The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 312

ratl,er than to that which, by reason of its frequency, would be likely to be the more useful. It cannot be told for how much civilized society has to be thankful that it possesses such models as the biography and history of Scripture afford, and mankind that it is offered such wealth of wisest and most needed instruction. 'l'he present chapter is notable for a very simple tale of the weaving of unmitigated mischief by the switt play of that little shuttle, the shuttle of suspicion. Kindness and goodness and wisdom-the works of these are for it miserably unravelled; and neither does it do itself any good, it incurs swift destruction. 'l'his portion of history teaches- I. THE VITALITY OF THE SEED OF KDSDNESS. Whoever Nahash was, some time had elapsed since his kindness to David. For that kindness will have belonged to the time of David's need. All this is reversed now. Ingratitude would have all the sooner forgotten it, now that David's circumstances were so altered, bad the heart of David been of the bad, ungrateful sort. But this was not so, and the kindness of Nahash had dropped a good seed in the good soil of David's heart. It was not a mere memory. It was not an action eagerly accepted in the pressing hour, but disparaged, depreciated, discounted in selfish thought after that hour had passed. It was not turned into a reason for avoiding the sight of the person to whom debt was due, or for dropping communication with him. Kindnesses rendered often get treatment of this sort-i.e. no return or ill return. But this is not the fault of the kindness. It lies at the door of the bad, ungrateful heart of the person to whom it has been shown. Otherwise seeds of kindness possess great vitality. II. THE VITALITY OF THE SEED OF KINDNESS AMID cmcUMBTANCES UNFAVOURABLE TO IT. Strongest affections often grow in most untoward clime and place. They throw their roots down with vigorous determination, in stony, rocky places. The little soil they :find in groove, chink, fissure, is often good and rich, however, and they use it well, and ere long make the rift larger, and acquire thereby more moisture and more deposit of soil. And it is so with kindness. The most diverse nature will appreciate it most. Sometimes just because it is unexpectedly offered to the foreigner, the outcast, the despised, the undeserving, the notorious sinner, the man whom a thousand give up as a hardened hopeless man, for one who entertains a contrary thought, it takes amazingly to the soil, and becomes ere long a vast and fruitful growth. And now, what had impressed David much was, that when his father and mother, and king and people, had "'forsaken n him (not all of choice by any means), an Ammonite had "taken him up," and shown kindness to him. III. THE LENGTH OF VITALITY OF THE SEED OF KINDJ!,"EBB, As has been said, we do not know the exact length in this case. But a considerable number of years had pro- bably passed. And they were years which had been crowded with the kind of events which would drive many and many a thing out of the mind, and alter the proportions and the look of things, and correct many an exaggerated estimate, and naturally help a man to forget how hungry he once was, and how unsheltered, and how friendless, and how downcast in heart. IV. T.Hll: LIABILITY TO DESTRUCTIVE DLIGHT OF THE XINDLIEBT FRUITS OF BUMAN NATURE. Here was the kindness of Nahash about to show its remoter and its higher description of good result. It had fulfilled its first office of real, practical, perhaps saving service to David. But now its offspring, its scion of generous kind, was to become apparent to God and to men. It was wishful to make its returns. It ·was going to show the reproductive nature. No fault of its own, it is baulked, injured, cruelly blighted. It is a testimony that good things in this world are not secure of their good influence, that gpodness postulates not unfrequently a good sphere. Once Goodness itself" came to its own," but its own "knew it not," refused it, put it to open shame, crucified it I V. 'fIIAT TIDB XU.'D OF BLIGHT 18 NOT ALWAYS A MYSTERY. No; in this case, for instance, it is only too explicable. Of the blights of nature, it may be said, that they are free of blame to men, though not free of disaster to them. They are borne on the winds of heaven, and in a sense must be said to come of the V1ill of heaven, much as those winds thvrnselves. No earthly power can stay them, or do more than partially provide against their incursion-partially undo and recover their mischief. But not so is it with the moral and spiritual blights we know and see in our own life, in the larger ~ma of human history. Here it is manifestly due to two conspiring causes. L 'l'o the ou. XIX, 1-19.J THE FIRST BOOK OF TlIE CHRONICLES. 3ll