1 Samuel 24

1Sa 24:1-7.

DAVID IN A

CAVE AT

ENGEDI

CUTS

OFF

SAUL'S

SKIRT, BUT

SPARES

HIS

LIFE.

2. Saul . . . went . . . to seek David . . . upon the rocks of the

wild goats--Nothing but the blind infatuation of fiendish rage

could have led the king to pursue his outlawed son-in-law among those

craggy and perpendicular precipices, where were inaccessible hiding

places. The large force he took with him seemed to give him every

prospect of success. But the overruling providence of God frustrated

all his vigilance.

3. he came to the sheepcotes--most probably in the upper ridge

of Wady Chareitun. There a large cave--I am quite disposed to say

the cave--lies hardly five minutes to the east of the village

ruin, on the south side of the wady. It is high upon the side of the

calcareous rock, and it has undergone no change since David's time. The

same narrow natural vaulting at the entrance; the same huge natural

chamber in the rock, probably the place where Saul lay down to rest in

the heat of the day; the same side vaults, too, where David and his men

were concealed. There, accustomed to the obscurity of the cavern, they

saw Saul enter, while, blinded by the glare of the light outside, he

saw nothing of him whom he so bitterly persecuted.

4-7. the men of David said . . . Behold the day of which the Lord said

unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand--God had

never made any promise of delivering Saul into David's hand; but, from

the general and repeated promises of the kingdom to him, they concluded

that the king's death was to be effected by taking advantage of some

such opportunity as the present. David steadily opposed the urgent

instigations of his followers to put an end to his and their troubles

followed their advice, but David rather wished to overcome evil with

good, and heap coals of fire upon his head); he, however, cut off a

fragment from the skirt of the royal robe. It is easy to imagine how

this dialogue could be carried on and David's approach to the king's

person could have been effected without arousing suspicion. The bustle

and noise of Saul's military men and their beasts, the number of cells

or divisions in these immense caverns (and some of them far interior)

being enveloped in darkness, while every movement could be seen at the

cave's mouth--the probability that the garment David cut from might

have been a loose or upper cloak lying on the ground, and that Saul

might have been asleep--these facts and presumptions will be sufficient

to account for the incidents detailed.

1Sa 24:8-15.

HE

URGES

THEREBY

HIS

INNOCENCY.

8-15. David also arose . . . 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

(Jud 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 of 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 behavior. 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 belongs, 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 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 142:1).