A Difficulty in David's History Explained.
Here, too, we had an opportunity of witnessing, more than once, incidents of a kind that forcibly reminded us of scenes in the Scripture history of David, by which readers ignorant of the country in which they happened, may have been often not a little perplexed. When David was hiding in the wilderness of Ziph, an opportunity presented itself of slaying King Saul as he lay asleep in the night, unconscious of any danger being near. Too generous to avail himself of the advantages that had come so unexpectedly and so temptingly in his way, David, nevertheless, resolved to show how completely his persecutor had been in his power. Stealing noiselessly into Saul's camp, accompanied by a single follower, and passing unobserved through the midst of the drowsy guards, David "took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul's bolster; and they got them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither awaked: for they were all asleep." 1 Samuel xxvi, 12. Having performed this daring exploit, he and his attendant, Abishai, "went over to the other side, and stood on the top of a hill afar off, a great space being between them." Having got to this safe distance from the relentless enemy, David is represented in the sacred history as proceeding to address Abner, the leader of Saul's host, and to taunt him with his unsoldier-like want of vigilance in leaving his royal master exposed to the hazard of being slain in the very midst of his own camp. What is apt to appear strange in this narrative, is the fact that these hostile parties should have been near enough to carry on the conversation which the narrative describes, and yet that all the while the one should have been entirely beyond the reach of the other. That all this, however, was both possible and easy, was verified in our presence. As we were riding cautiously along the face of the hill, our attention was suddenly arrested by the voice of a shepherd, who was evidently calling to some one whom we could not see, but whose answer we distinctly heard. The dialogue went on. Another and another sentence was slowly and sonorously uttered by the shepherd near us, and as often the response was distinctly given. At length, guided by the sound, we descried, far up the confronting hill, the source of the second voice in the person of another shepherd; and learned from our Arab attendants that they were talking to each other about their flocks. Between these two men was the deep crevasse formed by the valley of the Kedron, walled in by lofty precipices, which no human foot could scale. It would probably have taken a full hour for one, even as fleet and as strong-winded as an Asael to pass from the standing-place of one speaker to that of the other; and yet they were exchanging words with perfect ease. The mystery of the dramatic scene in the wilderness of Ziph was at an end; and we were reminded at the same time of an important truth, that in dealing with the sacred Scripture, ignorance often makes difficulties which a larger knowledge and a deeper intelligence would at once remove. As we moved along the hill-face, dialogues of the same kind once and again attracted our notice, showing plainly that these trans-valline colloquies are of common occurrence. The facility of hearing was no doubt increased by the extreme stillness of the air, and by the voice being at once confined and thrown back by the steep sides of the hill.