The verse belongs to the account of David's rise at Saul's court, when Saul kept David with him while Jonathan became David's close friend and made a covenant with him. Saul began watching David in this way after hearing the people praise David more highly than himself. From that day onward Saul regarded David with lasting jealousy and suspicion as a rival. He feared David would take the kingdom rather than trusting God's purposes for Israel. His jealousy moved him to look for an opportunity to kill David.
The verse displays Saul's divided character of combined strength and weakness. Though gifted with talent, he failed to consecrate it wholly to God, dishonored himself by transgression, and worked at cross-purposes with God, with good and evil ever colliding as evil strove for supremacy. At times he showed simplicity, tenderness and sympathy toward those who pleased him, and under sacred music he would enter into devotion with impassioned eloquence in praise and prayer without rest day or night until exhausted. Then reaction came and he revealed his old jealous and overbearing disposition, becoming unjust and cruel toward his best friends and furious in word and deed when his will was crossed, dishonoring himself and still more God.
The verse belongs to the account of David's rise at Saul's court, when Saul kept David with him while Jonathan became David's close friend and made a covenant with him. Saul began watching David in this way after hearing the people praise David more highly than himself. From that day onward Saul regarded David with lasting jealousy and suspicion as a rival. He feared David would take the kingdom rather than trusting God's purposes for Israel. His jealousy moved him to look for an opportunity to kill David.
The verse displays Saul's divided character of combined strength and weakness. Though gifted with talent, he failed to consecrate it wholly to God, dishonored himself by transgression, and worked at cross-purposes with God, with good and evil ever colliding as evil strove for supremacy. At times he showed simplicity, tenderness and sympathy toward those who pleased him, and under sacred music he would enter into devotion with impassioned eloquence in praise and prayer without rest day or night until exhausted. Then reaction came and he revealed his old jealous and overbearing disposition, becoming unjust and cruel toward his best friends and furious in word and deed when his will was crossed, dishonoring himself and still more God.