Let him accept an offering. — The words here are difficult ones in a theological point of view. If, however, we are content to interpret them with Bishop Wordsworth according to the Arabic Version of the Chaldee Targum, the difficulty vanishes: “If the Lord hath stirred thee up against me for any fault of mine, let me know mine offence, and I am ready to make an offering for it to the Lord, that I may be forgiven.” — Wordsworth. But by far the greater number of scholars and expositors understand the words of David in what seems to be their plain literal sense, viz.: “If Jehovah has incited you to do this evil thing, let Him smell an offering.” The word for offering in the Hebrew is minchah, the meat offering, which signifies “sanctification of life and devotion to the Lord.” In other words, “If you think or feel that God stirs you up to take this course against me — the innocent one — pray to God that He may take the temptation — if it be a temptation — from thee.” This conception that the movement comes from God runs through the Old Testament. It is apparently expressed in such passages as “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart,” and in such sayings as we find here in this Book of Samuel of an evil spirit from the Lord haunting Saul. “Some have explained the conception by referring it to the intensity with which the Israelites had grasped the idea of the omnipresence of the Deity, and of His being the one power by whose energy all things exist and all acts are done; alike evil and good come from God, for He alone is the source of all... but it does not follow that everything to which His providence seems to lead is therefore right for man to do; on the contrary, all leadings of Providence are to be judged by God’s immutable law.” — Dean Payne Smith. These seeming leadings must be tested by prayer offered by an earnest heart: that is the meaning of the offering (minchah) here. The conception — strange as it may seem at first — is a true one, as in the case of Pharaoh, and also — though with some important modifications — of Saul. The Holy Spirit had pleaded long, and had pleaded in vain. It is possible, we know, for us to weary, or, as St. Paul puts it, quench that Spirit of God pleading within us; then at length, wearied or quenched, it wings its flight away from the wicked soul. This spreading its wings in flight may be said to be God’s work. The sad and invariable result is, the deserted heart becomes hardened, as in the case of Pharaoh; the empty shrine becomes the swept and garnished home for the evil spirit, as in the case of Saul.
But if they be the children of men. — But David goes on to say, “If the cruel, unjust thoughts are the result of the envy and hatred of men who are my enemies, may God punish them as they deserve; for see what they have done for me: they have by their calumnies — whispered in your ears — driven me into exile; they have violently bidden me to go and serve other and strange gods.” He means that, far away from the only country where Jehovah is loved and honoured, away from the influence of Jehovah’s prophets and beloved priests, he and his would be tempted to serve other gods, and to share in the foul and impious practice of the heathen nations.