ANNOUNCER: David was being pursued by King Saul. King Saul wanted to kill David. But what is amazing is that David had an opportunity to take Saul’s life twice, but didn’t do it. Why would he not do it knowing that God had already anointed him as the next king of Israel? And what can we learn from it? Thank you, friend, for being here today. We’re delighted to have you. This is Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. We have a magazine, it is also called Grace in Focus. It is a full-length magazine, full-color, great presentation, great articles, and we want you to have it for free. Free means free, all except if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States, you do need to pay the postage. Other than that free, we do want you to have it. Get signed up for it today at faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. 

Now then with today’s question and answer discussion here are Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling. 

BOB: Well, Philippe, we’ve been talking about 1 Samuel and we’ve been talking about Saul, and we’ve mentioned a little bit about David. I thought this time we might ask the question, what can we learn from the incident where, on multiple occasions, David spared the life of King Saul. It seems like the Lord delivered Saul into his hands. He easily could have killed him. And if he had, the kingdom would have come to him right then, instead, David didn’t do that. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, David kept affirming that Saul was anointed by God, and it wasn’t for him to be guilty of insurrection and do away where Saul and put himself on the throne, patiently waiting on God to work out all of that. 

BOB: Which was kind of unlike some of the things with Saul where Saul didn’t wait for the full seven days, you know, that kind of thing. But what does the Hebrew word for anointed, what is that Hebrew word? 

PHILIPPE: This is the word that we will get in the Greek Christ, the Hebrew will be mashiach, the Messiah. 

BOB: That means the anointed one. 

PHILIPPE: Right. It’s just anointed one and it does refer, of course, to the anointing with oil, but representing also the Holy Spirit, I think. 

BOB: Because the kings were anointed with oil. And in the Royal Enthronement Psalms, they would say, Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee. And that’s not only going to be said of the Lord Jesus at the beginning of the Millennium, but that was said of all the Judean kings, wasn’t it? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, well, Saul was anointed by Samuel to be king. And then David in 1 Samuel chapter 16, at the instruction of Yahweh, he does find, ultimately, David, brought to him and anoints him to be king. And then all the Judean kings would be acknowledged as the anointed. 

BOB: And they were all sons of David, as part of the Davidic covenant that David’s son would be God’s son. David’s son would be God’s representative.

PHILIPPE: Solomon was called God’s son, as David was, as in Psalm 2, today I have anointed you and do homage to the son. 

BOB: Right. And ultimately, there’s David’s greatest son. That’s why when Jesus was doing His ministry on earth, many people, remember the blind man calls him son of David because he is the Messiah and son of David’s a messianic title, son of God’s a Messianic title, son of man from Daniel chapter 7 is a messianic title. 

But even though Saul was carnally minded at this point, Saul was still Messiah at this point, he was the anointed one. 

PHILIPPE: He was the one ruling over the kingdom. 

BOB: But he wasn’t the final Messiah. In fact, it turns out he isn’t even in the line of Messiah because David is Judean. And David is part of the line of Judah. And we know from Genesis 49. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, verse 10 there that the rulership will not be taken from, the scepter won’t depart from Judah, 

BOB: Until Shiloh comes. So even though Saul was not exactly in the line of Messiah, yet he did represent Messiah on earth during his kingship. And therefore, David was not comfortable, not only wasn’t he comfortable taking his life, but let’s talk about the incident where he cuts off just a little piece of his robe. Do you have that passage? 

PHILIPPE: Yes, this would be 1 Samuel chapter 24. Saul had come back from the Philistines and then he pursues David and takes 3,000 off his chosen men and goes to the rocks of the wild goats and comes by a sheepfold and goes into a cave. And here, we’re going to use the euphemism that’s in the New King James. It says, “And Saul went in to attend to his needs.” 

BOB: Yeah, now I read some commentators. And one of them said, it wouldn’t be appropriate to use the euphemism, “He went to the bathroom,” because there was no bathroom. This was a cave. And so he went into this cave to relieve himself or to attend to his needs. And while he’s there, 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, David and his men are hiding in there. They’re in the recesses of the cave. 

BOB: And don’t his men want David to come?

PHILIPPE: David and his men were staying there. “Then the men of David said to him, ‘This is the day of which the Lord has said to you, ‘Behold, I deliver your enemy into your hand, that you may do to him as it seems good to you.’ ‘ ” And so his men are encouraging him. God has brought him to you, though, as he’s attending to his needs, go slay him. So David arises, kind of creeps up and secretly cuts off a corner of Saul’s robe. I imagine he had set it aside to attend to his needs. And afterwards, after David had done that cutting of that portion, that David’s heart troubled him because he had cut Saul’s robe. 

BOB: Now why would that trouble him? 

PHILIPPE: Because again, he says, this is the Lord’s anointed. And by doing that, David says, I have stretched out my hand against him, seeing that he is the anointed of the Lord.

ANNOUNCER: The Grace Evangelical Society’s recently published Old Testament Commentary, Volume One is now available. Find it at faithalone.org/store. It’s where you can also find Bob Wilkin’s latest book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, as well as many other titles by Grace Evangelical Society authors. Please come by and have a look today. You’ll find the GES store at our website, faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s topic.

BOB: So contrast this to the way that the Jewish leadership and the Roman soldiers and Pilate treated the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

PHILIPPE: They stripped off his robe. They brought him naked on the cross. 

BOB: They spat upon Him. They beat Him. They put a crown of thorns on His head. They made Him carry the cross. They certainly weren’t real sorry about just cutting off a corner of Jesus’s robe. And so the way that mankind should have received the Lord Jesus Christ is they should have fallen before Him and worshiped Him and praised Him. And of course He had to die. So somebody was going to betray Him. And somebody was going to crucify Him. But you didn’t want to be one of the ones doing that. That wasn’t a good job to have. 

PHILIPPE: And so David here goes on. He actually restrains his servants that are with him. And Saul goes away, unaware of all of that. 

BOB: Because they wanted to rise against Saul. They were ready to take his life, but he wouldn’t let him. 

PHILIPPE: Right. And then afterwards David, then after Saul has left and is a little ways away from the cave, David goes out and calls out to Saul. 

BOB: So he wants to know what happened. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, basically says to Saul, you know, God delivered you into my hands, but I did not. 

BOB: And notice he calls him my father, my authority. He recognizes him as his king. And he says, “my father, see.” 

PHILIPPE: And he says, I cut off the corner of your robe. I did not kill you though. There’s no evil or rebellion in my hand. And Saul responds to that in the closing portion of the chapter. Saul actually lifts up his voice and weeps. And he says, verse 17, “You are more righteous than I; for you have rewarded me with good, whereas I have rewarded you with evil.” And then he prays. It says, “May the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day.” And verse 20, Saul says, “And now I know indeed that you shall surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.” 

BOB: See, this is why you can’t just paint Saul as some sort of rebel against God. He was someone who, it seems like from the very beginning, wanted to please the Lord, but at times he was carnally minded, even as he’s pursuing David, he’s carnally minded. But now all of a sudden, he repents, at least at this point, he shows humility and he gives an example of the way we all should be. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. And then he asked David, don’t cut off my descendants. And of course, later on, we know of David and Mephibosheth. 

BOB: You know, that was common, right? Because when the new king came in, it was very common that you,

PHILIPPE: Wipe out everybody all the family. 

BOB: All the males and well, potentially the whole family, but at least all of the sons and grandsons. So there’s nobody to take the place. But he didn’t like, didn’t Jeroboam do that I think when he, 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, several of the kings of the northern kingdom, as they went from one dynasty to another, because they were, they would just wipe them out.

BOB: Now I have a good quote here from Eugene Merrill. And Dr. Merrill is a good friend of David Renfro. I think he’s about 90 right now. He wrote in the Bible Knowledge Commentary. And here’s what he says about this incident. And he said, “So close was David that he cut off a piece of the king’s robe as evidence of his opportunity to kill him. But even this act convicted David, who would not think of harming Saul bodily (vv 5-7). David would not hurt the king for he regarded Saul as the Lord’s anointed. Yet as David said, the king had no just cause for hunting him down. In repentance, Saul acknowledged David’s righteousness (vv 17-19), and the fact that David would indeed be king (v 20).” 

So you’ve got this, this would make a good sermon, obviously, but you’ve got this interchange between the old king and the new king. Saul is still king, but he recognizes his days are numbered. This would have been a great point for him to abdicate and just say, okay, you’re king, man, this is the king. He doesn’t quite go that far. But still, and yet he’s demonstrating an attitude that is admirable. 

PHILIPPE: He has his periodic points of repentance, of humility. 

BOB: But then then he starts throwing spears at David again. And wasn’t Saul one of the tallest people in it. He was like, 

PHILIPPE: He was a head above everyone else. 

BOB: So he was like Abraham Lincoln, he was probably 6’4″ or something, and everybody else, I think at that point was about five, probably the average height in Israel at that point was 5’5″ or something. And he’s 6’4″ or something. 

PHILIPPE: He was your equal high. But he was, he was more like Dan in his build.

BOB: Yeah, he was probably quite strong. Yes, whereaas I am a race walker. 

All right, well, thank you all for listening. And let’s all keep grace and focus.    

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On the next episode: what’s up with Saul and the witch at Endor? Come back and join us again, and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.