Let our lord now command thy servants, [which are] before thee, to seek out a man, [who is] a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.
Ver. 16. Let our lord now command.] Here the good providence of God beginneth to work for the bringing of David to the court, that he might appear to be a man fit to govern the kingdom, to wear that diadem whereunto his head was destinated after Saul's death.
And thou shalt be well.] Thy melancholy malady shall be much mitigated and allayed by the music, and the voice of the sacred hymn sung therewith shall cause an intermission of Satan's work. Although it may well be thought that Saul's counsellors and courtiers took care only for his corporal ease; for else they would have advised him in the first place to send for Samuel to have prayed for him, and with him, and advised him the best way for his soul. Without this, music and other such like diversions would work but a palliate cure, and be but as a cup of cold water to him that is in a high fever. Charles IX of France, after the Parisian massacre acted by him upon his Protestant subjects, was so haunted by the furies of his own evil conscience, that he could neither sleep nor waken without music, which what was it else but the devil's anodyne, or whistle, to call him off from the practice of repentance, that would soon have settled his mind by that peace of God which passeth all understanding! But this was hid from his eyes. a
a Thuan., lib. lvii.