34. § 2. From the Rejection of Saul to His Death; or, Saul and David

§ 2. From the Rejection of Saul to His Death; or, Saul and David This section falls into two subdivisions: the first, David at the court of Saul; the second, David flying before Saul.

1. The rejection of Saul was immediately followed by the anointing of David. The fact that in the ruddy shepherd boy, who was personally unknown to him, Samuel recognised the man after God’s own heart, the future greatest one among Israel’s kings, shows that he was not left to his own judgment; and this choice not only throws light on the previous election, but also on the rejection. A separate little book makes us acquainted with the family of David. His ancestors were Boaz and Ruth the Moabitess, God-fearing people, whose beautiful history must undoubtedly have occupied David in his earliest youth. His father Jesse lived in that happy condition which the Psalmist asks in the words, “Give me neither poverty nor riches.” The act of anointing was to be kept secret, in order not to provoke the wrath of the king against Samuel and David. Samuel therefore concealed the main object of his going to Bethlehem under a subordinate one,—a circumstance which has been represented as a crime, without any foundation whatever, since the duty of telling the truth by no means includes telling the whole truth. What Samuel says to the elders of Bethlehem in 1 Samuel 16:4-5, respecting the object of his coming, gives us some insight into his activity. From it we learn that he often appeared unexpectedly in a place, to reprove unrighteousness and sin. The elders of Bethlehem tremble before him, and ask, “Comest thou peaceably?” We learn also that he held meetings for the worship of God, not only at the sacred places mentioned in 1 Samuel 7:16, but also here and there in the cities from time to time. At all events there were no witnesses of the anointing except the family of Jesse; and it is not even certain that they were present, since the words “he anointed him in the midst of his brethren,” 1 Samuel 16:3, may mean that he chose him from the number of his brethren. For the object of the anointing it was not necessary that it should be public, since its result with respect to office could only be a thing of the future; the present result was limited to the bestowment of the gifts, the kingly χαρίσματα. Not until the anointing had proved itself in existence, was it to be gradually proclaimed. It is self-evident that the words, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward,” cannot refer to the kingly χαρίσματα in contrast to the general gifts of the Spirit. The latter must rather be regarded as forming the foundation of the particular. The close connection of the two appears from the words which immediately follow: “But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him,” which cannot possibly have reference merely to the χαρίσματα. In recent times the rational interpretation of the latter words has been supposed to be that Saul was afflicted with sombre melancholy. The author certainly states this to have been the case, but he says more too,—he points us to the efficient cause of the mysterious condition. It was produced by God; and if we compare the more developed doctrine of the New Testament in this respect, we are led to the conclusion that it was probably a kind of possession, at least at times, and in its highest stage. 1 Samuel 18:10 seems especially to point to this view, “And Saul prophesied in the midst of the house,” where ecstatic states were attributed to him, analogous to the prophetic, except that they lay at the opposite end. As a punishment for having given himself willingly into the power of the kingdom of darkness, he was also abandoned physically to this power. It is specially analogous when we are told of Mary Magdalene that before her conversion she had seven devils. Then, again, what the Lord says of the man out of whom the unclean spirit first went, but, because he did not watch over himself, goes and takes with him seven other spirits who are still worse than himself, Matthew 12:43 ff. Those who think that the cause of Saul’s dejection lay in the consciousness of his (intellectual) incapacity for government, apart from all else, make him into a completely unhistorical character. If he had been truly changed, he would certainly have made an excellent king. By a special leading of divine providence, the representative of the good and the representative of the evil principle were soon brought together. It was necessary that David for his education should soon be brought into the circle of those relations in which he was destined to exercise great activity, if further opportunity should offer for distinguishing himself, for displaying the gifts lent to him by God, that the attention of the people might be directed to him; and, what was the main thing, that the good spirit and the evil one should be separated from one another. David was sent to Saul in the school of sorrow and temptation; and not until he had been well trained in this school was he elevated to the dignity which had been previously promised him by God. It served as part of Saul’s punishment that David was brought into proximity with him. It helped to ripen the corruption which was inherent in him, and gave it an opportunity of manifesting itself. The position of David at the court of Saul was at first very insignificant; for which reason he was not yet an object of suspicion and jealousy. It is true that in 1 Samuel 16:21 it is stated that David was Saul’s armour-bearer; but this does not imply much, since the king had no doubt a considerable number of such armour-bearers or shield-bearers. Joab, a mere general, had ten of them. The proofs that David was held in little estimation are, (1) that before the victory over Goliath he did not remain permanently at the court of Saul, but returned to his father from time to time and tended his flocks, 1 Samuel 17:15, comp. with 1 Samuel 18:2; and (2) that when David presented himself to Saul as a champion against Goliath, the latter did not even know his father and his family, although he was probably acquainted with David himself,—so completely was he lost in the multitude.

David’s contest with Goliath will only be apprehended in its true light if the latter be regarded as the representative of the world, and David the representative of the church of God. The strength of God triumphed in him over natural strength, the Spirit over the flesh. By this event David’s position was essentially altered. The author first records its immediate happy result in 1 Samuel 18:1-5. It gave rise to the temporary love of Jonathan for David. This friendship is even quoted as a pattern in the New Testament: it rests on the foundation of true religion, and has therefore no parallel in the heathen world. The reason of Jonathan’s devotion to David is that he sees in him a living source of faith and love to God, and feels himself elevated by communion with him, placed in an element which he could not reach independently. David was then promoted by Saul to high military dignity, and thus had an opportunity of attracting the attention of the people by his successful undertakings. In 1 Samuel 18:6 ff. we have a far fuller account of the consequences, so sad when looked at from a human point of view, which not merely succeeded to the former, but ran parallel with them. They began already, immediately after the events. It seems that it was the custom in Israel for choruses of women to receive the returning victors. These magnified David above Saul. From that hour Saul regarded him as his enemy: and on the following day, in a paroxysm of his sickness, which was probably called forth by powerful emotion, he made an attempt to kill him. The key to the whole position which Saul henceforward occupied with respect to David lies in the words, “And Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul,” 1 Samuel 18:12. Saul felt himself inwardly forsaken by God, and in this inner abandonment recognised the premonition of his soon-impending outward overthrow. It was this which gave the real sting to the words of Samuel. He looked anxiously and suspiciously about him to see whether he could not find some germinating greatness; and from David’s first deed of valour his glance was riveted on him. He guessed that he was the man after God’s own heart of whom Samuel had spoken. It frequently forced itself upon him that it would be in vain for him to try to stop his way to the dignity for which God had destined him; on several occasions he found himself constrained to confess this; but indwelling sin constantly impelled him to new strivings against God in David, to try whether by killing David he could not bring the counsels of God to nought. But the secret consciousness of the godlessness and foolishness of his attempt never forsook him. It invalidated all his measures against David; it made his strong and practised arm unsteady when he aimed at him; owing to it he sought to strengthen his wavering irresolution by consulting others, and revealed his intention to his servants and Jonathan, although he knew the tender love of Jonathan to David, and thus gave him an opportunity to warn his friend; comp., for example, 1 Samuel 19:1. This uneasiness of conscience, this inward uncertainty and vacillation of his mortal enemy, was one of the most effective means which God employed for the salvation of David.

After the first attempt at murder, Saul tried to put David out of the way in a less offensive manner, employing him in dangerous warlike expeditions. Even his daughter Michal was obliged to serve as a means to his end, for he offered her to David as a prize. When all this was of no avail, but rather served to bring David nearer his destiny, Saul returned to his direct attempts at murder. At last David was obliged to seek safety in flight, which was accomplished by the cunning of his wife Michal.

David repaired first of all to Samuel to Ramah, to seek comfort and counsel from him, and Samuel took him with him to the dwelling of the prophetic disciples, which was situated in the neighbourhood of the town, as a sacred asylum. Saul sent messengers there to look for him; but these messengers were vanquished by the power of God-given inspiration in the band of prophetic disciples, so that they also were obliged to prophesy against their will, without, however, being prophets. Saul then sets out himself, and the same thing befalls him. The attempt to do away with the proofs afforded by this event for the ecstatic character of the prophetic state, for the power of inspiration, is vain. Saul rends off his clothes, lies naked upon the earth, and prophesies the whole day and night; and we learn that his condition differed from that of the sons of the prophets only in degree, from 1 Samuel 19:24, “And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied.” The difference in degree may certainly have been of importance. The fact that inspiration under the Old Testament generally bore a character of violence, had its foundation in the circumstance that the divine principle was not yet sufficiently powerful to penetrate the human completely, and had therefore to be satisfied by overpowering it momentarily. The greatness of the struggle which then arose was in proportion to the degree of estrangement from God. The more violent the symptoms, the lower the state. When a Samuel was concerned, there was no outward manifestation whatever; but when a Saul was in the case, who had to prophesy in the grossest sense against his will, in whom, however, there could not fail to be an inward point of contact, a divine germ, it was accompanied by the most striking phenomena.

David knew, doubtless, that Saul’s temporary possession by the Spirit of God could not guarantee him any permanent security, but only an opportunity for flight, because it was a forced state. Of this opportunity he availed himself. But before he formed the resolution of separating himself permanently from Saul, he sought to know his mind, through the intervention of Jonathan, in the way narrated in 1 Samuel 20, to ascertain whether his murderous intent was a momentary ebullition, or whether he had formed a definite plan for his destruction. Having ascertained that the latter was the case, he began his wanderings.

2. David in flight. David first turned towards Nob, then the seat of the holy tabernacle. In the beginning of the new epoch of his life it was his desire to make inquiry of God through the Urim and Thummim. We learn that this was the main object of his visit, and that he succeeded in accomplishing it, from 1 Samuel 22:10-13, although it does not appear from the narrative itself. Probably with the intention of not exposing the high priest Ahimelech to the persecution of Saul, he told him nothing of what had occurred. After having satisfied his first demand, the high priest, at his request, gave him some of the holy bread, since there was no other to be had: it had been taken from the table of the Lord, and was replaced by new. This holy bread, the symbol of the spiritual nourishment which it was the duty of Israel to present to their God and King, of good works, was not to be eaten except by Aaron and his sons in the holy place, Leviticus 24:9. Yet that is only to be regarded as the rule which, like all ceremonial laws, was open to exception in certain circumstances, since it was only a veil of the truth, not the truth itself. The saying “necessity knows no law” might be applied to every ceremonial law, but had no application to the moral. It was a duty, for example, to make oneself levitically unclean in a number of cases. The high priest then, at his request, provided David with a weapon, the only thing of the kind that was to be had in this peaceful place, the sword of Goliath,—everything on the presupposition that David was the servant of Saul, whom he held in high estimation. He then repaired to Gath, to the king of the Philistines. He had hoped to find a good reception there, owing to his separation from Saul; but this hope proved deceitful. The Philistines feared a stratagem; David was in great danger of his life, and only succeeded in escaping by feigning himself mad,—a means so uncertain in itself, that, as David himself acknowledged, comp. Psalms 34 and Psalms 56, the glory of his deliverance belonged to God alone, who blessed this weak means, which was perhaps not quite morally pure. Saul now vented all his wrath on the high priest, of whose conduct he was secretly informed by the meanness of Doeg, a proselyte of the Edomite race. In 1 Samuel 21:7 this Doeg is called the “chiefest of the herdmen,” though not the most distinguished among them, as we learn from 1 Samuel 22:7, according to which he was invested with military dignity, but was probably a commander of the troops appointed to protect the royal herds,—the “chiefest (champion and patron) of the herdmen.” According to 1 Samuel 22:9, he was the principal one among the servants of Saul. In consequence of a vow, or a temporarily-undertaken Nazirate, he was in the sanctuary at the time when David came there. He concealed his heathen heart under Israelitish forms. Saul, too, was very scrupulous in such things. The high priest represented his innocence in the most convincing manner; but Saul would not desist from his evil determination, because he felt that all true servants of the Lord were the natural friends of David, and because he hated the religious principle, whose reality he could not deny, and sought to damage it in its servants and instruments, and to revenge himself on it. But this occurrence shows in a remarkable way how much he was bound by the religious principle, notwithstanding his aversion to it. Saul slays eighty-five priests in Nob, besides everything in the city that had breath,—women, children, and even cattle. There can be no doubt that this course of action has reference to the law respecting the curse which was to fall upon an Israelitish city which should serve other gods, Deuteronomy 13:13 ff. Saul puts the alleged crimen loesoe majestatis on a level with idolatry; he extends what has been said by God even to His visible representatives, not without reason, comp. Exodus 22:28, according to which cursing the prince is equivalent to cursing God, who has impressed His image on the king, if (1) the crime were really established, and (2) if Saul had laid claim to his position on the ground of having fulfilled his duties. But since, like a hypocrite, he made the word of God an excuse for his deeds of horror, and at the same time recognised the theocracy when it answered his purposes, he gave it full scope wherein it appeared to him destructive. For David the incident must have been a painful one, because by his conduct he had aroused Saul’s suspicion of the high priest, though without any evil intention. But it had one happy result for him. A son of Ahimelech, Abiathar, escaped with the ephod and came to him; from which time he was his companion in wanderings, a new sign of Saul’s rejection and his own election. The two recognised means of inquiring of the Lord, through the prophets, and through the Urim and Thummim, were now taken from Saul by his own fault. David was henceforward accompanied, not only by a representative of the priesthood, but also by a prophet, Gad, and stood in close connection with the head of the prophets, Samuel. The event is also of importance, in so far as it shows us how numerous and important the priests were at that time. In a single town we find eighty-five priests, and they are held in such high estimation, that not one of all Saul’s Israelitish servants ventures at his command to lay a hand on them. Only Doeg, who still retained an Edomitish heart notwithstanding his outward turning to God, had courage to do it. It was doubtless in consequence of this event, whose memory is perpetuated by David in Psalms 52, that the holy tabernacle was transferred from Nob to Gideon, where we afterwards find it. It could not remain in Nob; for, according to Deuteronomy 1, a cursed city was to be made an eternal heap of ruins.

After having happily escaped danger from the Philistines, David repaired to the cave of Adullam, in the tribe of Judah. There he sang the 57th Psalm, whose motto, “Destroy not,” represents his mental attitude throughout this whole period. There he was joined not only by his family, whose life Saul had endangered, but “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,” gathered themselves unto him as to their leader, 1 Samuel 22:2. But we learn better what kind of people they were from the psalm which David composed at the time than from this often misunderstood description. See Psalms 57, where they are represented as the צדיקים, the ענוים, the יראייהוה, the ישרילב. In Saul’s later days justice and righteousness were very little regarded. In 1 Samuel 22:7 he boasts that he has given fields and vineyards to all his Benjamite servants and accomplices; and what he gave to them he must have taken away from others. The creatures of the king were at liberty to do whatever they pleased; he was the centre about which all that was evil assembled, the soul of the עדתמרעים. Those who had lost their possessions and property through these, assembled round David as the bearer of the good principle. Among others, Gad the prophet belonged to them; comp. 1 Samuel 22:5. There was also a number of brave warriors among them, who soon formed an army of heroes under the guidance of David. He had no intention of leading them to battle against Saul. He organized them into a kind of free band, which he led against the predatory neighbours of Israel whenever an opportunity occurred. In this way he worked into the hands of the king himself, and formed the germ of an army for his own kingdom, with which he afterwards raised Israel to an importance scarcely before anticipated. With this band David went from place to place, partly from regard to his own safety, and partly to assist others who were in danger. First he took them to a place called Mizpeh Moab, a fortified town on the borders of the Moabites; but, at the direction of the prophet Gad, soon returned to the land of Judah. With his band he saved Keilah, a town which was besieged by an army of the Philistines. Saul was told that David was come to Keilah; and what he says on this occasion is characteristic of him: “God hath delivered him into my hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars,” 1 Samuel 23:7. In every circumstance that seems to favour his criminal intent, like a hypocrite, he sees a sign from God, an actual assurance of divine aid. David flies to the wilderness of Ziph, and, being betrayed by the Ziphites, is in great danger of his life. He is saved, however, by the circumstance that Saul is obliged to make a hasty retreat on hearing of an invasion by the Philistines. Psalms 54 is devoted to the memory of this event. In the wilderness of En-gedi, whither David now resorted, and where Saul went to look for him with his 3000 men, the standing army which he had formed immediately on his accession to the throne, David was led into great temptation. Unsought, an opportunity was given him of slaying his mortal enemy. To many of his companions the opportunity even seemed to contain a divine command to this effect. There were many specious arguments to justify such an act: David chosen by God; Saul rejected; the murderer of so many servants of the Lord, the oppressor of the just, David’s persecutor, thirsting for his blood;—arguments so plausible, that many scholars—for example, Clericus—have maintained that David would have been justified in killing Saul. David himself does not seem to have been quite free from the temptation to do it. The words, “And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him (i.e. his conscience pricked him) because he had cut off Saul’s skirt,” 1 Samuel 24:5, are only intelligible on the supposition that on cutting off Saul’s skirt David’s thoughts were not directed only to the use which he afterwards made of it, at least in the beginning, but that his object was rather to prove the goodness of his thoughts at the first weak beginning he made to carry them into effect. But his better self soon awoke; all impure thoughts fled; his eye became clear; with horror he put the temptation from him. He himself gives the cause of this dread in 1 Samuel 24:6 : “Seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.” Saul had indeed no longer the gifts, but he had still the privileges of a king; God had reserved to Himself the right to deprive him of the latter.

Well knowing that Saul’s momentary better impulses gave him no security, David repaired with his men to the wilderness of Paran after the death of Samuel, which occurred about this time. This wilderness is not, as Thenius supposes, on the borders of Egypt, but is the south-eastern part of Arabia Petraea; and here David was almost close to the southern boundary of Judah. In the incident which occurred with Nabal, who had his flocks on Mount Carmel,—not the well-known mountain, but one on the southern borders of Judah,—David sinned grievously, for he took an oath to revenge the injury done to him by Nabal (very characteristically called כלבו, “cor suum sequens, sui arbitrii homo,” in 1 Samuel 24:3) on his whole house. It needed, however, but a small excitement of his better self from without, and he repented, recognising the greatness of his danger, and thanking and praising God for having kept him from self-revenge and murder. On this occasion, therefore, we learn both his weakness and his strength, his old man and his new. We see how much he needed purification, but at the same time also that he was susceptible of it—that together with the dross there was noble metal. Events such as these give us the key to the heavy sorrows with which God afflicted David, showing us how necessary they were, and form the theodicy with respect to them. A second treason of the Ziphites, and a persecution by Saul to which it gave rise, gave David further opportunity to prove his magnanimity towards his enemy, and the vitality of his piety, on which alone it rested. In David’s address to Saul, who was deeply moved at the time, these words are specially remarkable: “If the Lord have stirred thee up against me, let Him accept an offering (i.e. let him seek to propitiate His wrath by sacrifice, not as opus operatum, but as an expression of a corresponding state of mind, and therefore by true repentance: offerings represent good works, and their presentation μετάνοια; comp. Beiträge iii. p. 649 ff.); but if they be the children of men, cursed be they before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day (David was just about to leave the land) from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other gods.” Both suppositions were true: God had stirred up Saul, and men had done it,—the latter as His instruments, which did not, however, by any means justify them. It was part of Saul’s punishment that he was constrained to persecute David, and in so doing he suffered more than David,—consuming hatred, fear, the perpetual consciousness of the fruitlessness of all his measures,—all this was perfect torture to him. Doubtless he would willingly have been freed from it, but there was only one way in which he could obtain this freedom, viz. by true repentance; and this way he refused to take. Because he would not desist from sin in general, he could not become free from this special form of sin. This was his fate. David’s piety is seen in the fact that he characterizes it as the greatest sorrow inflicted on him by his enemies that they obliged him to leave the land of the Lord and go out into the heathen world, depriving him of the blessing of religious communion, of which he felt all the importance. On this occasion Saul is again obliged to bear witness against himself: “Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do great things, and also shalt still prevail.” David does not distrust his momentary sincerity, but he knows too well that Saul was not his own master not to perceive that it would have been tempting God to have trusted himself to him on the basis of a transient emotion. He knew that this very emotion must serve to prepare the way for a stronger outbreak of Saul’s hatred; and hence, despairing of escaping the persecution of Saul any longer in the land of Israel, he repairs immediately after this event to the land of the Philistines, probably after having first assured himself that now, when the relation between Saul and David had become universally known, their king Achish was differently disposed towards him from what he had formerly been. Older theologians have attached great blame to David for leaving the land of Israel. He had received the command of God through the prophet Gad to remain in Judah. He showed want of faith in not believing that God could save him in his fatherland. These arguments are not decisive. For this command of God had reference only to a certain time; and it is scarcely appropriate to speak of want of faith, since David had not yet received a definite promise that God would protect him in the land of Israel. Hence he might have believed that he was tempting God by remaining there. Indeed, we see from the following history that he was exposed to great temptation in the land of the Philistines, to which he partially succumbed, and may therefore doubt whether he would not have done better by remaining in his fatherland, when the external dangers were greater, but the internal less.

We cannot blame him, because, when the king of the Philistines had appointed him the deserted little town Ziklag as a residence for himself and his band, he made expeditions from it against Canaanitish races and the Amalekites. Neither are we justified in at once accusing him of cruelty for his conduct towards the conquered. This accusation would have had some foundation if he had been actuated merely by the prudential motives given in 1 Samuel 27:11. But this was certainly not the case. The principal reason is rather to be sought in the Mosaic law, which declares these races to be under the curse. But it is impossible to justify the equivocation by which David tried to make the king of the Philistines believe that he was in the habit of making inroads with his band on the territory of his own people, in order by this means to gain his confidence more and more, and thus to establish a secure footing in his country; whereas it is noticeable that those peoples upon whom David really made war were not friends, but enemies of the king, as nearly all those were who had anything to lose. This is evident at least with respect to the Amalekites, 1 Samuel 30:16.

Such dishonesty attained its object; but by the very fact that it did so, it brought punishment with it. The confidence of the king of the Philistines was so great, that he proposed to David to accompany him with his people in a new campaign which he was about to undertake against Israel. This proposition must have placed him in a position of the greatest embarrassment. He could not take arms against his own people without incurring grievous sin; and a refusal, which he had made impossible by his former assertion, would have been ruinous to him and his people. In this embarrassment he formed a rash determination. He declared himself ready to go with the king, while in his heart he thought, Time will bring help; hoping that if he escaped the momentary danger, God would save him from that which lay farther away. And this actually came to pass in a way which must have filled his heart with the most profound gratitude. The Philistine princes, over whom the king only exercised a kind of supremacy, did not share his confidence in David, and obliged him to dismiss him with his men. Thus he was at liberty to return to Ziklag. New trouble awaited him there, but because he “encouraged himself in the Lord his God,” 1 Samuel 30:6, this trouble also was soon turned into joy. The Amalekites, taking advantage of his absence, had fallen upon Ziklag, and had carried away wife and child and property. But, under the visible assistance of God, whom he interrogated by the Urim and Thummim—Abiathar the high priest, with the ephod, was still with him, comp. 1 Samuel 30:7—he overtook the enemy, contrary to all human expectation, defeated them, and took all their booty from them, besides a great deal of other property, of which, with the wisdom which characterized him, he gave a part in presents to the elders of the neighbouring cities of Judah, always keeping his glance fixed on the goal pointed out to him by the Lord. In the great embarrassment into which David was brought by the Amalekites many have seen, not without apparent foundation, a punishment for his precipitate determination to join the Philistines, and his consenting to fight against his own people. But because he erred only from weakness in an urgent and perilous situation, in which it is so exceedingly difficult always to do right, the revelation of divine justice must at the same time give occasion for the revelation of divine love. In the time between David’s dismissal from the army of the Philistines and his victory over the Amalekites, the accomplishment of the divine decree of rejection fell upon Saul, as described in 1 Samuel 28. The king’s heart is filled with fear of the Philistines. It was not want of physical courage,—he was a valiant hero,—it was the consciousness that God had rejected him, which gave rise to this fear. He felt that his hour was come. In despair he turned to God, and sought comfort and counsel from Him; but all the sources of divine revelation were closed to him. The high priest, with the Urim and Thummim, had been obliged to fly before him from the land of the Lord. God spoke to him through none of His prophets; and even for internal promptings he waited in vain. These were only given to those whose hearts were sincerely attached to the Lord; and he was not willing to surrender his heart to the Lord even yet,—he would rather die in despair. What was denied him in a legitimate way by his own fault, he seeks in despair to obtain in an illegal way. In Deuteronomy 18 the prohibition of all wizards and necromancers was based upon the fact that God would give His people counsel and comfort in difficult cases by legitimate means, viz. by the prophets. From this event we see clearly how necessary it was that this command should be founded upon the promise. In a better time, when Saul had still free access to God in a lawful way, he himself had purged the land from all wizards and necromancers, in fulfilment of the determinations of the law, and had forbidden all practices of this kind under penalty of death, the punishment established by law, Leviticus 20:6; comp. 1 Samuel 28:9, from which it appears that “he had cut off” is not to be limited to mere banishment. Now when the right means were taken from him, he himself sought these miserable substitutes. Respecting the incident between him and the woman of Endor three leading views have to be considered:—(1.) Many suppose that Samuel did really appear to Saul. So, for example, Jesus Sirach, who represents the appearance of Samuel as his last act, chap. 46:23, and whose opinion is certainly not to be regarded as an individual, but a national one; Justin, dial. c. Tryph. p. 333; Origen on 1 Kings (Sam.), 28; Ambrose, Augustine, and others. (2.) Others maintain that the whole thing was a deception on the part of the woman; so Anton v. Dale, Balth. Bekker, Thomasius,—plainly suspicious names, notorious persons; comp. the proofs in Deyling, Observ. ii. p. 196. (3.) Finally, some maintain that an evil spirit assumed the form of Samuel. This latter view was the prevailing one among the Lutheran theologians. It is defended by Buddeus, p. 311 ff., Deyling, and Pfeiffer, Dub. vex. p. 379, who adduces the advocates of it in great numbers. Of these views the first is in harmony with the narrative. For, (1.) The author says, in 1 Samuel 28:14, that Saul “ perceived,” not fancied, that it was Samuel; and in 1 Samuel 28:15 he says, “And Samuel said to Saul;” while the paraphrase of the defenders of the other views, “Dixit personatus ille Samuel,” only shows how the author would have spoken if he had been of their opinion. (2.) The words which are put into the mouth of the apparition are fully worthy of a Samuel, and are quite unsuitable for an evil spirit. (3.) The appearing one foretells things which no human acuteness could have foreseen,—the defeat of Israel, which was to take place on the following day,, and the death of Saul and his sons,—a circumstance which tells strongly against the second opinion. The arguments which have been brought forward against the only view which has any foundation in the text may easily be set aside. (1.) This view, it is said, is at variance with God’s goodness and providence, which could not suffer the rest of one who had fallen asleep in Him to be disturbed by evil spirits in the service of godless men. But we have only to suppose that the power of these spirits is limited to those who have died in their sins, a part of whose punishment it is that they should be subject to such power, but that in this case God effected what the adjuration in itself would not have been in a position to do. (2.) Samuel’s appearance would have been a hazardous confirmation of necromancy. But in all Holy Scripture the warning against such things is never based on the fact that they have no reality, but rather that they are an abomination to God. The statement that Saul himself in his better days had cut off all sorcerers from the land, is a sufficiently plain condemnation of the king’s act on the part of the author. It is impossible for this event to inspire any one with an inclination for necromancy. Saul was punished by the appearance of Samuel. His violation of God’s law had truly awful consequences. (3.) The pretended Samuel says to Saul, “To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.” This was a lie, since Saul belonged to hell, Samuel to heaven. But under the Old Testament one and the same Scheol received both the pious and the godless, though to different destinies. It would only be possible to oppose the view that Samuel was also in Scheol, by fully identifying Scheol with hell. The account of Saul’s death in 1 Samuel 31 must be supplemented by 2 Samuel 1. To escape falling into the power of the Philistines, Saul falls upon his sword, 1 Samuel 31:4; and when he fell down for dead, his armour-bearer did the same thing, 1 Samuel 31:5. But Saul’s wound was not immediately fatal, because the armour paralyzed the force of the thrust. He came to himself again, and begged an Amalekite who was passing to put an end to his life, which he did, 2 Samuel 1:9-10,—a remarkable dispensation. As the curse on Amalek was accomplished by Saul, so that on Saul was accomplished by Amalek. It has been frequently maintained that the Amalekite, who had been received among Israel, only lied in stating that he had had part in Saul’s death, in hope of reward. But this view is certainly false. If such had been the case, the author would at least have given some indication of it. The diadem of Saul, which the Amalekite brings to David, puts the seal of credibility to his declaration. The king’s corpse, which was insulted by the Philistines, was stolen by the inhabitants of Jabesh in Gilead at night, with danger to themselves, for they remembered with noble gratitude the assistance which he had formerly given them against the Ammonites. At variance with the usual Israelitish custom, they burnt him, probably lest the Philistines, hearing what had happened, should make it a point of honour to recover the corpse, and that at great risk to themselves. Thus they prevented all further insult to the corpse.