years he had fled; and Jonathan, his beloved friend; and the chosen people, over whom he hoped one day to rule. He could not but reply evasively, and with forced composure and gaiety: "Thou shalt know what thy servant will do"; but every mile of those fifty or sixty which had to be traversed must have been trodden with lowering face and troubled heart. There was no hope for him in man. It may be that already his heart was turning in eager prayer to God, that He would extricate him from the net which his sins had woven for his feet; and in the evasiveness of the reply he gave to Achish, there is a trace of glimmering hope that God would yet show a way of escape from his fearful dilemma.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVIII.  THE MERCY OF GOD THAT LED TO REPENTANCE
F. B. MEYER

If by your mistakes and sins, you have reduced yourself to a false position like this, do not despair; hope still in God. Confess and put away your sin, and humble yourself before Him, and He will arise to deliver you. You may have destroyed yourself; but in Him will be your help. "If any of thine outcasts -- outcasts because of their disobedience and apostasy -- be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee; and from thence will He fetch thee; and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it: and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers."

An unexpected door of hope was suddenly opened in this valley of Achor. When Achish reviewed his troops in Aphek, after the lords of the Philistines had passed on by hundreds and by thousands, David and his men passed on in the rearward with the king. This aroused the jealousy and suspicion of the imperious Philistine princes, and they came to Achish with fierce words and threats. "What do these Hebrews here? Make the man return, that he may go back to the place where thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to the battle." In vain Achish pleaded on the behalf of his favourite; the Philistines would have none of it. They pointed out how virulent a foe he had been, and how tempting the opportunity for him to purchase reconciliation with Saul by turning traitor in the fight. In the end, therefore, the king had to yield. It cost him much to inform David of the inevitable decision to which he was driven; but he little realized with what a burst of relief his announcement was received. We can imagine David saying to himself as he left the royal pavilion:

"My soul is escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken, and I am escaped."

He made a show of injured innocence: "What have I done, and what hast thou found in thy servant so long as I have been before thee unto this day, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?" But his heart was not with his words; and it was with unfeigned satisfaction that he received the stringent command to depart from the camp with the morning light. As in the grey dawn he stealthily mustered his men to start, did he not fling one glance as far as the mists permitted to the camp of Israel, where the lion-heart of the beloved Jonathan was doubtless preparing itself for the fight? Oh to have been permitted to be beside him in repelling one of the most formidable invasions of their lives.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVIII.  THE MERCY OF GOD THAT LED TO REPENTANCE
F. B. MEYER

3. BY THE DIVINE DEALINGS WITH HIM IN RESPECT TO THE BURNING OF ZIKLAG.

It was by God's great mercy that the Philistine lords were so set against the continuance of David in their camp. They thought that they were executing a piece of ordinary policy, dictated by prudence and foresight; little realizing that they were the shears by which God was cutting the meshes of David's net. Their protest was lodged at exactly the right moment; had it been postponed but for a few hours, David had been involved in the battle, or had not been back in time to overtake the Amalekites, red-handed in the sack of Ziklag.

As David was leaving the battlefield, a number of the men of Manasseh, who appear to have deserted to Achish, were assigned to him by the Philistines, lest they also should turn traitors on the field. Thus he left the camp with a greatly increased following. Here, too, was a proof of God's tender thoughtfulness, because at no time of his life was he in greater need of reinforcements than now. God anticipates coming trial, and reinforces us against its certain imminence and pressure. We are taken into the House Beautiful to be armed, before we descend into the valley of conflict with Apollyon.

It was altogether according to God's merciful providence that, contrary to his wont, David had left no men to defend Ziklag during his absence. It is difficult to understand the laxity of his arrangements for its safeguard in those wild and perilous times; but apparently not one single soldier was left to protect the women and children. Yet it was well; for when a band of Amalekites fell suddenly on the little town, there was none to irritate them by offering resistance, none to obstruct their will, nothing to excite their fear of pursuit or revenge. Evidently neither David nor his soldiers would be back from the war for weeks or months; there was therefore no need to exercise the usual precautions -- they could spread themselves abroad over all the ground, eating and drinking, and feasting.

In the first outburst of grief and horror, nothing but the gracious interposition of God could have saved David's life. On reaching the spot which they accounted home, after three days' exhausting march, the soldiers found it a heap of smouldering ruins; and instead of the welcome of wives and children, silence and desolation reigned supreme. "Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice, and wept until they had no more power to weep"; but in David's case there was an added element of distress. Those who had a little before cried, "Peace, peace to thee, thou son of Jesse, thy God helpeth thee," now spoke of stoning him. The loyalty and devotion which he had never failed to receive from his followers were suddenly changed to vinegar and gall. The milk of human kindness had turned sour in this awful thunderstorm.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XVIII.  THE MERCY OF GOD THAT LED TO REPENTANCE
F. B. MEYER

But this was the moment of his return to God. In that dread hour, with the charred embers smoking at his feet; with the cold hand of anxiety for the fate of his wives feeling at his heart; with the sense of duplicity and deceit which he had been practising and which had alienated him from God, on his conscience; with this threat of stoning in his ears; his heart suddenly sprang back into its old resting-place in the bosom of God. "David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him; because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David strengthened himself in the Lord his God."

From this moment David is himself again, his old strong, glad, noble self. For the first time, after months of disuse, he bids Abiathar bring him the ephod, and he enquires of the Lord. With marvellous vigour he arises to pursue the marauding troop, and he overtakes it. He withholds the impetuosity of his men till daylight wanes, loosing them from the leash in the twilight, and leading them to the work of rescue and vengeance with such irresistible impetuosity that not a man of them escaped, save four hundred young men who rode upon camels and fled. And when the greed of his followers proposed to withhold from those whose faintness had stayed them by the brook Besot all share in the rich plunder, he dared to stand alone against the whole of them, and insisted that it should not be so, but that as his share was that went down to the battle, so his should be that tarried by the stuff. Thus he who had power with God had power also with man.

And when, shortly after, the breathless messenger burst into his presence with the tidings of Gilboa's fatal rout, though they meant the fulfilment of long-delayed hopes, he was able to bear himself humbly and with unaffected sorrow, to express his lament in the most exquisite funeral ode in existence, and to award the Amalekite his deserts.

He was sweet as well as strong, as courteous as brave. For when he returned to Ziklag, his first act was to send of the spoil taken from the Amalekites to the elders of all the towns on the southern frontier where he and his men were wont to haunt, acknowledging his indebtedness to them, and so far as possible requiting it.

Thus the sunshine of God's favour rested afresh upon his soul. He had broken from Doubting Castle and Giant Despair, and had reached again the path of obedience and safety. God had brought him up from the horrible pit and the miry clay; had set his feet on a rock, and established his going; and had put a new song of praise in his mouth. Let all backsliders give heed and take comfort. These things were written aforetime for our instruction, that we, through the comfort and instruction of the Scriptures, might have hope.

TO BE CONTINUED...
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