CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1 Samuel 16:13. “Then Samuel took the horn of oil,” etc. “There is nothing recorded concerning any words of Samuel to David at the time of the anointing, and in explanation of its meaning, as in the case of Saul (1 Samuel 10:1). In all probability Samuel said nothing at the time, since, according to 1 Samuel 16:2, he had good reason for keeping the matter secret, not only on his own account, but also for David’s sake; so that even the brethren of David, who were present, knew nothing about the meaning and object of the anointing, but may have imagined that Samuel merely intended to consecrate David as a pupil of the prophet’s. At the same time we can hardly suppose that Samuel left Jesse, and even David, in uncertainty as to the object of his mission, and of the anointing which he had performed. He may have communicated all this to both of them without letting the other sons know.” (Keil.) “And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David.” “The youth entered upon a new stage in the development of his inner life which was wholly consecrated to God. The rich talents wherewith he was endowed from his birth received on all sides fresh unfolding. The law, the holy records of the books of Moses, in which he had been instructed from his earliest years, opened themselves to his enlightened eyes more and more. The peaceful stillness of nature amid which, tending his father’s flocks, he spent his days, and often, also, the mild, starry nights, favoured his penetration into the secrets of the Divine revelation. His heart, moved and directed from above, already poured itself out in sacred song and poem, which he sang to the accompaniment of his harp, to the praise of that God before whom, from his childhood, he had learned to bow the knee; and it may well be assumed that even then, amid that rural loneliness, psalms streamed forth from his heart, such as the eighth, which overflows with adoring wonder at the condescension and grace with which the glorious Creator of heaven and earth has concerned Himself with frail man.” (Krummacher.)
1 Samuel 16:14. “An evil spirit from the Lord.” “This spirit is, according to the narrative, not the condition itself of gloomy melancholy and torturing anguish, but an objective power which produced it. It is a wicked spiritual power, which came upon him as the opposite of the good holy spirit which he once possessed, and goaded him to rage and madness, finding its occasion in the conflict within his soul, and in the passionateness of his nature, which, after the spirit of the Lord left him, was unbridled. It came on Saul from the Lord; that is, the Lord gave him over to the power and might of this spirit as punishment for his disobedience and defiant self-will.” (Erdmann.)
1 Samuel 16:18. “A mighty valiant man,” etc. David’s reputation for courage, etc., was already very great. Doubtless since the Spirit of the Lord came upon him his natural qualities and powers had been greatly enhanced. His feat of killing the lion and the bear (1 Samuel 17:34; 1 Samuel 17:36) had been performed, like Sampson’s feats of strength, under the same supernatural influence, and was probably more or less known.” (Biblical Commentary.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Samuel 16:13-18
SAUL AND DAVID
I. Both the Spirit of God and the agents of Satan seek congenial soil for their operations. When the Spirit of the Lord came upon David, He found a heart prepared to receive His influence and to profit by it. David had already yielded himself up to those ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit which come to men in general, and he was therefore capable of receiving and being blest by a special outpouring of that same gracious and sanctifying power, to fit him for a sacred office and a special work. Those who have received into their minds the elementary principles of a science, or the rudiments of a language, possess a basis upon which a teacher may lay other truths concerning the same science or language; and so the pupil who has diligently mastered the alphabet of any branch of knowledge is the one most likely to be rewarded with further instruction. So the man who has profited by the spiritual light which has been already afforded him is in the way to receive a further revelation—he who has opened his heart to receive the teachings of Christ which have been given him has a basis upon which the Spirit of God can operate to his further enlightenment. The ingenuous confession of Nathaniel (John 1:40) showed that he was fit to receive greater knowledge, and to be made acquainted with greater and more glorious truths concerning Christ and His Kingdom; and hence the Saviour’s promise: “Thou shalt see greater things than these” (John 1:50). The confession of Peter in Cæsarea Philippi (Matthew 16:16) showed that he had mastered the first lesson in connection with the Kingship of Christ; and because he thus gave proof of having made good use of the evidence concerning his Divine Master which had already been given him, he was permitted to receive more and more, and at last to be an “eyewitness of His Majesty when He received from His Father honour and glory in the holy mount” (2 Peter 1:16-17). If Peter and his brother Apostles had not already yielded themselves up to the teachings which flowed from the every-day manifestations of their Lord, we may be sure they would not have been permitted to receive the higher revelation of His transfiguration. So was it with David. The Spirit of God found in him a basis upon which to raise a superstructure of such a character as would fit him to be a worthy ruler of the chosen people, and a type of Him who should hereafter rule the whole Israel of God (Micah 5:2). Saul also had been wrought upon by the Spirit of God, but although he had thereby become intellectually stronger and more fit for the kingly office, the more blessed and sanctifying influences of that Holy Spirit had found no receptive soil upon which to operate. His heart was like the rocky ground of our Lord’s parable, where the few plants which sprung up soon withered away because they had no root (Matthew 13:6); and the powers of evil never leave such a heart untenanted. When a man resists the Holy Ghost as Saul did, He ceases at length to strive with him, and the Evil One, finding the house empty, sends his agents to take up their abode there, and so “the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Luke 11:26).
II. The powers of evil are under Divine rule. A monarch has under his sceptre not only those obedient subjects who find their truest freedom in observing the statutes of the realm, but also the lawless and disobedient who yield him no willing service. Yet this latter class do serve by compulsion—as criminals and prisoners they may be used to do work which the free citizen could not do so well, and so they also may unwillingly render service to the king. So the powers of evil are subjects of the King of kings as truly as the angels of light; and although they are rebels against His righteous rule, they can do nothing without His permission, and sometimes in following the dictates of their own evil natures they undesignedly fulfil God’s purposes. This was remarkably the case in the experience of Job. Satan could only distress and afflict Job by Divine permission, and while he seemed to be only working out his own evil intentions, he was really fulfilling a Divine purpose towards a godly man. And the spirits of darkness are also made instruments of God’s chastisement, especially in relation to men who are in rebellion against Him. We can conceive that this terrible but necessary work in a world of sinners could not be done by a good angel as it can be done by a fallen and malignant spirit; this we know from the teaching of Scripture in this passage, and in others, that God does so over-rule the malignity of evil spirits and evil men as to make them executioners of His judgments upon other sinners. The evil spirit which now troubled Saul was from the Lord in the sense that it was permitted to be an instrument of chastisement for his disobedience.
III. Even when God chastises for disobedience, He leaves some influences within reach of the offender to modify the punishment. Saul was not wholly forsaken of God while he was not wholly forsaken of men, for men “are that to us, and no more, than God permits them to be” (Henry). Saul, a prey to his own evil passions, and to the malice of his spiritual adversary, could hardly have been at this time a good master or a man calculated to attract friends, yet there were those still around him who were sorry for him in his affliction, and who were anxious to alleviate his suffering. And so it is generally. When men, by a course of wilful transgression of Divine laws have brought upon themselves the penalty of mental or physical suffering, some kindly heart and hand is permitted by God to be moved in their behalf, and human sympathy and help lessens in some measure the weight of the deserved chastisement.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
1 Samuel 16:13. Here was the sign that all the inward discipline and preparation of David had an object, another object than merely to make him a faithful keeper of sheep, or even a wise and righteous man. But a Divine sign is not a mere ceremony. It would be deceitful and insincere if there were not a present blessing denoted by it, the communication of an actual power to fit the man for tasks to which he has not hitherto been appointed. From that day forward there was a power within David stirring him to thoughts and acts which connected him directly with Israelites, with human beings.… There is a time in men’s lives, before they enter upon some great work to which they have been consecrated, a time when they are permitted to look back upon the years which they have already past, to see them no longer as fragments, but as linked together, as having a Divine purpose running through them which makes even their incoherences and discords intelligible. In such a time of retrospection, when the future is seen mirrored in the past, David may have found his harp much more than the mere solace of lonely hours, the mere response to his inward sorrows and thanksgivings. He may have begun to know that he was speaking for other men as well as for himself; that there were close and intimate fibres uniting men utterly unlike and separated by tracts of time and space; that there is some mysterious source of these sympathies, some living centre who holds together the different portions of each man’s life, and in whom there is a general human life of which all may partake. The Spirit of God, which had taken possession of David, may have been teaching him these lessons and inspiring the song which was the utterance of them before he was prepared to come forth as the actual deliverer. And that Spirit will assuredly have been preparing him for his after conflicts, by making him feel that he had, even then, enemies most fierce to struggle with, subjects most turbulent to subdue. The invisible God does not make known to man that He is his shepherd, without making known to him also that there are invisible powers more fearful than bears and lions, which would tear his flock asunder, which would bring each separate sheep into the valley of the shadow of death.—Maurice.
1 Samuel 16:14. The Power of darkness, which is personal, and in souls in the condition of that in which Saul’s now was, finds all open for his operations, wrought in him with greater energy to deepen yet more and more that dreadful gulf which separated the king from Jehovah, eternally enthroned in the heavens; yea, to increase the estrangement of the miserable man from God yet more and more till it became a demoniacal hatred of God.—Krummacher.
In regard to the negative or privative declaration that “the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Samuel,” we may take it to mean that God withdrew from him all those special aids which, in connection with his anointing to the royal office, had been conferred upon him. Perhaps, also, we may include in it the taking from him of those gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, without which a man becomes, in the saddest and solemnest of all senses, “abandoned.” This is what Paul has described as a “being given over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:28), and what, in the simple Saxon of our common speech, we call, “a being left to one’s self.” The Saviour has said, “From him that hath not shall be taken away even that he hath.” Now, in Saul, we have a deeply suggestive instance of the execution of this sentence.—Dr. W. M. Taylor.
Man is governed by the Spirit from above, or by the spirit from beneath; there is no third course. For he is as little isolated in the invisible as in the visible world; he must be part of the organism of the one or the other of the invisible worlds; he belongs either to the kingdom of light or to the kingdom of darkness; he is guided either by the Spirit of the Lord or by the evil spirit, according as he decides for a permanent attitude of heart and direction of will to this side or that.—Lange’s Commentary.
Whether any more be meant by this than that God, for Saul’s hardened impenitence, withdrew His restraining and guiding grace, and left him a prey to his own passions, I cannot take upon me to say. This only I am sure of, that no man living needs a heavier chastisement from Almighty God than the letting his own passions loose upon him. The consequence to the mind, I apprehend, would in that case be much the same as it would be to the body, if the restraining power of the air were removed, and all the muscles, vessels, and humours left to the full freedom of their own powers and tendencies.—Delany.
1 Samuel 16:15; 1 Samuel 16:18. Does not the penetration of these people excite our surprise? Are we not astonished at the far-reaching enlightenment which they manifest of the existence of a world of fallen spirits, whom Jehovah is wont to make use of, not seldom, for putting to trial His own people, as well as for visiting with punishment the wicked? Must we not conclude that they were indeed already acquainted with the book of Job, and that it was a constituent part of their holy canonical books? An Israelite adhered to his Bible under all circumstances, even when he was destitute of spiritual life and his conduct was condemned by it … They recommend to him the power of music as a means for relieving his mind, but with a wise discriminating judgment regarding its character.… The servants knew well the power of music to produce, according to its kind and quality, not less the most depraved than the holiest impressions. Music can unfetter the most destructive passions; but it can also, at least for a time, tame and mitigate the wildest storms of the human heart.… The music which the servants of the king thought of was not that which pleases the world, and which only opens the door to unclean spirits, but such as, animated by a nobler inspiration, might insensibly elevate the soul by its harmonious melody, as on angel’s wings, towards heaven. They thought of the harp, then the most solemn instrument of music, and on the melodies which were wont to sound forth in the sanctuary at the time of the sacred festivals of Israel.—Krummacher.
If they had said, “Sir, you know that this evil comes from that God whom you have offended, there can be no hope but in reconcilement … labour your peace with Him by a serious humiliation, make means to Samuel to further the atonement,” they had been wise counsellors, divine physicians: whereas now, they do but skin over the sore, and leave it rankled at the bottom. The cure must ever proceed in the same steps with the disease, else in vain we shall seem to heal: there is no safety in the redress of evils but to strike at the root.—Bp. Hall.
We see here, distinctly marked, these two things, the plan of God and the liberty of man.… David, in his devotion to his harp, had no thought of thereby rising to the royal favour; the servant who mentioned his name to Saul had no idea of the fact that he was already anointed to be Saul’s successor; yet each, in his own way, and by working out the choice of his own free will, was helping on the fulfilment of the purposes of God. So it is still, the only difference being that, in ordinary history, we are not always thus permitted to see the different agencies at work.—Dr. W. M. Taylor.