Samuel and Saul
73
because the people all esteemed and loved David, Saul was afraid to
openly harm him.
Through the influence of the people, David was promoted to take
charge of the business connected with warfare. He was leader in all
their important enterprises. As Saul saw that David had won the love
and confidence of the people, he hated him, for he thought that he was
preferred before him. He watched an opportunity to slay him, and
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when the evil spirit was upon him, and David played before him as
usual, to soothe his troubled mind, he tried to kill him by throwing
with force a sharp-pointed instrument at his heart. Angels of God
preserved the life of David. They made him to understand what was
the purpose of Saul, and as the instrument was hurled at him, he sprang
one side, and received no harm, while the instrument was driven deep
in the wall where David had been sitting.
The people of Israel were now made to feel their peculiar position.
They had daily evidence that God had left Saul to his own guilty course,
and they were commanded by a ruler who dared to commit murder,
and slay a righteous person whom the Lord had chosen to save them.
And by the cruel acts of Saul they were having living evidences to
what extremes of guilt and crime a king might go who rebelled against
God, and was governed by his own passions.
David had obeyed Saul as a servant, and his conduct was humble.
His life was irreproachable. His faithfulness in doing the will of God
was a constant rebuke to Saul’s extravagant, rebellious course. Saul
determined to leave no means untried, that David might be slain. As
long as Saul lived, this was the great object of his life, notwithstanding
he was compelled to ascribe to the providence of God the escape of
David from his hands. Yet his heart was destitute of the love of God,
and he was a self-idolater. To his pride and ambition, true honor,
justice, and humanity were sacrificed. He hunted David as a wild
beast. David often had Saul in his power, and was urged by the men
whom he commanded to slay him. Although David knew that he was
chosen of God as ruler in Israel, yet he would not lift his hand against
Saul, whom God had anointed. He chose to find an asylum among the
Philistines. He made even his enemies to be at peace with him by his
prudent, humble course, with whom he remained until the death of
Saul.