And he said unto him, Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth.
Ver. 17. And I shall be next unto thee.] In heaven he might be, but not on earth, because prevented by death; but otherwise they might have lived together in as great unity and unanimity as did lately Frederick and John, dukes of Saxony; who as they dwelt both in one and the same house, so their mutual love grew to the last, in utriusque periculis et gravissimis deliberationibus, saith mine author, a dum omnia in rep. communicatis sententiis constituebant; so that they did nothing in the commonwealth without one another's counsel and consent. Those that say, as some do, that Jonathan is next unto David in heaven, have as little assurance of it as those that tell us - but who told them? - that John Baptist, for his humility, Mat 3:11 hath the same place in heaven that Lucifer lost by his pride.
a Exner.