1 Samuel 18:11

“On the morrow” ties this scene to the day before. David has killed Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and has succeeded wherever Saul sent him (1 Samuel 18:5). Then the women came out singing, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,” and Saul was angry and eyed David from that day forward (1 Samuel 18:6–9). One night later the envy in his heart turns to violence.

David is in the room doing what he has always done. He “played with his hand, as at other times”, the service he first took up when his music refreshed Saul and the evil spirit departed from him (1 Samuel 16:23). People ask why David kept playing with a weapon in the king’s hand. Playing for Saul was the duty he had been given, and he went on doing it faithfully, trusting his life to God. His calm stands beside Saul’s frenzy, and the two men could hardly look more different.

The javelin is a chănîyth (the word is also written chanith), a spear or lance. It was the king’s own weapon, and Saul is found with it in his hand again when he makes a second attempt on David (1 Samuel 19:9–10). A king’s spear was for defending Israel. Saul turns it on the man who has just delivered Israel from its great enemy.

Saul’s words leave his purpose plain: “I will smite David even to the wall with it.” The verb nakah means to strike, and it covers anything from a blow to a killing. “Even to the wall” settles which he means, since he intends to pin David there dead. Why did Saul try to kill him? Envy had been working in him since the women’s song, and Scripture warns how far envy goes: “who is able to stand before envy?” (Proverbs 27:4), and where envying and strife are, there is confusion and every evil work (James 3:16).

“And David avoided out of his presence twice.” The Hebrew behind “twice” uses pa’am, a word for a time or an instance, and the phrase for avoiding him is literally that David turned aside from Saul’s face. So the attempt was made, and escaped, two times over. David was quick, and behind his quickness stood the God who had chosen him: “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Psalm 34:7). The pattern holds through all the years that follow, when Saul sought David every day, “but God delivered him not into his hand” (1 Samuel 23:14). David, for his part, gets out of the way and strikes no blow in return, which is the path Paul later lays down when he tells us to leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19).

Verse 12 gives the reason in its own words: “because the LORD was with him, and was departed from Saul.” The word for afraid here, yârê, is the one often used for reverence toward God, and in this verse it is plain dread. The name of God is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name, so the presence with David and the absence from Saul are the deliberate acts of Israel’s God. “Departed” is çûwr, to turn aside or withdraw.

The LORD departed from Saul because Saul had repeatedly disobeyed him. He offered the burnt offering at Gilgal when he should have waited for Samuel (1 Samuel 13:8–14), and he spared King Agag and the best of the Amalekite livestock when God had commanded their destruction (1 Samuel 15:1–9). Meanwhile Samuel anointed David, and the Spirit of the LORD came upon him from that day forward (1 Samuel 16:13).

Saul could see that the LORD was with David. David prospered wherever he was sent, and before he faced Goliath he had declared openly that the battle is the LORD’s (1 Samuel 17:45–47). Saul also knew from the inside what God’s presence was like, having once had it himself, and he now felt its absence. In Israel a king’s authority rested on God’s presence with him, so Saul understood what the change meant for his throne.

Scripture speaks this way of others. “The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man,” and his Egyptian master saw it (Genesis 39:2–3). Samson woke to fight the Philistines unaware that the LORD was departed from him (Judges 16:20). David himself, after his own great sin, prayed, “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).

“Therefore Saul removed him from him.” The verb is çûwr again, the word used a verse earlier for the LORD departing from Saul. The man whom God has left now puts away from himself the man whom God is with. He makes David a sar, a captain or chief, over an ʼeleph, a thousand men, which was a high rank in Israel’s army.

The appointment looks like an honour, and Saul meant it otherwise. David’s presence at court was a daily reminder of what Saul had lost, and a command in the field took him out of sight. It also placed him where the Philistines might kill him or a defeat might disgrace him. The plan worked against its maker. “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). Promotion comes from God, who puts down one and sets up another (Psalm 75:6–7), and all things work together for good to them that love him (Romans 8:28).

Verse 14 sums up David’s whole conduct in this dangerous season. The name Dâvid comes from a root meaning loving, and he is the one Samuel had spoken of when he said the LORD had sought a man after his own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). The verb sâkal means to be wise or to have understanding, and it also means to prosper, so the phrase carries both good sense and the good outcome that follows it. “Ways” is derek, a road, used here for a person’s course of life. “In all his ways” takes in his command, his dealings at court and everything else he put his hand to.

The verse then gives the cause: “and the LORD was with him.” The passage has already said so in verse 12, and it says it again here, so that we trace David’s wisdom to its source. This is the blessing of the man in the first psalm, whose delight is in the law of the LORD and who prospers in whatever he does (Psalm 1:1–3), and the promise of the proverb: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Verse 15 shows Saul watching. He sees that David behaves “very wisely”, the same verb sâkal strengthened by mᵉʼôd, “very” or “exceedingly”, and “he was afraid of him.” This verse shares the English word “afraid” with verse 12, but the Hebrew word is a different one, gûwr, which can mean to shrink back in dread. A wise and successful servant should have been a king’s joy. To Saul, cut off from God, David’s wisdom was a threat, and he was caught in what the proverb describes: “The fear of man bringeth a snare” (Proverbs 29:25). David stood on the other side of that proverb, with the confidence of the psalm, “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” (Psalm 118:6).

The passage closes with a “But” that sets the whole nation against its king. Saul fears David, and everyone else loves him. The verb ʼâhab means to love, to have affection for someone. “All Israel and Judah” names the northern tribes and the southern tribe together, so David’s welcome reached across the lines that often divided the tribes.

The reason is the idiom of verse 13 once more: “because he went out and came in before them.” The people loved David because they saw him. He led them into battle and brought them home, and his work was done in the open among them. Their love was the fruit of God’s blessing on a faithful servant, as it was for the first believers in Jerusalem, who had favour with all the people (Acts 2:46–47). It is also the very thing that had stung Saul in the women’s song, and it will keep feeding his envy.

David’s story here runs ahead to Jesus Christ, the son of David (Matthew 1:1). David’s music gave a troubled king relief for a while. Jesus cast out spirits with his word (Matthew 8:16), came to set at liberty them that are bruised (Luke 4:18), and triumphed over principalities and powers at the cross (Colossians 2:15). Those whom the Son makes free are free indeed (John 8:36).

Like David, Jesus was hunted by those in power. Herod tried to kill him as a child (Matthew 2:16). He came to his own and his own received him not (John 1:11). People were astonished at his teaching and asked where he had got such wisdom (Matthew 7:28–29, Matthew 13:54), and the rulers, like Saul, feared his standing with the people and took counsel against him (John 11:47–48). Pilate knew that they had delivered him up for envy (Matthew 27:18). For a time he passed out of their reach, as David did, “because his hour was not yet come” (John 7:30). Then, where David was kept from the spear, Jesus gave himself to be wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5), and God raised him and made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36).

What was said of David is true of Jesus in full. The LORD was with David, and the Spirit of the LORD rested on Jesus as Isaiah foretold (Isaiah 11:2), given to him without measure (John 3:34). He could say, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and that the Father dwelling in him did the works (John 14:10). Even the unclean spirits knew him as the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24). David behaved wisely, and Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Saul was rejected for disobedience, and Jesus was obedient unto death and has been highly exalted (Philippians 2:8–11), the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:8–9).

David went out and came in before the people, and Jesus did so more closely than any captain. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and he taught in the synagogues of Galilee in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14–15). He is the captain of our salvation (Hebrews 2:10) and the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11). He now makes intercession for us at the right hand of God (Romans 8:34), King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

This passage sets two men side by side so that we can see what the presence of God is worth. Saul had the crown, the court and the spear, and he lived in fear. David had a harp and then a hard posting, and he prospered in all his ways. The difference lay in whom the LORD was with.

It also shows us where envy leads. Saul’s trouble began with a song he resented, and within a day there was a javelin in the air. God has shown us this so that we would take another person’s blessing as his gift and be glad of it.

And it shows God keeping his servant. The spear missed twice, the dangerous command became the road to the people’s love, and every plan Saul made carried David nearer the throne. The same God rules over what others intend against us. What David knew for a season, Christ has promised to his people for good: “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20).