Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD thy God will be with thee.
As an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad. 'Though this expression,' says Harmer ('Observations,' 3:, p. 496), 'may be imputed to the hyperbolical genius of the East, yet there was perhaps more of real persuasion than we are apt to suppose in the woman of Tekoah's comparison of David to a superior being. Sir John Chardin says that, having found fault with the king of Persia's valuation of a rich trinket, the grand master (of ceremonies) told him, that if a Persian had dared to have done such a thing, it would have been as much as his life was worth. "Know," said he "that the kings of Persia have a general and full knowledge of matters, as sure as it is extensive; and that equally in the greatest and the smallest things there is nothing more fast and sure than what they pronounce."'