CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
2 Samuel 1:6. “The chariots and horsemen.” It has been remarked that it is extremely unlikely that chariots and horsemen, pursued the Israelites on to the mountains, and this statement has been generally regarded as a part of the falsehood of the whole story, which is throughout at variance with the account in the last chapter.
2 Samuel 1:7. “Here am I,” etc. This statement also, as Kiel remarks, has about it the air of untruth, for it is extremely improbable that Saul would have no Israelite by his side to whom to address his request.
2 Samuel 1:9. “Anguish.” From a verb meaning to interweave, or work together; hence some translate “My cuirass hindereth me,” etc., but Keil, Erdmann, Kunchi, and others cramp. Gesenius reads, giddiness, vertigo.
2 Samuel 1:10. “Crown,” rather diadem, “A small metallic cap or wreath, which encircled the temples, serving the purpose of a helmet, with a very small horn projecting in front, as the emblem of power.” “Bracelet,” i.e., “the armlet worn above the elbow, an ancient mark of royal dignity.” (Jamieson.)
2 Samuel 1:12. “The people of Jehovah” and the House of Israel are distinguished from one another, according to the twofold attitude of Israel, which furnished a double ground for mourning. Those who had fallen were first of all members of the people of Jehovah, and secondly, fellow-countrymen. (Ked.) “They were, therefore, associated with them both according to the flesh and according to the spirit, and for that reason they mourned the more.” (Schmidt.)
2 Samuel 1:13. “A Stranger,” etc, i.e. “An Amalekite who had emigrated to Israel.” (Keil). Although most Bible students regard the Amalekite’s story as untrue, yet Josephus adopts it. Wordsworth thinks it may be supplementary to the former account, and that though Saul was the author of his own death, inasmuch as he did what he could to destroy himself, yet he was despatched at last by the Amalekite, and remarks, “If the story be true, it is worthy of remark that Saul owed his death to one of that nation of Amalek, which he had been commanded by God to destroy.”
2 Samuel 1:15-16. Although some commentators think that this action of David was a political one, most believe that he was moved by a higher motive, and that according to Erdmann “he acted theocratically with perfect justice in slaying with holy anger the murderer of the Lord’s anointed.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Samuel 1:1-16
THE DECEIVER DECEIVED
I. Those who plan to deceive others are often deceived by means of their own plan. This is a principle of Divine working which is continually manifesting itself. When the sons of Jacob laid a plot to rid themselves of their brother, and to prevent the fulfilment of his dreams, the deception which they thus practised on their father was the first step by which Joseph ascended to the rulership of Egypt. In the case before us we have a man who, having conceived a plan of deception, brought it forth in falsehood, hoping thereby to gain a great reward. But this scheme of his, instead of bringing him the praise and the preferment for which it had been planned, brought him the condemnation and death which his deception merited as much as the deed for which David judged and punished him.
II. Bad men judge others by their own moral standard. The untoward issue of this plan of the Amalekite arose from his mismeasurement of the man with whom he had to deal. He knew what his own feelings would be if he were in David’s case, and had no other rule by which to judge actions except the amount of fancied good or ill they brought to himself. So is it with all bad men. Their own supposed interest is the measure of all things—self is first, and often last, and if righteousness and mercy mingle at all with their plans and purposes, it is only when they do not hinder the main object of their existence. Hence they cannot understand a man who sorrows over anything that is not a personal and material loss, and still more are they puzzled to comprehend him who is displeased at a deed which brings him gain, or who grieves over the fall of others when that fall is a stepping-stone to his own elevation. This heathen of the olden time was not farther removed from David’s stand-point of action than men of the world now are from that of the spiritual man.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
David’s course in this matter was the best policy for him; but we have no right to conclude from that fact that he was led to it by considerations of policy. He had himself shown, on an occasion of great temptation, that reverence for the Lord’s anointed of which he here speaks. The fact that “honesty is the best policy” will not of itself alone make a man honest; but neither does it prevent a man’s being honest, or give us a right to suspect a good man’s motives.—Transr. of Lange’s Commentary.
David had been long waiting for the crown, and now it is brought him by an Amalekite. See how God can serve his own purpose of kindness to his people, even by designing men who aim at nothing but to set up themselves.—Henry.
There is something very humiliating—something peculiarly distressing, because felt to be deeply degrading, in this very circumstance of having been so misunderstood and misjudged as to have been supposed capable of finding gratification in acting out principles which rule minds of another order, and of sympathising with the courses to which these principles conduct. There is scarcely a trial which is more hard to endure, or which pierces the heart with so deep a pang, than thus to find one’s self standing in the estimation of a man whose feelings and principles are low, on that same low platform which marks his own moral position, and side by side with himself.—Miller.