The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Samuel — Section 544

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-10. (ZIKLAG.)-Confidence in God. "But David encouraged himself in the Lord bis God" (ver. 6). Delivered from their embarrassing position in the Philistine army, David and his men set out early in the morning, and by forced marches ( evident from the exhaustion of one third of them, ver. 10) arrived at Ziklag on the third day. Instead of being welcomed by their wives and children they found the city a smoking and desolate ruin. 11 When we go abroad we cannot foresee what evil tidings may meet us when we come home again. The going out rnay be very cheerful, and yet the coming in very doleful" (M. Henry). The Amalekites (whom Saul had failed to exterminate, and David often attacked) had been there, and, in revenge for what they had suffered, had carried off the unde- fended people and property, and given the place to the flames. Deeming their recovery hopeless, the strong men wept like children " until they had no more powe1· to weep." Then their grief turned to exasperation, and seeking a victim on which to expend their wrath, they fixed on David, and II spake of stoning him " as the cause of all their misery. He was reduced to the utmost extremity, and could not fail to see in his trouble a just chastisement for his unbelief, prevarication, and cruelty. Possibly tLe reinforcements that "fell to him as he went to Ziklag" (1 Chron. xii. 20) rendered him valuable service. But bis hope was not in man; and instead of resigning himself to despair (like Saul), he was impelled by his distress and depriva- tion of human help to seek help in God alone. "The long misery of the first stage of his public career seems to have reached its culminating point. When things are at the worst, as the common proverb says, they must mend. And from that moment when he believingly cast a.II his dependence upon the Lord his God only, whom he had found faithful in all his promises, and whose providence bad never failed him in his deepest dangers, from that moment he was safe, from that moment he was pros- perous" (Kitto). Concerning the confidence in God wLich he exhibited (therein setting an eminent example to others), observe that- I. IT SPRINGS OUT OJ!' CONSCIOUS HELPLESSNESS. Few men have an adequate con- viction of their own helplessness ; and one aim of the Divine discipline is to pro- duce it. "When I am weak," said Paul, "then am I strong "-when I feel my utter weakness under the pressure of trial, tlien I am constrained to depend on the Lord, and become imbued with his strength (2 Cor. xii. 10). In the exercise of "the same spirit of faith" others "out of weakness were made strnng, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens" (Heb. xi. 34). True faith and spiritual power have their foundation amidst the "dust and ashes" of self-abase- ment and self-distrust. Confidence in God began to revive in David when Ziklag was reduced to ashes. The same thing is often occasioned in others by means of- 1. Sudden and severe bereavement; wife and children, it may be, taken aV1<ay with a stroke. 2. The failure of cherished plans and purposes; the loss of property through robbery by men or accidents by fire or flood, the break-down of health, the dis- appointment of lovg expectation. 3. The falling away of friends; their unreason- able anger and bitter reproaches. It must have been peculiarly painful to David to bear the mutiny of his own men, to witness the selfishness of many of them (ver. oe. XXX. 1-31.J THE FIHST BOOK OF SAMUEL. 557