66 the rare junction of personal and mental excellence, for which the A.M. 2941. prophet had looked in vain in his predecessor Saul. Arise, anoint B.C. 1063. him," said the Divine impulse now; "for THIS is he.' Then, in Anoints the presence of all his relations, Samuel poured the anointing oil on David's head; the last public act of that prophet's life—and hastened home to his house at Ramah. David. To what extent either David or his family were apprized by Samuel of the meaning of this ceremony, it might be difficult to ascertain. Beyond the limits of the household, the event itself was not known, as the Scripture narrative would seem to intimate; and Josephus states, that the flattering secret connected with it was whispered only to David and to Jesse, while some writers1 have conjectured that as it was usual to anoint men to the office of prophet, as well as to the regal dignity, Samuel might possibly leave the family to conjecture that the former was the designation of David. Certain it is that no immediate change of condition followed this circumstance. Though the dynasty of the most distinguished throne on earth was thus silently changed, and a peculiar blessing from God immediately 1 Sam. xvi. followed this consecration; (as a peculiar providence doubtless watched over the steps of David,) he returned to the same honourable but unpretending obscurity in which his character had hitherto been formed; and his mercies and his merits, like the subterraneous courses of some of the noblest rivers, were destined to find their way to public notice through obstructed and unexpected channels. 14. to the court 14. Shortly after these interesting occurrences, a mysterious illness of David the reigning monarch, Saul, induced the specious proposition from summon one of his courtiers, of sending for some skilful player on the harp of Saul. to alleviate his depression. With this proposal he gave the early character of David, to which we have before alluded, and which instantly caused him to be summoned to the court. This is not the 1 Sam. xvi. place to discuss the nature of the royal malady, nor the force of the contrast under which it is placed with the rising dispositions of David. Neither ancient nor modern times are without instances of a nervous temperament that would correspond with many indications of this disease, nor of the cheering triumphs of a growing piety that could always accomplish wonders with the harp of David. Guilt and irreligion, too, with their usual associates, perverseness, discontent, jealousy, and cruelty, have in all ages produced similar effects: Charles IX. of France, according to the testimony of Thuanus, had his symphony of singing boys to compose him to sleep after the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day; to say nothing of the awful and incontrovertible connection of man with the world of spirits. David 1 The authors of the Universal History, Vol. II. p. 376. Note D, &c. 66 2 Josephus describes these paroxysms as some strange and demoniacal disorders, which brought him such suffocations as were ready to choke him ;" and 66 calls David the only physician against A.M. 2941. fully answered the description of his courtly friend;—he was at once B.C. 1063. the poet and the musician, designed for such a scene; and soon attracted His musical to himself the notice and distinguished favour of Saul, who "loved him talents. Goliath. Dismay of the Israelites. greatly," made him his armour-bearer, or one of his body-guards; and expressed a wish to his father Jesse that he should remain about his person until his disorder was completely removed. After this event, which does not appear to have embraced any considerable period of time, we find David, whether from the capriciousness of royal favour, or the entreaties of the parent, who now went amongst men for an old man," returning to the care of his father's flock; again, and finally, to be called forth to very different scenes. 66 The Philistines, the ancient enemies of Israel, having recovered from a late signal defeat by the hand of Jonathan, and encouraged probably by the rumours of Saul's incapacity to oppose them, had advanced to the neighbourhood of Shochoh, in the tribe of Judah; and on the appearance of the Israelitish army, under that monarch, finally encamped on the side of a hill in Ephes-dammim, between Shochoh and Azekah. To the adjacent valley of Elah, Saul had summoned all the strength of the tribes, and three of the brethren of David were included in this army. On the part of the enemy appeared a man of extraordinary stature and strength, Goliath of Gath, proposing to decide by single combat the whole fate of the war. His accoutrements were more than any other man could have sustained, and Josephus represents him as followed "by many," for the purpose of bringing them into the field. The honourable distinction of an armour-bearer carrying his shield, indicated perhaps both his illustrious birth, and the importance which the Philistines attached to his services; while his daily appearance between the two armies, renewing his defiance of the Israelites, filled the latter with overwhelming dismay. Goliath had repeated his vaunts for the fortieth time, and the forces of Saul were pouring forth from their trenches to a desperate struggle, when David approached the confines of the camp, on an errand of kindness from Jesse to his sons; and, in the midst of their conference, overheard the challenge. The Israelites fell back, but the courage and piety of David were equally roused to inquire into the nature of this champion's offer, the manner in which it was regarded by the king, and the unaccountable forgetfulness of his Antiq. L. VI. C. 8. λEYWY TE TÜV as Patrick says, 66 are full of the powers of music, both to stir up passions and to allay them." 3 Thus Alexander, according to Arrian, had the shield taken out of the temple of Trojan Pallas, to be borne before him in all his battles. Some writers have assigned to Goliath two shields, the one to be carried before him for state, the other for actual use. Patrick, after Fortunatus Scacchus, suggests that the weight of his coat of mail, five thousand shekels of brass," might relate, after all, to its value rather than its bulk. proposes to countrymen, that theirs were the armies of the living God. Replying A.M. 2941. mildly to the supercilious interrogatories of his brother Eliab, "Why B.C. 1063. camest thou down hither, and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?" (which these active inquiries had excited;) he hesitated not to offer himself in the presence of the king as the antagonist of the gigantic enemy. Saul was as surprised as his David brethren had been displeased, but David was cool and determined: meet him. he assigned, with equal boldness and simplicity, his past success in the most unequal conflicts, as the ground of his present confidence, and inspired the faint heart of Saul with such emotions of exalted trust in God, that after some slight expostulation with him respecting his youth, and his ignorance of the art of war, he could conclude the conference with no other reply, than "Go! and Jehovah be with thee. The personal armour of the king was now offered to David; but having equipped himself with it, and girded on the sword, the youthful hero was encumbered, and with modest firmness declined to use them. He selected from the valley five smooth stones, which he carried in his shepherd's bag, or scrip; and with his staff and sling alone in his hand, advanced to meet Goliath. Their first salutation, and the short conference that ensued, were, perhaps, as memorable as the result. Understanding, by this time, that some Israelitish champion was preparing to come forth, Goliath advanced in all the pomp and circumstance of war; and having assured himself that The David was his real opponent, "disdained him,' we are told, with the most indignant contempt. In ridicule of his shepherd-like appointments, he asks, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?" and having cursed him by all the gods of his country, vows to give him, without effort, to destruction. "Come to me," said he, "and I will give thee to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field." David's reply was full of the dignity, the piety, and the largehearted views that animated his whole life and character. "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of Jehovah of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will Jehovah deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the hosts of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that Jehovah saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is Jehovah's, and he will give it into our hands."'4 He now instantly placed one of his stones in the sling, and springing forward to meet his gigantic foe, at one 4 It is remarkable that at this moment David had NO visible means of accomplishing the greater part of this positive declaration. To smite Goliath's head from off him, was not work for a shepherd's weapons, however successful they might be in slaying him, nor to give the car cases of an army to the fowls of the air. encounter. A.M. 2941. happy effort, he wounded him mortally in the forehead, and Goliath B.C. 1063. fell prostrate on the earth. Advancing with equal spirit up to the David kills fallen carcass, David proceeded to the fulfilment of his previous Goliath. Bishop reflections. Apparent differences in the David, declaration, by cutting off Goliath's head with his own sword; and Some slight incongruity has been conceived to attach to the Scripture narrative of these circumstances. David is treated as a youth, accounts of a stripling, by Saul and his courtiers, as well as by his gigantic opponent, although he had previously been recommended to the court under the graver character of "a mighty valiant man; a man of war, and prudent in matters." But surely to remove all semblance of inconsistency here, it is enough to advert to the most ordinary varieties of language in speaking of the same person under different points of comparison with others. In the first instance, to inspire Saul with confidence in the course he prescribed, the flexible courtier extols the steadiness and manly accomplishments of David; in this last case he stood in contrast with a man to whom Saul was as little as David was young. Reconciled. Another circumstance of alleged inconsistency has been remarked upon. That Saul should inquire "whose son David was?" on this occasion; though he is said to have made him so familiarly his attendant, and almost his companion before. To this the reply of Houbigant is definitive. "Non inquirere Saulem quis sit David; sed cujus filius; quia ejus intererat scire, cujus familiæ esset is adolescens, cui filiam suam promiserat se uxorem daturum si vinceret Philistæum.' "Saul did not inquire who David was, but whose son; because it was of importance to him to know of what family he was, as he had promised to give him his own daughter to wife if he should conquer the Philistine.” 5 5 We should not omit to notice here, the doubts of Kennicott, followed by Geddes, respecting the authenticity of the verses in 1 Samuel xvii. 11 to 32, nor that Jose Jonathan's The splendour of this victory secured to David the decided admira- A.M. 2941. tion of the people and of his prince; it involved in its consequences B.C. 1063. all the leading events of his future life, and, amongst its happiest first-fruits, introduced him to the memorable friendship of Jonathan, Rise of Saul's son. He was again welcomed to the court of Saul, and friendship. received a permanent appointment in the army. Here his conduct conciliated the affections of all around him: though intrusted with a most important command, he seems to have disdained all sinister views in the exercise of it; his allegiance to Saul was most honourably sustained, and but for the rising envy of that unhappy monarch, might have remained as uninterrupted as it was important. But Saul had long forsaken his own allegiance to the ultimate Governor and true King of Israel; an allegiance that had been the source of all his personal successes, of Samuel's long and now exhausted affection for him, and of the almost exhausted attachment of his people. As David and the royal retinue were returning from the recent victory, the first indication of this change in their opinions began to appear in the congratulations of the populace. "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,' said the women significantly, and in the very ears of Saul. However provoking to the haughty soul of the king, or indecorous towards his station such exclamations might appear, David, it is evident, was an innocent and deserving party on the occasion, but envy, which is never just, did Saul's envy. not fail to transfer the envenomed hatred, which it was now necessary to smother, to the person of the youthful hero. "Saul eyed David," says the accurate penman of the Scripture, "from that day forward. The next day, in a paroxysm of his former disease, but sufficiently collected to form the deliberate attempt, he had the baseness to aim Attempts to a javelin at the deliverer of his kingdom, and probably of his life, and repeated the attempt, but David again escaped; he gradually imbibed a settled fear of the "awful goodness" of David's character, and attributing his own vile dispositions to his rival, removed him to a command at some distance from his person. No decided arrange 66 phus wholly omits the conversation between Saul and Abner respecting David, ver.55-58. A conjecture of Dr. Delaney's is perhaps worth recording too. As "David going and returning from above Saul," would be a literal rendering of the clause in 1 Sam. xvii. 15; as Josephus says that the physician advised him to get a man to stand over his head," viz. as he lay in bed, to "play," &c.; and as the second message sent by Saul to Jesse, is, "Let David, I pray thee, stand at my face," (to say nothing of the state of his mind,) he could only see David's face fore-shortened, and the harp might wholly hide both his face and person. Delaney thinks his visits to court very temporary at first. The editor of CALMET, 3 v. 4to. Lond. asks, "Was Saul, like insane persons among us, kept private in some dark apartment? Did David play in a 6 For though the immediate interferen- kill David. |
