The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 9

in which they had been plaoed by David's mienndentand the eJ:l\mlnation or the oul- "Want of faith. But David bad other reMOna prit summed up in vera. Ill, H, and also to beeidee patriotism for sorrow. Personally pnt aside all aooonnt of the deep and be had loet the truest of friends, and even agonizing sorrow which Wt\B rending David's Baul bad " plaoe in hie he&rt. For he heart. What would have been an English- would oontrut with his terrible death the man'• feelini.."8 if news had come that we Mrly p;lories of his reign, when all IR?Rel had lost, for iostanoe, the battle of Waterloo, honoured him 88 its deliverer from the and if the fugitive who brought the infor- onuhing yoke of foreign bondage, and when metion had said that he he.d killed the DaYid W88 himl!lelf one of the most trusty wounded commander-.in-ohief? Iu David's nf hie oapt&ins. Otto von Gerleoh compares OBSO. besides deep distress at the disaster Devid thus weeping over the f11.ll of hie im- wbioh had befRllen his country, there wo.a placable enemy with D11.vid's Son weepinp; personal grief for the death of Jonathan and o.-er JoruB&lem. tbl' c-ity whoso inbabitR.nts of Saul's other sons, who were David's were hie bitt..r toos, 11.nd who not only sought brothers-in-law; a.nd the words really prove his death, but delivered him up t.o the his loyalty to Saul himself. He wos still Romans, to be ecourged and spitefully in- Jehovah's anointed, whatever hie oonduot treated, and slain upon the crOBS. might have been; and we have found David Yer. 15.-Go near, and fall upon him. on previous oeo&sions actuated by the same This WBB no hastr, sentcnl'e, for they had generous respect for duty when cleruly it .. faated until even. • And before pronounc- was contmry to his own interests (see, for ing it David nsks, " Whenoo art thou ? " instance, 1 Sam. x.xvi. 9). David put the that is, he ma.kes more full inquiry into his wretch justly to death for meanly murdering condition and previous doings. He knew one whom he might possibly have saved. that he W88 an Amalekite, and most pro- And the man's very purpose was to suggest bably had seen olearly enough that his to David, in a covert we.y, that escape really whole story WRS false; but before deciding wa.s possible, but that be he.d madn all things upon his fate, he desired fuller information sure, and so deserved a large reward. As as to the man's previous life. His question a matter of fact, he he.d not killed Saul, but elieiui from him that he was a subject of Saul. had invented the story because, judging For the word " stranger" means a settler, David by his own immoral standard, he had who .had withdrawn from his o,m oountry supposed that he would rego.rd the orime as aud joined himself to Israel. Moreover, it a valuable service. was the Am.o.lekite's father who had done Ver.17.-David lamented with this lamen- this, and probably he was one of many, who, tation. The Hebrew word for" lamentation" :finding their old nomad life too dangerous, is kinah, a technical term for o.n elegy or poem had sought a home in the southern districts commemorative of the doo.d. '.!.'hue Jere- of Judah ; but when the war broke out., the miah wrote a kioo.h in memory of King old instinct of these Bedaween me.de them Josiah (2 Chron. xx.xv. 25); and there is follow the army for pilfer and trade in spoil little doubt that the " lamentations " there But a.s the sou of a settler, the Amalekite spoken of were a collection of dirges, in owed by hirth allegiance to Saul. and, should whioh probably this ode written by David the occw;ion arise, was bound to render him held an honoured ple.oe. In oh. iii. 33, 34 Joyal aid. Now, according to his own ac- we have a short kinah .in Abner's honour, count, he had found Saul in no immediate which possibly fo:-med pMt of a longer poem, danger of death, "for his life was still whole of which those two versea only are quoted within him." EBC&pe was o.t lea.at poeoi.ble as sufficing to prove, I•(lt on!; David's inno- with the Amo.lekite's aid, but he is eager to cence, but e.lso his rnd1gne.tion at Joab's kill him. And David's question, "How foul deed. In both these places we have w&Bt thou not afmid . . . to destroy the remains of David's secular poetry, and fiud Lord's onointed?" .-irtually me&Dll, "How it marked by the se.rae strong emotion and wast thou not &ire.id to kill thy own king?" the same sublimity ot thought &s distinguish '.l.'he Lord, that is, Jehovah, wes no n&me of his peal.me. We observe also the nobleness power to any outside the covenant people, of David's nature in his toto.l silence con- nor in set~g in JndJBa did the Amalekites cerning himself, and his generous eulogy, &eeept the national religion. Bot the words not of Jonathan only, but e.lso of Saul. The would show e,ven to a stranger that Saul mean envy and the imple.ce.ble jee.louey of was 1'reel's lawful and conllOOl'll,ted king. the latter are no more remembered, and he Com!Dbut&ton, with strange perversen888, sees in him, not the personal fol!", but the brave have found in these words an outbreak of king who he.s fallen in his country's cause. aelfishnl!iill on David's part, and have sup- Ver. 18.-Al.Bo he bade them teaoh the potied ih&t he wished to gua.rd his own obildren of J'udo.h [the use of] the bow. The person age.inst futme treason by making old view ie that given by the inserted words, a whol8110me e:u.mple. But this is both to and is well put by Epbrem Syrue in his  THE B1WOMD BOOK OF SAM-UEfJ, r,