Saul and David by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 20, 1883

Saul and David.

By John Nevins Andrews

THE conduct of Saul toward David was in the highest degree wicked and inexcusable. David was the most faithful and the most efficient of the servants of Saul. Every duty committed to his trust by Saul was at once performed without the neglect of a single thing, however small. 1 Sam. 18:5, 14, 15. Moreover, the conduct of David was so wise that all his enterprises were successful. He never turned aside from his duty toward the king, and he never permitted others to be disobedient when it was in his power to prevent their disobedience. David feared God and honored the king. He was just towards Saul in all his words and in all his acts, and he was true toward him in all the motives of his heart. No man ever served another with greater faithfulness than that with which David served Saul. 1 Sam. 18:30.

Nevertheless, Saul was the relentless enemy of David. He hated him with a hatred that knew no bounds. He made it his principal object during a long period to seek the life of David. He sought his life by pretended acts of friendship, and he even attempted to assassinate him with his own hand. 1 Sam. 18:6–12, 20, 21. He never desisted from his murderous purpose till he was himself slain in battle with the Philistines. 1 Sam. 31:1–6.

What was it that inspired the heart of Saul with the disposition to murder the noblest and most faithful of his servants? What prompted him to slay a man in whose conduct he could find no fault, and on whose faithfulness and perfect integrity he could always rely? It was envy, that base principle which caused the patriarchs

to sell Joseph into Egypt, and which caused Cain to kill Abel. Acts 7:9; 1 John 3:12; 1 Sam. 18:7, 8, 12.

Saul was at this time one of the most wicked men in all Israel. Having sold himself to work wickedness, he went on from bad to worse. He had ample time to reflect upon the fact that David had never done him any injustice, and that he was wholly innocent of any wrong toward the king. But he cherished murder in his heart, and he never desisted from the attempt to slay his faithful servant, though he knew that he had no provocation and no excuse for this terrible crime.

When the people of Israel demanded a king, God was not willing to grant their request. He knew that when men are elevated to this high honor, and when they become possessed of absolute power over others, they are in the utmost danger of becoming lifted up with pride, and of forgetting the rights of others in the exercise of tyrannical power over them. For this reason God was unwilling to establish a royal family in Israel, but chose to govern his people by judges, whom he should choose from time to time, and who should derive their power direct from Heaven. But the people persisted in demanding a king, and God granted their request. 1 Sam. 8.

God made choice of Saul to be the first king of Israel. There is no reason to doubt that he was, for his humility and general excellence, the fittest man in the whole nation to be elevated to this dangerous distinction. 1 Sam. 9:1, 15–17, 20, 21; 10:20–26; 15:17. But a few years of supreme power developed in Saul those evil principles that were, in process of time, his absolute ruin. He feared to enter upon his office of king, knowing his own weakness, and trembling lest he should forget God and fall into sin. Oh that he had always kept the fear of God before him! Oh that he had never ceased to watch and pray!

But little by little he departed from God. He lost the tenderness of his conscience; he lost his sense of accountability; he lost his humility and became great in his own eyes; he lost his sense of uprightness and became tyrannical. In particular he lost his sense of dependence on God, and became rash and self-sufficient. Thus, when God wrought a great deliverance for Israel by the hand of Jonathan, Saul dared to make a rash decree, sentencing to death any that should taste food that day. And because Jonathan, who knew nothing of this decree, tasted of a honey-comb, he even sentenced him to death. 1 Sam. 14. Finally, when he was sent to destroy the Amalekites, he dared to directly transgress the commandment of God. 1 Sam. 15.

Then God announced to him that he had chosen a man to fill his place, and that he would give the kingdom to that man. When, therefore, David became distinguished for his victory over the Philistines, and for his eminent services to the nation, Saul was impressed that this noble young man was the one whom God had chosen to take his place. 1 Sam. 18:5–17. Jonathan had the same convictions as his father that David was called of God to fill the throne of Israel, and Jonathan acquiesced in the choice which God had made, for he had so much of the grace of God as to be raised above the weakness of human nature. 1 Sam. 23:17. But Saul was wholly incapable of submitting to God. Evil reigned in his heart, and the Spirit of God had departed from him.

When we read the long history of his wicked career, recorded in the book of first Samuel (chapters 14–31), we are astonished that a man who was once the humble servant of God could ever become so eminent in wickedness. Thus, on one occasion, he caused Nob, a city of the priests, to be utterly destroyed, with all its inhabitants and even its domestic animals, because David had received some favor in that city, though no one in the city had any thought that by this act of mercy they would displease Saul. 1 Sam. 22:9–19.

The ruin of Saul is a solemn warning to us. He began well, but he ended, as we have every reason to fear, in total apostasy. He could not bear prosperity. He could not support his high honors without becoming lifted up with pride. He could not become possessed with power over the lives and the property of others without becoming a tyrant. It would be more correct to say that though he could have done all these things through the grace of Christ, he nevertheless wholly failed to do them. Phil. 4:12, 13.

Many Christians when adversity comes upon them realize that it is a call from God to humble themselves before him. But there are very few indeed who understand that in prosperity there is even greater need that we should humble ourselves than there is when we suffer from adversity. Prosperity caused Saul to forget God. This was the fatal error of that unhappy king. When God poured his blessing into the bosom of Saul, the king should have said to God: “I am not worthy of the least of these mercies; teach me how to use them for the good of others.” And when God conferred on him the honors of the kingdom, Saul should have said: “O Lord I am but dust and ashes, let me never become exalted in pride.” And when he found that he had power over the lives and the property of others, he should have prayed God to keep him from becoming a tyrant.

We should not be too ready to censure Saul. He yielded to great temptations, but we yield to lesser ones of the same character. How often do we forget God when he favors us with a little prosperity! How often when God confers some honor on us do we take the glory to ourselves, instead of giving it to God! And even when others are by providential events brought into our power and under our control, how apt we are to exercise tyranny over them, and to make them submit to us, however disagreeable it may be to them! King Saul was a good illustration of the character of the old man. We must never forget that those in whose lives this evil nature reigns will never enter the kingdom of God, unless the grace of God shall first wholly change their character.

It seems a strange providence that permitted David during so long a period to be so cruelly persecuted by Saul. No doubt he was many times tempted to murmur against God that such calamities should come upon him. But to us the explanation is not difficult, and in it all we see the wisdom and the goodness of God. David had been chosen of God to succeed Saul in the throne of Israel. David was a mortal man exposed to temptations, and in danger of sinning against God precisely as Saul had sinned. The wisdom of God therefore permitted David to suffer from the pride, the cruelty, and the tyranny of Saul, that David might know from personal experience how terrible are the sufferings that a wicked king may inflict upon those over whom he reigns, and that he might never inflict upon others the injustice which he suffered from Saul. We have reason to believe that David profited by his bitter experience of the tyranny of Saul, and that he did not forget the lesson which he thus learned, that he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 2 Sam. 23:3.

God teaches us to be merciful toward the erring by permitting others to be cruel toward us when we commit errors. We wonder sometimes at our afflictions when we have committed faults. We think it strange that others judge us so harshly and are so exacting and so severe. God permits us to experience injustice and cruelty that we may be merciful toward others who erred. When we have erred, it is our duty to correct that error with the utmost care, and with the deepest repentance. When others have erred, it is our duty to show compassion whenever we see any signs of repentance, and to extend with tenderness a helping hand to lift up those who desire to return to God. We may be severe toward ourselves because of our faults, but we must be merciful toward others. J. N. A.