David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul, saying, My lord the king. And when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed himself.
David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul. The closeness of the precipitous cliffs, though divided by deep wadies, and the transparent purity of the air, enable a person standing on one rock to hear distinctly the words uttered by a speaker standing on another (Judges 9:7). The expostulation of David, followed by the visible tokens he furnished of his cherishing no evil design against either the person or the government of the king, even when he had the monarch in his power, smote the heart of Saul in a moment, and disarmed him of his fell purpose of revenge. He owned the justice of what David said, acknowledged his own guilt, and begged kindness to his house. He seems to have been naturally susceptible of strong, and, as in this instance, of good and grateful impressions. The improvement on his temper, indeed, was but transient-his language that of a man overwhelmed by the force of impetuous emotions, and constrained to admire the conduct and esteem the character of one whom he hated and dreaded. But God overruled it for ensuring the present escape of David. Consider his language and behaviour. This language, "a dead dog, a flea" - terms by which, like Eastern people, he strongly expressed a sense of his lowliness, and the entire committal of his cause to Him who alone is the judge of human actions, and to whom vengeance belongeth-his steady repulse of the vindictive counsels of his followers, the relentings of heart which he felt even for the apparent indignity he had done to the person of the Lord's anointed, and the respectful homage he had paid the jealous tyrant who had set a price on his head-evince the magnanimity of a great and good man, and strikingly illustrate the spirit and energy of his prayer 'when he was in the cave.' (Ps
142.)