THE FIRST THREE KINGS
OF ISRAEL
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM BRUCE
AUTHOR OF "COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW'
ETC.
JAMES SPEIRS
36 BLOOMSBURY STREET, LONDON
1879
I have long desired, I have for some time intended, and I am now to attempt to explain that portion of the Israelitish history comprehended between the beginning of the reign of Saul and the end of the reign of Solomon.
I am well aware of the arduous, I had almost said hazardous, nature of this undertaking. Were my task limited to an elucidation of the historical sense, and a practical application of the historical circumstances, there might be little cause for apprehension. But without undervaluing this kind of instruction, yet as a minister of the internal Word my principal aim must be far higher than to supply it. Knowing, and addressing myself to those who know, that the Word contains a spiritual meaning within, and distinct from that of the letter, my primary aim must be to unfold and apply it. It is in attempting this that I have some just cause for anxiety. The Scriptures in their literal sense have received so much attention from learned expositors and pious commentators, that any one who has to deal with that sense only can derive great assistance from the labours of others. Not nearly so much so he who undertakes the exposition of this part of the Word according to its spiritual sense. In the works of our great expositor we have, besides a minute explanation of the first two books of the Old Testament and the last book of the New, many other passages of the Word incidentally elucidated. But of these, few comparatively belong to the historical books of the Old Testament, while, unlike the Prophets and Psalms, they have received from his matchless pen no summary exposition. True, we possess a key to the heavenly mysteries of the Word in the Science of Correspondence. This enables us to see the cloud of the letter radiant with the glory of the sun that shines in splendour behind it; while the explanations we possess of particular passages that lie scattered throughout these immortal works, like the sun's rays streaming through the opening clouds, connect with lines of light the heavens and the earth, and while they light up with peculiar brightness the favoured spots on which they fall, throw light at the same time on parts that lie beyond their direct influence. But with all these advantages it is not without some degree of hesitation that I approach the present momentous and important subject. Any one who has read but a small portion of the works to which I have referred, must be satisfied how much more is required than a mere knowledge of correspondence to enable one to unfold any part of the Divine Word; and how comparatively imperfect must be the results of the application of this science by any one possessing but an ordinary share of that enlightenment under which they were so evidently written.
I offer these remarks, not for the purpose of magnifying the difficulties of the subject, or of enhancing the value of the labour bestowed upon it, but with the view of showing you how much reason you have to be moderate in your expectations and charitable in your judgements.
Besides these reflections which apply to us as speaker and hearers— and I may now add, as writer and readers—there are others that apply alike to us both. It becomes us all without distinction to approach the subject in a devout and reverent spirit. The place on which we stand is holy ground, and we require to tread it with holy fear and profound humility. In our eagerness to see this great sight we may turn aside too hastily from our ordinary thoughts and temporal interests, forgetful of the danger of coming into the more immediate presence of the Divine glory without first putting the shoes from off our feet, by removing from our minds the artificial covering which it assumes from sense and the world. Spiritual truth cannot be seen except in spiritual light, nor can its power be felt except under the influence of spiritual love. For these, therefore, we ought to look and pray.
Before entering on an examination of the particular events of this history, it may be useful to view it in its relation to other portions of the historical Word with which it is connected, in order to ascertain the place it occupies in the typical history of which it forms a part, and to glance at its general scope and meaning.
The Sacred Record presents the representative people as living under several different forms of government. We find them ruled successively by patriarchs, priests, judges, and kings. Under a political view, these may be understood to mark the natural stages of their national development. Regarded in an ecclesiastical light, the succession of these different forms of government describes the decline of the Israelitish Church from a simpler and purer to a more artificial and imperfect state. As commonly expressed, the children of Israel, originally a theocracy, became less and less under the immediate government of the Divine Ruler. Under the patriarchal and priestly government the Israelites represented that state of the Church when it yields a willing submission to the mild and gentle sway of Divine love and justice; while under the judicial and regal government they represented the state of the Church when it gives a constrained obedience to the authoritative laws of Divine truth and judgement. Such is the internal historical sense of this aspect of the Israelitish history.
In its spiritual sense, which is a history of the spiritual life of the individual man, these successive changes in the government of Israel describe man's descent from higher to lower states. During the age of infancy and childhood the human being is ruled by love, but as these states recede before the strengthening passions and increasing reason, the mind comes more under the government of truth. There is thus in the earlier period of human life a descent resembling that which takes place in a declining church. In the individual case, however, these changes of state do not of necessity run through a course of moral or spiritual exhaustion. On the contrary, provision is made during the mind's descent for its re-ascent with increased intellectual power and means for its elevation.
It is thus of the mercy and wisdom of the Divine Providence that when the sweet influences of love become insufficient of themselves to rule, truth should assume the reins and curb the headstrong passions. If this were not the case, both the Church and the human being would fall into irremediable disorder, which would end in total and irretrievable ruin.
In the history of Israel we find the clearest traces of the representative circumstances of the subject of which we are now speaking. The immediate occasion of the Israelites asking a king was the ill conduct of Samuel's sons. Samuel himself had been raised up to stand in the breach that had been made by the corrupt house of Eli, whose sons had indulged in a course of such gross and unrestrained licentiousness that men abhorred the offering of the Lord. The sons of Samuel the judge had come to be too much like the sons of Eli the priest. They "turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgement." Thus we find that the priests had lost their influence and the judges had lost their power. No longer able to preserve order in the commonwealth of Israel, a king had become necessary for the preservation of the national existence, as well as for continuing the representative character which it had been chosen to sustain. Still, it was the substitution of a lower for a higher power.
When "all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said, Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations, it displeased Samuel, and he prayed to the Lord: and the Lord said, Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them."
It is the Lord's desire that His Church and His children should live and act under the government of His love, to which His truth is subordinate and instrumental. This is the perfection of order. Into this order man was created. Into this order man is still providentially initiated in his infancy and childhood. The capacity of loving God above all things and his neighbour as himself is the condition proper to that being who was created in the image and likeness of his Maker. God is Love; and Divine Love desires to reproduce itself in the hearts and lives of its created recipients. When man first departed from the law of love, it was because he would not have a God of love to reign over him. And when man desired to be ruled by the law of truth rather than by the law of love, the Lord granted him his desire, but He granted it as a thing He permitted rather than willed, and as a temporary rather than as a permanent condition; for truth is given that it may lead to goodness, and thus to love, whose servant and minister it is.
It was to mark the disinclination of the Divine mind to this degradation of state in the Church and in the human mind that the Lord protested while He granted, and, as stated in another place, that He gave the people a king in His anger, and took him away in His wrath. Of course there is no anger in God. Wherever this passion is ascribed to the Divine Being it is for the purpose of expressing a state of the human mind in contrariety to the Divine mind. When God's love is quenched in the human mind, anger is kindled in its stead; and this is called the anger of God, because God's love, which still flows into the mind, is turned into its opposite; for "an opposite has birth from the cessation of the existence in some one thing, and the rising up of another at the same time with a tendency contrary to that which the former existence had, acting as a wheel against a wheel, or a stream against a stream."
Well might the change we are considering be condemned and protested against by the Most High. The grounds of that protest, as they related to the condition of the people themselves, were rehearsed to them by Samuel. They were told that the king whom they desired would take their sons, and appoint them for himself for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; that he would take their daughters to be confectioners, and cooks, and bakers; that he would take their fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards, and give them to his servants, and the tenth of their seed, their vineyards, and their sheep; in one word, that he would appropriate to his own use whatever they possessed. We know that whatever principle rules in the human mind, and thence in the Church and in the world, it makes all things subservient to itself. The kingly rule in Israel was a type of the rule of intellect rather than of affection. And whenever religion becomes a matter chiefly of the intellect, the goods and truths of the Word are employed to advance the glory of man more than the glory of God. As the sons of Israel were to be taken by the king for charioteers and horsemen, to fight the king's battles and adorn his pageants, so the truths they represented are used by the intellectual man to aid him in his intellectual conflicts and exalt his intellectual displays. As their daughters were to be taken for confectioners and cooks, so the affections of good which they represented are made to minister to the appetites and passions by affording them gratification suited to their sensual desires. As the men-servants and maid-servants were to be taken to do the king's work, so the truths and affections of science are employed to confirm whatever the mind adopts as a principle and desires to uphold. When this is the state of the Church and of man, even the remains of goodness and until are appropriated by and made subservient to intellectual supremacy, which is the same as charity being made subordinate to faith, and which is meant by the king taking the tenth of their seed, their vineyards, and their flocks. Nay, all the celestial and spiritual things of the Word, general as well as particular, are brought into a state of servitude, for all Israel were to become the king's servants.
But that of which we are now speaking is a state of comparative, not absolute, disorder. Absolute disorder is disorganization. That which was now granted to Israel is a less instead of a more perfect order, an order which is established under the law of truth, which is comparative bondage, instead of that which exists under the law of love, which is perfect freedom. The law of truth, and the organization resulting from it, though not absolutely the best, may yet be the best under the circumstances. This fact is of the utmost importance, and may be applied in every department of human affairs, public and private. There is a perfect law, and a perfect order which is the result of obedience to it; and we ought to place that law before us, and constantly strive to reach it. But while we ought to aspire after the highest ideal of personal and public excellence, we must not imagine that everything short of its attainment is a failure. Were the law of love the ruling principle among the nations and families of the earth, the condition of mankind would be widely different from what it is. There would be peace on earth, goodwill amongst men. The means and energy now spent in preventing evil would be expended in doing good. But who, except the most ignorant and fanatical, would imagine that crime would cease with the abolition of criminal code, or ambition expire with the disbanding of standing armies? These and other means of protection and preservation from each other are indeed evidences of the degenerate state of the human race. But what would the human race, in its present state, be without them? Crime and anarchy and conquest would reign; but their reign would be of short duration, for society would soon be dissolved, and the human race would perish.
Since, then, the law of love cannot find its place in the hearts of men, it is a blessing, though a lesser one, that they can be brought under the law of truth.
We see, therefore, both the wisdom and the goodness of God in the answer which He gave to Samuel, when that eminent prophet was disposed to deny the people their request that he would make them a king like the nations. A king had indeed become a necessity to Israel. The priest had failed, the judge had lost his power. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes; and what appeared to every one to be right was in many cases wrong. Their enemies, too, had acquired considerable dominion over them. Nothing could save them but a new and more powerful governor. It was a perception of this need that led the people to answer Samuel's protestation with the declaration, "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles."
But the Divine command to Samuel to acquiesce in the people's desire was not only to prevent their further degradation, but to provide the means of their elevation; and there can be no doubt that during the reign of the first three kings at least the Israelites made great and rapid advancement in all that concerned them as a people, and made them a wealthy, powerful, and united nation.
The spiritual meaning of their history during this period describes a state of spiritual advancement in the religious life of those who are Israelites indeed. The beginning of the kingdom of Israel may be considered as representing the beginning of that upward progression by which the kingdom of God is begun in the human mind; and the history of the first three kings describes its advancement from natural to spiritual, from spiritual to celestial. The natural, the spiritual, and the celestial are represented by Saul, David, and Solomon. It will be our principal aim to unfold the sacred history as it applies to these several states and stages of the regenerate life.
But there is another and still higher subject to which the history of the first three kings of Israel relates, and which demands our earnest attention. The Holy Word, which, in its interior sense, treats of the regeneration of man, in its inmost sense treats of the glorification of the Lord; for the Lord made His humanity Divine by a process analogous to that by which He makes man spiritual. This Divine subject, although too exalted for us to dwell upon continuously, has yet so important a relation to that of the regeneration of our own souls that it is profitable to see their connection.
There can be no doubt that the first three kings of Israel were types, two of them at least eminent types, of the Lord Jesus Christ in His regal character; and that their history is, in its inmost sense, a history of the Lord's inner life and experience when manifested in out nature upon earth, and while He was engaged in glorifying His humanity and effecting the work of human redemption.
We are instructed in the writings of the Church, that, in the progress of His glorification, the Lord first made His humanity truth Divine, then Divine truth, and lastly Divine good (AC 7014). We can easily see that, in these three general stages of H is progressive glorification, the Lord was represented by the first three kings of Israel. Saul represented Him as truth Divine, David as Divine truth, and Solomon as Divine good. To express it still more accurately and fully,—the history of the reign of Saul, of David, and of Solomon, is a typical history of the Lord's inner life and experience while He was making His humanity truth Divine, Divine truth, and Divine good.
As the reign of Saul is first to be considered, and as the history of Saul's reign is interwoven with the early history of David, even as the anointed king of Israel, it is desirable we should see clearly the difference between truth Divine, which Saul represented, and Divine truth, which was represented by David. Truth Divine, as distinguished from Divine truth, is truth such as it is in heaven, as distinguished from truth such as it is above heaven. Truth divine is Divine truth finited, by being received and apprehended by finite minds, as those of the angels are; Divine truth transcends all finite apprehension. Truth Divine is sometimes in the Writings called truth from the Divine, as distinguished from truth which is in itself Divine. I do not say which is in the Divine; for I conceive that Divine truth, in its most comprehensive sense, includes all truth which is in itself Divine, not only as it is in the Lord Himself, but as it is in all the spheres and degrees that intervene between the infinite mind and the highest finite minds, by which infinite Divine truth is made fit for entering into the minds of angels and men.
Truth Divine, or Divine truth in heaven, constituted the Lord's humanity before the Incarnation. When the Lord's Divine truth flowed into the minds of the angels it took a human form in their will and understanding. It was through this humanity that the Lord acted upon the human race before the time of His Advent. Therefore whenever the Lord appeared to men on earth it was in the person of an angel. But as His angelic humanity became in course of time, by mankind receding from heaven, inefficient as a medium through which the Lord's love and truth could flow down into the minds of men, the Lord came into the world, and assumed humanity in the womb of the Virgin. He thereby made His humanity a separate essence, raising it by glorification into union with His own infinite and eternal Divinity. Thus the Lord provided a medium of salvation above and besides that which existed in heaven, and became Himself, as to His glorified humanity, the Mediator between God and man. Love and light from God still come to men through heaven; but besides this mediate influx there is now immediate influx from the humanity of the Lord Himself, by which the human mind can be interiorly affected and enlightened, and therefore interiorly regenerated.
In a special sense, Saul, as representing truth Divine, represented the humanity of the Lord in heaven before the Incarnation, and David, as representing Divine truth, represented the humanity of the Lord after His manifestation in the flesh. Yet since the Lord made His humanity truth Divine before He made it Divine truth; or, what is the same, since the Lord regenerated His humanity before He glorified it (AC 3138); Saul represented the Lord's humanity while it was being regenerated, as David represented the Lord's humanity while it was being glorified. The Lord regenerated His humanity when He made it truth Divine, or truth such as it is in heaven; and He glorified His humanity when He made it Divine truth such as is above heaven, yea, far above all heavens, when He entered into the light that no man can approach to.
Such are the spiritual and Divine subjects treated of in the history of the first three kings of Israel, which it will be my endeavour, with Divine assistance;to trace in the inspired record of their successive reigns.
The Divine Being having consented to the request of the people to have a king, His Providence led to the selection of one who, His wisdom saw, was best suited to the people and the times, and, in a higher sense, to the representative character he was to sustain.
Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, was sent by his father in quest of his asses, which were lost. When, after a long and diligent but unsuccessful search, Saul proposed to return, his servant advised him to consult the prophet. Meanwhile Samuel was divinely informed of Saul's coming, and was instructed what to do. The result was that Samuel anointed Saul to be captain over the Lord's inheritance.
The narrative is singularly interesting, as showing the manner and means, direct and indirect, natural and supernatural, by which Providence effects its purposes. But it is instructive as well as interesting, as teaching us the ways of God, in so ordering the outward events of Bible history as to be typical of divine and spiritual things. In this light we propose to consider the narrative before us.
The first particular we notice is that the first king of Israel was taken from the tribe of Benjamin, as the second was from the tribe of Judah, the descendants of the last and the first of the sons of Israel, not in the order of birth but of rank, as expressed, for example, in the sealing of the twelve tribes in the Book of Revelation 7:3-8, these representing the last and the first of the principles that constitute the kingdom of God, and, in the highest sense, that were assumed and glorified in the humanity of the Lord. The first and the last include in their representation all that come between. Judah and Benjamin thus include the whole of the twelve tribes of Israel, which represented all the principles of goodness and truth that constitute the Church. These the Lord assumed and glorified in the world; for the principles of goodness and truth constitute humanity. Man is not human from his shape, but from those qualities that make him a moral image of his Maker. When the Lord became incarnate human nature had lost the moral image of God. But the principles that constituted humanity, though perverted, were not utterly destroyed; and the Lord assumed the perverted forms of humanity, and by glorification restored them to their true order, and ultimately made them Divine. By incarnation the Lord became man in ultimates, but the ultimate humanity which He assumed and glorified includes all that was represented by David and Solomon as well as by Saul, and by Judah as well as by Benjamin. It was from the tribe of Benjamin that the first king of Israel was chosen, to teach us that the foundation of the Lord's kingdom is to be laid in the lowest degree of goodness and truth, and is to ascend gradually and successively till it reaches the highest.
But the Divine history does not at once introduce Saul to our notice, but first makes us acquainted with Kish, his father, as it afterwards does with David, of whom we first hear through his father Jesse. There was in ancient times a natural reason for knowing the son through the father; but there is a spiritual reason also. Father and son in Scripture signify goodness and truth. Other related pairs have the same meaning, but in a different connection. A father means good from which truth is derived, and a son means truth derived from good. This is the meaning of Father and Son in relation to the Lord Himself. The Father is the Divine goodness, the Son is the Divine truth; for truth comes from goodness as a son from a father. In no other sense than this are a Divine Father and a Divine Son possible. The father of Saul is first introduced to us for the purpose of instructing us respecting the nature of the good from which the truth represented by Saul was derived. It is not always easy to see in the natural meaning of a name the spiritual meaning of him who bears it; but the description of the typical man is always a sufficient guide. Kish was a mighty man of power. The word rendered power sometimes means wealth, which seems suitable here. But even when two words signifying power come together, one means the power of good, and the other the power of truth. Neither of them has any power by itself, but in union with the other; for good has no power but by truth, and truth has no power but from good. Yet the distinction is not lost. There are two kinds of power, power of will and power of intellect; but the will can do nothing without the intellect, and the intellect can do nothing without the will. There is this possibility however: the will may be stronger than the intellect, and the intellect may be stronger than the will; and in either case the result is imperfection of character. When the will is stronger than the intellect, there is defect of judgement; when the intellect is stronger than the will, there is defect of conscientiousness. The balance of the two and their united action make the perfect man. This balance and union seem to be expressed in Kish being a mighty man of power.
But not only is Kish himself introduced into the narrative, but his progenitors to the fourth generation are brought before us. And these four prior generations point to the same balance and union which are expressed in the description of Kish himself; because four, like two, signifies conjunction. The names of these men might afford a basis for their spiritual meaning if we had time and space to devote to the inquiry. There is one at least so evidently significative that we cannot pass it over. The father of Kish was named Abiel. This name is compounded of two words, Abi, father, and El, God. The principle of good, we have seen, is meant by father, and the principle of truth is meant by the Divine name El. There are two general names by which the Divine Being is spoken of in the Old Testament—Jehovah and Elohim. Jehovah is the name so familiar to us in our English Bible as LORD, and Elohim is that which is still more familiar to us as God; and these two sacred names are expressive of the two essentials of the Divine nature, love and wisdom, or goodness and truth. El is a contraction of the name Elohim, and when it forms a part, as it frequently does, of the proper names of men or angels, it is understood to mean power, so that Abiel signifies a powerful father; but as it literally is made up of the two words father and God, in the spiritual sense it is expressive, as we have seen, of good and truth combined, and of the power of good by truth. Such, then, was the "root" of Saul, the first king of Israel. And the son of Kish, all unconscious as yet of the dignity that awaits him, is now placed before us.
Saul is described as "a choice young man, and a goodly; and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from the shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people." Choice and goodly would have been better fair and good; in which predications we see again the true and the good combined. Among the sons of Israel there was none so goodly as he. Of all the truths of heaven and the Church, there was none equal in goodness to that which was to become by assumption and glorification the regal principle of the Lord. But Saul was not only fair and good: he was tall: from his shoulders upward he was higher than any of the people. The same Scripture term that means of great stature means also high-minded, and this is frequently its spiritual meaning also; but this cannot be included in its meaning here. Saul afterwards, indeed, became high-minded; but he is credited with having been, at the time he was appointed king, little in his own sight (1 Sam 15:17). His great stature must therefore represent that which in the true sense is spiritually expressed by height, a high degree of goodness and truth according to the degrees which, in the Writings, are called degrees of altitude, those which do not increase or diminish by imperceptible gradations, but which pass into and are distinguished from each other by distinct lines of demarcation, as thought passes into speech, and will into action. Such are the degrees by which the whole heaven is distinguished into three particular heavens. These three heavens are not separate, but they are distinct. They have each a character distinct from, but in harmony with, the whole; yet each within itself consists of degrees that pass into each other by imperceptible gradations. We see something like this in the rainbow, where there are several distinct colours, and yet the celestial are consists of an infinite number and variety of hues, which shade off by continuous, and pass into distinct degrees; so that we have there every different colour and every different shade of each. If we consider Saul as representing the Divine truth in heaven, which constituted the Lord's humanity before He came into the world, we may, I think, see an exalted meaning in this circumstance respecting Saul's stature. The Lord's Divine truth as it flowed into the intellect of the angels assumed a human form. In their minds it was finited, and there existed according to their finite and imperfect conception of its meaning. This was the truth Divine in heaven which the Lord in descending through heaven assumed, and which He made Divine truth, and finally Divine good, by glorification in the world. But before the Lord came into the world there were not three distinct heavens as there are now. Then only one heaven, which is now the highest, existed actually. This was formed from those who constituted the Adamic Church. The other heavens, indeed, although they did not exist actually, existed potentially. Those who could be raised into heaven after the fall of the Most Ancient Church, of whom the highest or celestial heaven, then the only one, consisted, formed the external of that heaven. These formed the nucleus of the second or spiritual heaven. But those of whom this heaven, as well as the first or lowest heaven, were subsequently to consist, existed and were accumulating in the world of spirits; but not until the Lord had assumed and glorified humanity in the world could the spiritual who formed the external of the celestial heaven, and the spiritual in the world of spirits, be formed into a distinct kingdom. I am here anticipating a subject that will engage our attention when we come to the division of the Israelitish kingdom into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, which I think it interesting and useful to include in our explanation. Something on the subject is necessary to be premised as an introduction to the study of Saul's stature. Saul, it seems to me, represented truth Divine, or the Lord's humanity as existing in the heaven actually formed, while the "sons of Israel" or "the people" represented those in the spiritual world, who as yet formed no part of the heaven then actually existing; for the Lord came to save the spiritual, as well those in the spiritual as in the natural world.
Heaven, regarded as a whole, forms the Grand Man, the most perfect image of the Divine Man. Of this man the highest heaven forms the head, the second the body, and the lowest the extremities. Before the formation and actual existence of the lower heavens this Grand Man did exist in the same fullness as after that great event. Yet heaven is not to be thought of as being then as a head without a body. The lower heavens existed, as I have said, potentially though not actually. Besides, every particular heaven is in the human form, as is indeed every particular society as well as every particular angel: for heaven is an image of the Lord in the whole and in every part; the difference being that the image is the more perfect the more numerous and diversified the parts that constitute it. As the formation and growth of heaven have been necessarily similar to, and contemporaneous with, the beginning and progress of the human race, and both have been like those of the individual man, some idea of the general subject may be acquired by studying the particular. In the formation of the human being, as an embryo and a foetus, the central and higher parts are formed first, and the surrounding and lower parts are gradually formed later. Yet all the parts are there from the beginning, but lie undeveloped till the formative power brings them from potential into actual existence. Saul, from the shoulders upward higher than any of the people, presents an image of heaven, which formed the Lord's humanity before He came into the world, as it stood above all those who were yet in the middle state, and who waited for deliverance by the incarnate God. as the people looked for deliverance by the king whom they desired. The shoulders, too, are the emblems of power, and the head of wisdom; so that the terms in which Saul's extraordinary and unequalled height is expressed are designed to instruct us that although the Lord assumed our common nature, He transcended all men in power and wisdom, even when His humanity was as yet but truth Divine, such as it was among the angels, for among men even such truth had ceased to exist.
Having considered the lineage and character of Saul, so far at least as respects his personal appearance, which had then much to do with a man's fitness for the office of a king, we now turn our attention to the circumstances by which he was led to the goal which Providence designed he should reach.
" The asses of Kish, Saul's father, were lost: and Kish said to Saul his son, Take now one of the servants with you, and arise, go seek the asses." Saul when seeking the asses found a kingdom. Another particular we may here remark in again comparing Saul with David. Saul was called to the throne of Israel when in search of his father's asses; David was called to the throne when keeping his father's sheep. This marks an important difference between the representative character of the two men, as called to the same regal function. According to Scripture analogy, the ass is an emblem of that which belongs to natural thought, while the sheep is an emblem of that which belongs to spiritual affection. The ass, which with us is degraded and condemned, was with Orientals in ancient times honoured and esteemed. Among the Israelites the sons of judges rode upon asses, and the sons of kings upon mules; and the Lord Jesus made His last triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. In that act, which had even been the subject of prophecy, He represented that in His humanity things natural were now brought into entire subordination and obedience to things rational, spiritual, celestial, and divine. In the case of Saul the asses were lost; and that which was spiritually represented by them was lost, till it was found by our Lord when He came into the world to save that which was lost, and the recovery of which was represented by the finding of the ass and its colt on which He rode. For He sent two of His disciples to a village where they were to find the ass and its colt tied, and which they were to obtain by merely telling the owner that the Lord had need of them. Generally, the lost are represented by the sheep, for which the shepherd seeks till he finds it. But when we know that the lost mean not only lost persons but lost principles, we can see a propriety in these being spoken under the symbols of different animals, as the emblems of different principles or qualities. For persons are lost by their losing the graces and virtues which can save them. The Lord saves His people by restoring to them that which they have lost. When He brings back to them the knowledge and faith represented by the ass and her colt, and the charity represented by the sheep, He saves them, by restoring to them the graces and virtues in which is salvation. "That which was lost," which the Son of Man came to save (Matt 18:11), is neuter, so that literally it refers not to persons, but to things. The saving of persons is indeed the end, but the restoring of saving qualities is the means, and the indispensable means, of their salvation.
In his search for his father's asses Saul passed through Mount Ephraim, and through the land of Shalisha, and through the land of Shalim, and through the land of the Benjamites, and found them not. The search was made in the three contiguous provinces of Ephraim, Dan, and Benjamin. The tribes of Israel represented all the principles of goodness and truth that constitute the Church. The three tribes, over whose land Saul's search extended, all belong to the intellectual class, having relation to truth rather than to good. Judah, which represented the highest principle of good, though contiguous to Benjamin, was not visited. The three particular places, two of which Saul passed through, are, rather singularly, not mentioned in any other part of the Bible. The first and last were in the land of Ephraim, the other was in the land of Dan. Shalim means a place of foxes, Shalisha expresses its triangular shape, and Zuph signifies sweet, honey as dropping from the comb. Shalim is the natural will, Shalisha the natural understanding, and Zuph natural delight, or what the natural man would call good, and truth, and the pleasantness resulting from them. But the asses are not found there. There is nothing of a saving quality in anything merely natural.
It is not said that Saul passed through Zuph, but that when he came to it he said to his servant, "Come, and let us return; lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for us." He had now, however, been led providentially to the city of the prophet; and the servant proposed they should go and inquire of him as to the way they should go. Where natural delight terminates spiritual delight begins. When our best natural efforts to recover that which is lost prove unsuccessful, we are in a state of mind to turn our thoughts and direct our efforts into a new and higher channel. When the natural fails we are better prepared to turn to the supernatural. When our own intelligence and prudence are found to leave our desires unsatisfied and our object unattained, we are more ready to place our reliance on the wisdom and providence of God; and only need some friendly voice, either from within or from without, to direct us to the true Source of our help and happiness.
But we must remember that those only are likely to obey that voice who, while they are pursuing and seeking a worthy object, such as the knowledge of the truth, by the seemingly unaided efforts of their own understanding, have yet been secretly influenced and guided by the Lord. All whose motives are good are acting under Divine influence; and they will sooner or later be brought to the city of the seer, who will reveal to them how they have been divinely led, and led to a higher good than they themselves have been pursuing, or even could have conceived as their portion.
The servant's description of Samuel is that of a true prophet, and applies eminently to the One whom every true prophet represented. "There is in this city a man of God, and he is an honourable man: all that he says comes surely to pass." He is a man of God who is a man of truth, and he is an honourable man who is a man of love. These two united make the true prophet, or the seer, as a prophet was first and at the time called. A seer is one who foresees and provides; a prophet is one who foretells and teaches. Foreseeing and providing come before and are within foretelling and teaching; as the internal comes before and is within the external. Such a one is, above all, the prophet; and he can show us our way that we should go.
When the servant proposed going to the seer, Saul said, "But, behold... what shall we bring the man? for the bread is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present to bring to the man of God: what have we?" The gifts with which prophets were propitiated were symbols of the gifts which God requires of those who come to seek His favour and obtain His blessing. They are their good affections and true thoughts. These are to be devoted and offered to God, for they are the channels through which His gifts descend to them. The first and best of these gifts were represented by bread, and by the meat-offerings which were placed on the altar. Bread was one of the gifts which David presented to Saul when first introduced to him (1 Sam 16:19). But in times of travail this bread of life is often spent in our vessel; and when we would come into the Divine Presence we feel or fear we have nothing to offer. This consciousness of poverty is itself a virtue, for blessed are the poor in spirit. If there is nothing to offer there can be at least no claim of merit. But in the present case there is not absolute destitution. The servant has the fourth part of a shekel of silver. If the good is spent, there are still some remains of truth. A shekel was twenty gerahs (Exod 30 13); half a shekel was given by every Israelite when the people were numbered, as a sign that none but.those who have the ten gerahs of remains can be numbered with the spiritual Israel of the Lord. Five as well as ten is the symbol of remains, but in a less degree. If one have the five gerahs or the quarter shekel, even this will be the means of obtaining admission to the house of the seer.
When Saul and his servant "went to the city where the man of God was, as they went up the hill to the city, they found young maidservants going to draw water, and he said to them, Is the seer here? And they answered them, and said, He is: behold, he is before you: make haste now, for he came today to the city; for there is a sacrifice of the people today in the high place. As soon as you go up to the city you shall straightway find him, before he go up to the high place to eat; for the people will not eat until he come, because he does bless the sacrifice, and afterwards they eat that be bidden. Now therefore get you up, for about this time you shall find him." In this charming picture we get a lifelike view of the simple manners of the time, and of the character of those social sacrificial feasts that we read of, but never see described, in the Levitical law. The spiritual meaning is not less interesting, and is much more instructive. Those young maidservants are the affections of truth going with joy to draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa 12:3). These wells, or rather fountains, are in the Holy Word, whence those who have a pure and single love of truth draw living water for the uses of spiritual life. In this divinely-ordered history these young maidservants are a part of the provided means for securing the appointed end. To them the inquiry is rightly addressed whether the seer is here; and from them the information rightly comes that he is, with particular directions where and when he may be found. First the inquirers are exhorted to make haste; for haste is an effort, and therefore a sign of eager desire, which lies at the foundation of all true progress and of ultimate success. The reasons for haste are, that the seer is before them, and that he may be found before he goes up to the high place to eat. The occasion of the seer's visit was the celebration of a sacrifice of the people. These social feasts were representative of the conjunction of the people with the Lord and with each other. They thus represented the spiritual feasts of love and charity—love to the Lord and charity to the neighbour. And this was a fitting occasion for the reception and inauguration of the new king, who was to be a representative of the Lord as a ruler of His people, but who was required to rule by truth from love. He therefore ought to have a part in the feast; and as he was to be a guest of the seer, as one of them that be bidden, it was requisite that he should see him before the feast began, that the prophet, and the future king, and the people, might unite in celebrating this great religious symbol of worship and unity. The high place where the sacrifice was to be made, before it had been profaned and had acquired a profane meaning by idolatrous worship, was symbolic of the exalted views and feelings from which the Divine Being, who was also called the Highest, and who dwelt in the high and holy place, was to be worshiped. To this Saul was to go up by the direction of the prophet, whom he was exhorted to meet, and whom he met in the city'; that he might, under the guidance of the seer, ascend from the doctrine to the love of goodness and truth.
when Saul and his servant were come into the city Samuel was coming out. They were personally unknown to each other, but the seer, who had previously been divinely warned of Saul's coming, now received the intimation that the man before him was he whom he was to anoint captain over the Lord's people, to save them out of the hand of the Philistines, because their cry had come up to Him. We now for the first time learn the special reason on which the Divine Being acted in granting Israel a king. It was not merely to please His people, but to save them from their enemies. Those enemies were such as required a king to oppose them. The nations of Canaan represented the different evil and false principles against which the Church has to contend. The Philistines, those powerful and determined foes of Israel, represented one of the most formidable and persistent of the false principles that the Church in all ages has suffered from and has had to war against, but which she has often shamefully yielded to. They represented the false principle or persuasion, that men can be saved by knowing and believing without loving and doing, which may be briefly expressed as salvation by faith alone. Considered as it is in its own nature, faith alone is a false persuasion grounded in evil, for it originates in it as well as leads to it. The opposite of that falsity is truth grounded in goodness, and this was represented by a king. The Philistines had troubled Israel under the Judges; and even Samson, the greatest of her heroes, had not only failed to subdue them, but had been bound and blinded by them, and compelled to grind in their prison, and make sport for the multitude; thus symbolizing how the votaries of faith alone bind the truth that should make men free, and put out the eyes of the understanding that should be their guide, and make it grind at their intellectual mill by making it reason in favour of error, and compel it to make sport for the gratification of their corrupt affections. But Samson was single-handed. Saul was to be captain over the Lord's people, and lead them out to battle. And that which made him a king made Israel a kingdom; so that the people with their leader became, representatively, the opposite of that which was represented by the Philistines and their sovereign.
When Saul, in whom the prophet now beheld the future king of Israel, "drew near to Samuel in the gate, he said, Tell me, I pray you, where the seer's house is." Unlike Samuel, the son of Kish had received no revelation, so that he knew not whom he was addressing. In spiritual things the higher knows the lower when the lower knows not the higher; for influx enters the inner man and passes thence into the outer man. This, at least, is the case when the gate of the rational mind, by which the spiritual mind communicates with the natural, and the natural with the spiritual, is open, and when the spiritual is looking outward and the natural is looking inward, and when they are approaching each other, and finally meet in this middle region, as Saul and Samuel met in the gate. When the natural thus desires to obtain access to the spiritual, and especially to know the good in which internal truth resides, as Saul wished to know where the house of the prophet was, then the internal man reveals himself. To Saul's question Samuel answered, "I am the seer." Having communicated this simple fact respecting himself, and directed Saul to go up before him to the high place, for he must eat with him that day, he amazed his visitor by announcing to him that on the morrow he would tell him all that was in his heart, that the asses which were lost three days ago were found, and that he it was on whom was the desire of Israel, and on all his father's house. This miraculous knowledge is the symbol of a spiritual truth. The spiritual mind knows all that pertains to the natural. "What man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" The fullness of time and of state, of which three days are the common symbol, sees that restored which was lost; and truth Divine, with all the good belonging to it, becomes the desire of the common principles of the mind, as their ruling power.
With becoming modesty, expressive of humility, Saul deprecates the honour so unexpectedly thrust upon him. "Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore speak you so to me?" The circumstances which made Saul think himself the least worthy of the high station assigned him, were the very circumstances which made him the subject of the Divine choice. "God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; that no flesh should glory in His presence." It is not to magnify His own power, and prevent men from robbing Him of His glory, that the Lord thus acts; it is because self-sufficiency impedes the Divine operation, and defeats the best efforts of men in the cause of truth and righteousness.
There is perhaps something of the Oriental style in Saul's description of his tribe and family, a style which is well adapted to express the sense of one's own nothingness, or the utter abnegation of the selfhood, which all ought to feel, and the language of which forms so perfect a basis for the spiritual sense. It is possible that after the terrible slaughter of the Benjamites in the time of the Judges their tribe was now the smallest, though it was not so in the time of Joshua; but the description of Kish as a mighty man of power did not seem to indicate that his was actually the least of all the families of Benjamin.
Samuel now took Saul and his servant and brought them into the parlour, and made them sit in the chiefest place among them that were bidden, which were about thirty persons. The room into which they were brought had no doubt more of a sacred character than the homely name given to it would seem to imply. This is the only instance in which the word is translated parlour, but it appears repeatedly in our version as a chamber, and especially a chamber of the temple. One of the chambers of the mystic temple was for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the house, and one was for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the altar (Ezek 40:45, 46); and we learn from Nehemiah that in one chamber they laid the offerings which the Law required the people to bring for the priests, the Levites, and the singers (Neh 13:5). The chamber into which Saul was brought was in the high place, where sacrifices were offered as well as eaten; it therefore was a holy place, where he was to sit down with holy men, to partake of a holy feast. There is such a chamber now as there was then, into which none enter but divinely-bidden guests, where none but sacrificial feasts are eaten, and only holy exchange takes place. That chamber is in the inner man, into which evil never penetrates, but where holy affections and thoughts, which the Lord has introduced, combine to exalt His name and rejoice in His bounty. Into this we consciously enter when raised above the cares of the world. And in the case here represented, that truth which is to rule over the common affections and thoughts is set in the chiefest place, even among the principles of the inner man. Those among whom Saul occupied the chief place were about thirty persons. This, like all numbers in the Word, was symbolic. Thirty is a highly significant number. It includes in its meaning the beginning of a new state and the nature of the state begun— fullness of remains with conflict. The Levites were thirty years of age when they entered on the work of their ministry, which is also called a warfare; David was thirty years old when he began to reign; and the Lord Himself began to be about thirty years of age when He entered on His public ministry. In all these cases there was preparation before and conflict after. In Saul's case the number was not of years, but of persons. These persons are new affections and thoughts, and the acquisition of these is truly the entering on a new state, too surely to be followed by conflict. At present, however, all was to Saul new and elevating. Samuel, forewarned of the guest he was to entertain, had caused a shoulder to be reserved for him, and he now asked the cook to set it before him; and Saul did eat with Samuel that day. It was the custom in those times to mark a distinguished guest both by the quantity and quality of the meat that was set before him. When Joseph entertained his brethren, Benjamin's mess was five times as much as any of theirs. The shoulder which had been set aside for Saul was a distinguished portion. By the Levitical law the shoulder was that part of the wave-offering which was given to Aaron and his sons, as the breast was given to Moses (Exod 29:26, 27), because the shoulder signified love, and the breast charity. In the case of Saul the setting before him of that priestly portion had, besides, a special symbolism; it was an expressive sign that the government of Israel was now about to pass from the priest to the king. The idea of government is also included in the meaning of the shoulder, for it includes the idea of power, which is evident from the well-known passage relating to the Lord Himself, "The government shall be upon His shoulder." Samuel, when Saul did eat with him that day, must have recognised in the circumstance the transfer of his own authority to his guest. Samuel was a prophet and a judge, and he was now at least officiating as a priest, which some assert he actually was. If we accept Chronicles as an historical record he belonged at any rate to the tribe of Levi (1 Chron 6:16, 28), though not to the priestly caste. When the festival was concluded Samuel and Saul came down from the high place to the city. Every actual elevation of the mind to God is followed by a coming down to the affairs of men. From the high place to the city is not less necessary than from the city to the high place. We worship God that we may be strengthened to do our duty to men. It is thus we truly serve God. ''Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it to Me." But although Samuel and Saul had come down from the chamber in the high place to the house in the city, they went up to the top of the house, and there communed on the all-important matters relating to the kingdom which was now about to be commenced. They not only communed on high subjects, but they spoke of them from high or interior states of mind. Exalted motives and exalted views were only suitable in men who discoursed on so high a topic as that which concerned the welfare of a people, elected by the grace of God to preserve the knowledge of His name and the purity of His worship amidst nations sunk into the grossest idolatry and practising the impurest rites. Samuel no doubt fulfilled his promise by telling Saul all that was in his heart; and while he let in the light of truth upon his mind, to show him what manner of man he was, he, we may be sure, counselled him how to govern so great a people, to govern in the strength and for the glory of Him who was their true King and supreme Ruler. And such is the case with the least of us when the Divine Prophet, either by His Word or His Spirit, communes with us respecting our own secret thoughts, and instructs us concerning the government of His kingdom in our own hearts and minds.
So closed the eventful day. On the morrow "they arose early: and it came to pass, about the spring of the day, that Samuel called Saul to the top of the house, saying, Up, that I may send you away. And Saul arose, and they went out both of them, he and Samuel, abroad." If, as competent critics assert, the word here translated "arose in the morning "originally meant to place a load on the shoulders, to load an animal preparatory to a journey, it may well be said of Saul that he arose on the morning of this new day with the burden of a kingdom upon his shoulder. It is when we first awake in the morning after the day of a great change that a sense of our altered circumstances comes most forcibly upon us. But Saul was not only to revive a former impression; he was to receive a new one. Yesterday he knew himself as the chosen, today he is to know himself as the anointed, of the Lord. Inauguration into his high office is to make him for the time at least a new man. This new day is truly the beginning of a new state. All that is related of the day indicates this. Samuel and Saul arose early, while it was yet dark it would seem; for about the spring of the day, or early dawn, Samuel called Saul to the top of the house, saying, Up, that I may send you away. Early morning and dawn mean the beginning of a new state, but they express besides something of its nature. Nor do they symbolize that state only when Divine light breaks in anew upon the mind, but the inward tranquillity and peace which the dawn usually brings with it. In the supreme sense the dawn signifies the Lord Himself, the Sun of Righteousness. He is said to rise early, and send His servants the prophets; and His coming is always connected with the morning, and is compared to the dawn. In a lower and general sense the dawn is the commencement of a new church; in a particular sense the dawn is regeneration, for when any one is made new the Lord's kingdom arises in him, and he becomes a church; in the singular sense it is the dawn as often as the good of love and of faith is operative in him, for in this is the Lord's coming. It was when the dawn had ended His successful wrestling with the angel that Jacob's name was changed to Israel; as it is when the Christian disciple overcomes in temptation: he passes out of a natural into a spiritual state. At the dawn Samuel called Saul to the top of the house, again representing elevation of mind; but this time it is not to commune with him, but to send him away, to speed him on his journey to his father's house, with the seal of his appointment to the regal office. They then went forth abroad. To go forth abroad is to proceed from internal to external things, or to carry inward principles into outward acts. "As they were going down to the end of the city, Samuel said to Saul, Bid the servant pass on before us, (and he passed on), but stand you still a while, that I may show you the word of God." Saul first met Samuel at the gate of the city, and Samuel was to dismiss Saul at its termination. But how different the circumstances! how much had taken place between his entrance and his departure! So the circle of life returns into itself; but how great the difference of state between its beginning and its end! It was when they were approaching the end of the city that Samuel desired Saul to stand still that he might show him the word of God. Like the command to the Israelites, "Stand still, and see the salvation of God," and the exhortation, "Be still, and know that I am God," this is a command to cease from all activity originating in self, and place entire reliance upon God. The meaning is expressed by the Lord Himself where He says to the people, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength;" and where the prophet says of them, "Their strength is to sit still" (Isa 30:7, 15). But sitting has relation to a state of the will and of love, and standing to a state of the understanding and of faith; it is this stillness, therefore, that Samuel requires of Saul. It is this standing still from the activity of our own intellectual selfhood that enables us to receive the word of God in faith; for true faith is trust in God, as able to do for us more and better for us than we can do for ourselves. It is this also which prepares us for the sanctification which the anointing of Saul by the prophet represented; for it was to anoint him as the king of Israel that he required him to stand still. This subject is treated of in the next chapter.
when Saul stood still, "then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the Lord has anointed you to be captain over His inheritance?" As a ceremonial, anointing was a sign of the inauguration of a person into a particular office, or the dedication of a thing to a particular purpose. Not only were priests and kings anointed, but even the particular instruments of their service—the vessels of the temple and the instruments of war. This general unction was designed to teach us an important truth. Oil is in Scripture the symbol of love. A very striking and obvious illustration of this meaning of oil is afforded in the parable of the Ten Virgins, when they went out to meet the bridegroom. The five wise virgins took oil in their vessels with their lamps; but the foolish took their lamps, indeed, but they took no oil; so that when, at midnight, the cry arose, "Behold the bridegroom comes, go you out to meet him," the wise, whose lamps were burning, went in with him to the marriage, while the foolish, whose lamps were gone out, being unable to follow, were shut out. Love is the life of faith, as oil is of the flame; but when there is no love there is not even faith; for the light of the foolish virgins had gone out, and they were left with the empty lamp of mere knowledge. Anointing in the Israelitish Church represented that persons enter actually into a holy state, and are devoted to a holy use, when they receive into their hearts the love of God and act under its influence.
But all the anointings that took place in the shadowy dispensation of the Jews, especially of priests and kings, were representative of the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as the Priest and King, of whom all their priests and kings were types. As a typical act this ceremonial had, in reference to our Lord, the highest and the holiest significance; and it gave Him the title of the Messiah and the Christ, which signify the Anointed. In His case, however, anointing was a purely Divine act. He was anointed with the oil of Divine love. The Lord was manifested in the world as Divine truth; He was the Word made flesh. Divine truth was the Son; Divine love was the Father. The glorification of the Lord, by which He became the Anointed, consisted in His uniting Divine love with Divine truth in His humanity, so that His humanity became the. infinite form of Divine love and Divine wisdom; and He, in His own Divine Person, became, and now is, both Father and Son; all the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in Him.
The Lord's glorification is the pattern or archetype of human regeneration. As He made His humanity Divine by uniting Divine love and Divine truth in Himself, He makes His disciples spiritual by conjoining love and truth in their minds and lives. Truth they acquire from revelation, thus from without; love they can only acquire by inspiration, thus from within, or from above. It is love that makes us the children of God. Truth is indeed necessary, because without truth we could not know what love is, nor who and what we ought to love; but truth must be anointed and sanctified with the holy oil of love before it can become holy in the mind of him who has acquired it, or be employed in the actual performance of holy uses. In the inauguration of one who was to be the ruler of the Lord's heritage, the ceremonial of anointing was the more necessary, because it was expressive of the law of Divine order, that the truth which governs in the Church and in the minds of its members must be grounded in love. The first reception of love in truth is the actual commencement of spiritual life in the soul, for love is life; it is that which enkindles in our hearts a real desire to do the Lord's will, and affects it with true joy and delight in doing it. When truth, which we have acquired from the written Word, has become joined to love, which we have received from the glorified incarnate Word, then is fulfilled that prophetic saying of the inspired Psalmist, "Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven;" and that declaration is also realized, "Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Ps 85:10, 11). The kiss, which is the Scripture symbol of conjunction by love, and in the best sense the conjunction of truth and love, is that which Samuel bestowed upon Saul when he had poured the vial of oil upon his head: for Samuel, as the anointing priest, and Saul, as the anointed king, now represented, more perfectly than before, the two kindred principles of love and truth, of charity and faith. Had this union ever afterwards continued and increased, both the king and the kingdom would have been more prosperous and happy, and the aged prophet would have escaped much bitterness of spirit. Yet those unhappy changes that passed over the spirit and disfigured the reign of Saul, are but too faithful symbols of vicissitudes in the Christian life, and even of trials and temptations of the Lord Himself as truth Divine, thus as the Son of Man during that early experience, when His visage was so marred more than any man, when He had no form nor comeliness, and there was no beauty that we should desire Him. But it is carefully to be observed that, while the typical characters who represented the Lord committed sins, and in some instances grievous sins, their sins only represented His temptations, not temptations to commit the sins themselves which they committed, but the evils too deep to be seen by the human eye, and even too mysterious to be comprehended by the finite mind, in which the sins of men originate. The Lord's temptations had therefore a depth and intensity of which we can have no adequate conception.
Before Samuel had sent away Saul he told him of three signs that were to follow in confirmation of the Lord's having chosen and anointed him to be captain over His inheritance. These are still among the signs that follow them that believe, and to these we must now turn our attention.
When Saul was departed he was to find two men by Rachel's sepulchre, who should tell him that the asses which he sought were found. This was appropriate in the case of Saul, but it is as significant in relation to those whom Saul represented. Rachel was the mother of Benjamin, the father of the tribe to which Saul belonged. She was the first and best beloved, though not the first obtained, of Jacob's two wives. She represented the spiritual affection of truth, Leah her elder sister representing the natural affection. Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin while Jacob was journeying from Padan-aram to Canaan. Bethlehem-Ephratah, the scene of this affecting and significant event, is distinguished in sacred prophecy and history as the birthplace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sovereign and Saviour of the world. And on the massacre of the innocents by Herod, in the hope of destroying Him who was said to be born King of the Jews, Rachel is represented as weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were not, the prophet thus describing the despairing grief of the Church over its innocence destroyed, except in Him and by whom it was to be restored. The death and burial of Rachel at the birthplace of Benjamin did not represent the extinction and rejection of that affection of which she was the type, but its resurrection into newness of life. For as, when the body dies and is buried, the soul enters on a new and higher state of existence, death and burial signify resurrection; and spiritual resurrection is regeneration, which is entrance into life. Saul's first sign occurring at Rachel's sepulchre is a sign to us that regeneration enters on its first stage of development, when the spiritual affection of truth first puts off the old man and puts on the new. This state is further described by this first sign taking place when Saul came to Rachel's sepulchre on the border of Benjamin at Zelzah. The land of Benjamin, like Benjamin himself, represented the good of truth, or truth in act; for when man in the progress of vital religion enters practically on the life of truth from love, he enters into the new or heavenly state. Of Zelzah we know nothing besides its situation but the name. Its verbal meaning, a shade from the heat of the sun, shows it to be expressive of a state continuous with that, the commencement of which was represented by the dawn of the day, when Samuel called Saul to the housetop to send him away, but a state rather of love than of light, or one in which good has been added to truth. The sign itself which was here given him was a double proof of Samuel's character as a seer; but it is expressive of a spiritual truth relating to the stage of spiritual progress now represented. Saul was to find two men who should say to him, "The asses which you went to seek are found: and, lo, your father has left the care of the asses, and sorrows for you, saying, What shall I do for my son?" Saul's searching for asses and finding a kingdom presents a striking natural antithesis; but the former announcement, that what he had lost was found, is the point we are to observe, and in connection with it the father's sorrowing for his son. We have already said that in the highest sense Saul's search for the lost asses represents the Lord's coming to seek that which was lost; and in seeking for the lost He also found a kingdom. Yet Saul himself did not recover the asses; so that the analogy between his seeking and the Saviour's may seem not to hold good, nor are we told by whom they were restored, and this is a matter of important significance. There is a profound as well as a superficial correspondence between the type and the antitype in the Holy Word. There is an internal and invisible as well as an external and visible finding. The faithful were internally restored and conjoined to the Father before they were fully and finally redeemed by the Son. The Lord glorified His humanity in the same order in which He regenerates man. His internal man was, therefore, glorified before His external. These were distinct or discreted acts. Reference is made to them in the Father's answer to the Son's prayer, "Father, glorify Your name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again" (John 12:28). Simultaneous with the internal glorification of the Lord's humanity was the internal redemption of the human race, and of the angelic heaven, and more immediately of the faithful in the middle state, who were thereby internally conjoined to the Father, or to the Lord's internal man; for the Father dwelt within Him. Jesus therefore speaks of His people being already in His Father's possession and in His own before the work of redemption was accomplished. "I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one" (John 10:28-30). This oneness of the Father and the Son was as yet only internal. Like Kish and Saul at this juncture, they were internally united, but externally apart. The complete union of the Father and the Son, or the Divinity and Humanity, was yet to be effected by direful temptations, the last of which was the passion of the cross; and it was in these that the Father sorrowed for His Son. Jesus was a Man of Sorrows. We do not read of the Father sorrowing; nay, we do not read of the Son of God sorrowing, but only of the Son of Man. Only Patripassians supposed the Divinity to suffer. Such images only express representatively the sympathy of the Divinity with the Humanity, or of the Father with the Son in His sufferings.
In reference to the regeneration of man, the asses signify the lowest truths, which belong to the memory, while Saul represents the higher truth, that belongs to the understanding. The wandering of the asses from the fields of Kish is expressive of the separation of these lowest truths from connection with the good to which they belong, of which Saul's father is the type; and the finding of the asses is expressive of their restoration and reunion with the good to which they belong and are serviceable.
The second sign given to Saul was that he should meet three men going up to Bethel, one carrying three kids, another three loaves, and a third a bottle of wine; and after being saluted, he was to receive two loaves of their hands. These three men going up to Bethel describe the progression of the regenerating man as to will, understanding, and life from truth to the good of truth. The men were no doubt going up to worship at Bethel, where was the ark of God, and, it is supposed, the tabernacle also; and the kids, the bread, and the wine were their offering, the kids signifying faith in which is innocence, bread spiritual good, and wine spiritual truth. Saul was to receive from them two loaves; which, though not precisely similar to David receiving the shewbread from the priest in the tabernacle, was yet something of the same nature and representation; for this was bread intended for the temple service, and was therefore in a measure sacred, as being Corban, devoted to God. The gift of this sacred, though not sanctified bread, which Saul received at the hand of these worshipers, was a sign of his being recognised as possessing something of the priestly character, and exercising something of the priestly function, and of being sustained by the sacred bread which was designed for the priest. In respect to the regenerate man, this bread is the spiritual good, the good of charity and the good of love, which supports the life of love in the heart.
The third sign was that of the company of prophets which Saul was to meet after coming to the hill of God, where there was a garrison of the Philistines. What hill this was is not accurately determined; but its name implies, in the spiritual sense, a state of mind in which the love of truth, which is meant by the hill of God, is the ruling principle, but which has not yet overcome and removed the opposite false principle, meant by the garrison of the Philistines. Saul is here brought into the presence of one of the evils for the conquest of which the regal office was permitted in Israel. And the Christian is instructed or reminded, that the love of truth in the inner man is opposed, either tacitly or openly, by the love of falsity in the outer man, in other words, that faith in God is opposed by faith in self, which is the essential ground of faith alone.
The company of the prophets which Saul met, after seeing this memento of the enslaved condition of his country, was the opposite of the garrison of the Philistines; for prophets were the types of the genuine truths of religion, truths that teach the faith of charity and lead to a life of goodness. And whereas the previous company were going up to Bethel, these were coming down from the high place, where they had no doubt been engaged in the worship of God, whose praises had been sounded on the wind and string instruments which they carried with them, and which represented what the sweet sounds they gave out were designed to express—the affections of goodness and truth, of love and faith. Ascent and descent are expressive of that alternation of state, and of the progression which it effects, which goes on in the minds of those who have earnestly entered on and are consistently pursuing the regenerate life, and which is so strikingly described in the dream of Jacob on the spot to which, from that circumstance, he gave the name of Bethel—the House of God. And well did it deserve that name, for there he beheld the mystic ladder which, resting on earth, reached up to heaven, and on which the angels of God were seen ascending and descending, connecting man with God, and God with man. In every human mind that is sincerely directed heavenward there is such an ascent and descent. The affections and thoughts are directed upwards to God in adoration and prayer, and descend again sanctified and invigorated for the performance of the duties of life. When the company of prophets, coming down from the high place, prophesied, and thus exercised their function and discharged their peculiar duty, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, and he prophesied among them. The prophetic gift did not consist exclusively, or even principally, in the ability to predict future events. It made those who enjoyed it seers and revelators, and raised them into an ecstatic condition, in which they spoke and acted above the sphere of ordinary life. Whatever else may have been included in the prophetic gift, Saul acquired it when he was met by a company of the prophets; the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he prophesied among them. But what is the Spirit and gift of prophecy in relation to others? It is the Spirit of truth which God gives to those to whom He has given another heart. When the will is made new the understanding is enlightened to see new and higher truths. These are not merely intellectual truths, but are truths of the heart, because they regard good as an end. They raise the mind which receives them above the ordinary condition of knowing and believing, into that of seeing and loving the truth, and so far realize the devout wish of Moses, "Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!" (Num 11:29.) So great is the change of state, and in some cases so obvious is the improvement of character, which the reception of the Spirit of truth produces, that those who knew such a one beforetime, when they see him prophesying among the prophets, say one to another, "What is this that has come to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?" But such a one is no longer, as a prophet, the son of Kish. It was therefore well answered by one of the same place, "But who is their father? "Spiritually such a one is a son of God. "He is born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). God is his Father. And that which became a proverb is a proverb still: "Is Saul also among the prophets?" It is like the question of Nathariael respecting Jesus, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" We are all too apt to think that a prophet must come Of the prophetic line; that a great man must come of a distinguished family or belong to an important place. Yet we are constantly taught in Bible history and in Bible doctrine, that Divine Providence chooses the lowly, and accomplishes great works by seemingly inadequate means.
When Saul had made an end of prophesying he came to the high place from which the prophets had come down. Thus he ended his eventful progress by ascending to the high place, as the symbol of a high state, to worship the Lord, who had led him to greatness as the means of usefulness.
On Saul's return we do not hear of his father, but of his uncle, inquiring of him respecting his eventful journey, and what Samuel had said to him; and Saul answered that Samuel had told him plainly the asses were found, but of the matter of the kingdom he said nothing. An uncle represents good of the same kind as that represented by a father, but connected with the truth, represented by a son, not by relationship, but by affinity, and therefore can enter into the scientifics or knowledges of that truth, but not into its governing power.
Samuel, having anointed Saul, called the people together to the Lord to Mizpeh. This is not the place where Laban and Jacob entered into a covenant not to pass over to one another, and which was therefore named Mizpah, a watch-tower; for Laban said, "The Lord watch between me and you when we are absent one from another." That Mizpah was in Gilead, on the other side Jordan; this was in the land of Benjamin. Yet the two places, having the same name, must have the same general signification. Mizpah spiritually means the presence of the Lord's Divine natural represented by Jacob, in the Gentile good represented by Laban. But here, instead of Jacob and Laban, we have Samuel and Saul. Samuel, as a prophet and judge, represented the Lord as the Word; and Saul, as king, represented truth from the Lord as the Word. To express it otherwise, Samuel represented Divine truth, and Saul represented truth Divine. Here, then, Mizpeh signifies the presence of the Lord's Divine spiritual in the Divine natural principle of His humanity, thus the presence of Divine truth in truth Divine.
When the people were assembled together, Samuel does not tell them that the Lord had appointed one whom he had already anointed as their king, and that he had assembled the tribes for the purpose of announcing what to them must have been good tidings. Without saying anything to them of the already divinely-appointed sovereign. he proceeds to choose a king from among the tribes by lot, confident that of the many ten thousands of Israel it would fall upon the right person. The lot was acknowledged among the Israelites as a direct appeal to the Deity, so that the decision should rest with the Lord Himself. "Now therefore," said Samuel, "present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes, and by your thousands." The principles of the Church, which the people represented, were to be arranged under the two great divisions of the principles of truth and of goodness, which are meant by tribes and thousands. Of these a successive subdivision is to be made, until the lot falls upon the man whom the Lord shall thus mark as the object of His choice. "When Samuel had caused all the tribes of Israel to come near, the tribe of Benjamin was taken; and when he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near by their families, the family of Matri was taken, and Saul the son of Kish was taken." Here we have evidently a further division into general, particular, and singular. The general principle which the tribe of Benjamin represented is, as we have seen, the ultimate form or state of truth, which is truth in act. The particular truths arranged under one head, and growing out of one good as their parent stem, are meant by the family of Matri, and the one singular or single truth, in which all the others are ultimated, and by which they are represented, is meant by Saul. This, then, is the truth Divine in heaven which is to be manifested upon earth, but which is to pass through so many changes, and these changes to be effected through so much suffering, before it can be perfected, and become the perfect Ruler of a kingdom established in righteousness.
But there is another mysterious circumstance connected with the newly-chosen king. When the lot fell upon Saul the son of Kish, they sought him, but he could not be found. " Therefore they inquired of the Lord further, if the man should yet come thither. And the Lord answered, Behold, he has hid himself among the stuff. And they ran and fetched him hence." Saul's hiding himself bespeaks a becoming modesty on his part, but the circumstance contains a deeper meaning and a more instructive lesson. The truth which Saul represented could not be found by the Church, which was represented by the people. It had hid itself among scientifics. What is here rendered "stuff" would be more correctly translated vessels; and vessels are the expressive symbols of scientifics, which are the receptacles of truth. At the time when the Lord came into the world the truth could not be found, even by those who sought it. It lay concealed among scientifics, that is, among religious scientifics, and only by inquiring of God, and by Divine guidance, could the truth be found. This same circumstance is taught in another fact in the history of the representative people. When Abraham offered up his son Isaac, and his hand, when raised to slay the intended victim, was arrested by a voice from heaven, he looked and saw behind him a ram caught in a thicket by the horns, and he offered him up instead of his son Isaac. The ram caught in the thicket has the same general meaning as Saul hid among the vessels. The ram is the symbol of truth, and the thicket in which he was caught by his horns is the symbol of scientifics, in which the truth was entangled and held captive until delivered by the Lord. In the internal historical sense, in which the events connected with the work of redemption are treated of, the ram represents the spiritual, who were in captivity in the middle state until the Lord delivered them after He had glorified His humanity, represented by the potential sacrifice of Isaac; but that which in the historical sense relates to persons, in the spiritual sense relates to principles; in fact, it was because the spiritual principle in the minds of the spiritual was entangled in scientifics that they themselves were held captive, but still were prisoners of hope, whom the Lord delivered.
Brought forth from his hiding-place, Saul stands among the people, towering above them all; and when Samuel says to all the people, "See you him whom the Lord has chosen, that there is none like him among all the people?" all the people shouted, and said, "God save the king!" "Live the king" is the correct and more significant form of acclamation, this being expressive of a wish that the truth may have in it the love from which it lives; for love is life, and only that truth lives, and secures life to those who in faith receive it, which is animated by love.
The two elections of Saul, one by direct appointment and the other by lot, thus by the Lord, evidently represent a double election—that of the internal and that of the external man. This was not, however, the final settlement of the king and the kingdom. Another is recorded in the next chapter.
When the king had been accepted by acclamation, Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord.
When the Divine Wisdom, to which all the future is present, saw that the children of Israel would desire a king, instructions were given in the law of Moses as to the manner of the king they should choose: "When you are come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and live therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as the nations that are about me: you shall in any wise set him king over you whom the Lord your God shall choose: one from among your brethren shall you set king over you: you may not set a stranger over you, who is not your brother "(Deut 17:14, 15). When the state of the Church is such that truth, and not love, has the supreme control, it is above all things necessary that the truth which rules should be genuine and not spurious, and that it should be derived from the Word and not from any foreign source. It is further necessary that this truth should have relation to goodness, in order that the faith of the Church should be derived from charity. This is what is taught in the command to take their king from among their brethren, a brother signifying the grace of charity, for charity is the bond of brotherhood.
It was further commanded that the king should not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses.... Neither should he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither should he greatly multiply to himself gold and silver (Deut 17:17). This teaches that truth should not be corrupted by reasonings and scientifics, meant by the horses of Egypt, nor by natural affections, meant by wives, nor by the knowledges of natural things, meant by gold and silver. Truth itself resides in the spiritual mind, but science, and the affections and knowledges connected with it, belong to the natural mind, which mind itself is Egypt. It was therefore commanded that the king should not cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; for that would represent a return of the mind to the state from which it has been delivered, a state in which the spiritual was in subjection to the natural, and thus truth to science. This state is well described by the Apostle where he says to the Galatians, "But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage?" (Gal 4:9.)
Besides telling the people the manner of the kingdom, Samuel wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord in the tabernacle, where the Lord's presence was. The regenerate mind is a tabernacle and temple of the living God, and the manner of the kingdom—the principles of the Lord's kingdom, are written and placed therein, when they are inscribed in the heart, and thus placed in the Divine presence. Although the writing of these laws was no doubt a future act, yet there is a spiritual connection between the recorded events; for when the laws of the kingdom are inscribed on the inner man, all the truths which form the kingdom go iorth and enter each into its own good; as Samuel, after the election and acceptance of the king, sent the people away, every man to his house. It is especially mentioned that Saul also went home to Gibeah. There were two places of this name, one in the land of Judah, and this in the land of Benjamin. That in Judah is famous as the place where the ark so long remained, and from which it started on its upward progress to Jerusalem in the time of David. As the progress of the ark represented the progression of the Church in man from its ultimate to its inmost, as from one heaven into another, even to the highest, Gibeah, from which the progress of the ark commenced, signifies the ultimate of the Church, which is its natural principle. Gibeah, we may infer, has a similar meaning here; only, there it is the lowest from which an ascending state begins, here it is the lowest in which a descending state closes. This meaning is also in unison with all that is related of Saul, as representing truth in the ultimate degree. Gibeah literally signifies a hill, and is so rendered in several instances, as in the 10th verse of this chapter; and as a hill signifies good, ultimate good is that which is the home of ultimate truth, which Saul represented. When Saul went to Gibeah there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched. This does not express the force of the original. The term rendered men means mighty men, and is so rendered in other instances, as mighty men of valour, mighty men of wealth. Here it would seem to mean valiant rather than wealthy men. Such would be the more needful and suitable companions in the present circumstances. The band, therefore, who accompanied Saul to his house in Gibeah, when every man was sent to his home, are those who are zealous for the truth, and ready to fight for it against opposing falsities; and who engage in the warfare of the spiritual life strong, not only in the belief but in the love of truth, whose faith is not only of the intellect but of the heart, which God has touched with the fire of His love. In the abstract sense these men denote truths themselves, which were added to the truth which now began to reign in the Church and in the minds of the faithful.
But when truth begins to act powerfully in the mind, one of its effects is to excite the evils that naturally belong to it. So we find that while this band adhered to Saul, the sons of Belial said, "How shall this man save us? And they despised him, and brought him no presents." The Lord's representative was, in this respect, like the Lord Himself when in the world. His disciples, whose hearts God had touched, followed Him, while the Jews, and especially the priesthood, said, Can this Man save us? And they despised Him, and brought Him no presents. But the Lord, like Saul, "held His peace; "or, as rightly expressed, was as though He were deaf. For Jehovah has said by the prophet, "Who is blind, but My servant? or deaf, as My messenger that I sent?... Seeing many things, but You observes! not; opening the ears, but He hears not" (Isa 42:19, 20). The Lord's ear was open to the cry of His children, but closed against their imprecations. "If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared "(Ps 130:3, 4). A highly fitting conclusion this of the account of the election of the first king of Israel, the first representative of the Lord, as a king who was to rule by truth and righteousness in the hearts of his people.
THE regal power having been set up in Israel for the purpose of delivering the people from their surrounding and powerful enemies, it was not long before an occasion arose to call forth the energies of their newly-elected king. The town of Jabesh-gilead had been invested by Nahash, king of the Ammonites, and, to save their lives, the inhabitants had agreed to the ignominious condition imposed upon them, of having their right eyes thrust out; and this was to be regarded not only as a mark of their own submission, but as a reproach upon all Israel—as a sign that the whole power of the Israelitish nation was unable to prevent the indignity threatened to the inhabitants of the invested city. On this ground, we may suppose, the request was made and granted, that seven days should be allowed for the besieged to send messengers into all the coasts of Israel to ask for help. The enfeebled and disorganized state of the Israelitish people, as a matter well known to their enemies, is strikingly evinced by the fact of Nahash granting what he evidently had the power to refuse, and which he no doubt believed he could grant with perfect safety.
When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, the people heard the tidings with the grief of despair; they lifted up their voices and wept. The condition and conduct of Saul on this occasion, considered only as ordinary history, is equal to the finest parts of classic story. Anointed by the hand of the prophet-priest, and himself raised by inspiration to the dignity of a prophet, Saul had returned to his former occupation, and appears now returning from the field after the herd. On learning the cause of their lamentation, the Spirit of God comes upon him, and, by means of a dreaded sign, he collects a large army, and effects the deliverance of the beleaguered city.
The circumstances of the history thus set before us are chiefly interesting to us as describing, in a representative manner, one of the many states of the Christian life and experience, for the sake of which the Word was written. In one aspect life is a warfare. The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. This contrariety gives rise to frequent conflict, and necessitates constant watchfulness to prevent the evils of our nature from obtaining dominidn over us and reducing us to a state of servitude. These evils are various, numerous, and powerful. They were represented by the nations and peoples hostile to the children of Israel. Each of them represented some distinct evil, more or less directly opposed to the good which springs from love to God and charity to man. One of those evils was represented by the Ammonites, the nature of which we must now consider.
Moab and Ammon were the two sons of Lot by his daughters. They and their descendants are mentioned in Scripture both in a good and in a bad sense. In a good sense Moab and Ammon signify those who are in natural goodness and truth; in a bad sense they signify those who pervert and profane goodness and truth. When the Israelites in their pilgrimage came to where the children of Lot dwelt, they were commanded not to distress, or fight against, or seize the land of the Moabites and the children of Ammon, for the Lord had given it to them for a possession; and the reason assigned for leaving them undisturbed is, that they had destroyed the giants, and now dwelt in their land. When goodness and truth, however external, remove evil and falsity, and take their place, the Lord does not disturb or disinherit them. But natural goodness and truth are liable, on the other hand, to turn against and oppose spiritual goodness and truth. We see this clearly enough exemplified by the Moabites and Ammonites of the present day. People who are good and true in the natural degree, and who abhor and shun what is grossly evil and false, may yet be opposed to everything spiritual. Yet while they live peaceably they should be left in peace, that is to say, free from hostile opposition; even although their goodness and truth may, like the children of Lot by his daughters, have been begotten by an intoxicated intellect acting under the influence and through the medium of spurious affections. When, however, they actively oppose, and especially when they pervert and profane what is spiritual, they are to be resisted, and they come under the curse at times pronounced against them in Moses and the prophets. Those who profane goodness are spiritual Moabites, and those who profane truth are spiritual Ammonites. When we apply the subject to our own minds, the Ammonites represent the truths themselves which are profaned, and. consequently, the false persuasions and sinful practices which arise from that profanation. But what are we to understand by the profanation of truth, and the false persuasions and sinful practices that spring from it? To profane truth is to pervert its meaning and falsify its teaching, so as to make it appear to favour evil. Truth is nothing but the teacher and minister of goodness. Without reference to goodness truth is but an empty name; it is expressive of no quality, and is directed to no useful end. But truth can hardly be considered, and is seldom found, without relation to some subject or object. If it has not relation to goodness, it will generally be found to have relation to evil. But it acquires this relation by being perverted. And yet it may, in its perverted state, be most highly honoured. For instance, it is a truth that of himself man is only evil, and can do nothing that is truly good. But this truth is perverted when it is maintained that, therefore, what are called good works contribute nothing to salvation; so that a man must trust for salvation to the merit of Christ. This truth is still further profaned when it is held that, being entirely corrupt, man can do nothing but evil, therefore that evil does not condemn those who are justified through faith. True it is that man of himself can do nothing that is good, but it is equally true that he can do all things by Christ strengthening him.
Besides the doctrinal forms which perverted truth has assumed, and which have gradually risen out of the evils of the human heart, in their desire and effort to free themselves from the restraints which truth has laid upon them, there are other shapes which it spontaneously takes in the ordinary operations of the mind in everyday life. Every attentive observer of human nature must have seen that there are two very different classes of men in society. There are those who are continually striving to bring their practice up to their principles, and there are those who are constantly striving to bring their principles down to their practice. Those who belong to the first class are they who have conscientiously adopted what they believe to be the truth, and honestly strive to realize it in their lives; while those who belong to the second class are they who know or profess right principles, but who are continually trying to justify themselves for departing from them in practice on the plea of custom or necessity.
In considering the Ammonitish character in connection with the present subject, which allows us to apply it to the individual mind, it is not necessary to assume its actual existence among those who are the true Israel of God. Those who have really entered on the regenerate life cannot be supposed to act as profaners of truth, but they can be, and no doubt sometimes are, tempted to commit this great sin. The evils that are actually committed by some exist potentially in all, and are only prevented from coming forth into the life, either by prudential consideration on the one hand or by the controlling and corrective power of truth on the other. In the progress of the regenerate life, the evils of our nature are excited by the influence of evil spirits acting from within in connection with inducements acting from without. It is possible for Christians to suffer temptations from which others may be exempt; since the perfection of the Christian life requires not only that evils should not be committed, but that the very inclination to commit them should be overcome. This is one of the reasons that evil is so prominent a subject of the Scriptures, and that so much more is said as to the necessity of shunning evil than the duty of doing good, it being still more important that evil should not be committed than that good should be done. Good may be done without evil being eradicated from the heart; but the eradication of evil is sure to result in the doing of good. The good that is done before evil is removed is only outward good, but that which follows the removal of evil is inward, and therefore saving.
To view the history in its particular sense. A temptation to profane the truth being described representatively by the attempt of Nahash the Ammonite to take Jabesh-gilead, the place, the people, and the circumstances all tend to throw light on the subject, and to instruct us respecting the consequences of yielding to the assault; for it is Israel that is tempted, and Nahash that tempts.
Gilead was on the other side Jordan, and was in that part of the land that was given as an inheritance to the half tribe of Manasseh. For when the Israelites came to the promised land, two tribes and a half were permitted to take their inheritance on the other side of the river, on account of the rich pasturage it afforded for their cattle; but there was this peculiarity with respect to Manasseh, that one half the tribe took their lot in Canaan, while the other half remained in Gilead. By this arrangement the tribes in Canaan itself represented the principles of the Church in the inner man, and the tribes out of Canaan represented the principles of the Church in the outer man; while Manasseh represented the conjoining medium between them. Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph, represented spiritual goodness and truth, or charity and faith. But the half tribes of Manasseh outside of Canaan represented goodness or charity in the natural mind. The men of Jabesh-gilead belonged therefore to the tribe of Manasseh, and represented mutual love or charity in the external man or natural mind. But they were in a city, which signifies doctrine; so that Jabesh-gilead represented the doctrine of mutual love or charity. Doctrine is a defence for the principles it contains, as a city is for its inhabitants. Jabesh signifies, and was so called from the heat of the sun upon it, because it lay upon a mountain. Before the present instance, this city and its inhabitants are mentioned only once; and that serves to explain the cause and nature of the danger, spiritually considered, to which they were now exposed. They are mentioned in connection with one of the most singular transactions of that most singular book—the Book of Judges.
A Levite passing the night, on his homeward journey, in one of the cities of Benjamin, some of its inhabitants, sons of Belial, abused his concubine so shamefully that she died. The Levite divided the body into twelve pieces, and sent them through all the coasts of Israel. The people rose as one man to avenge so dreadful a crime; and so terrible was the revenge, that they not only destroyed the greater part of the tribe of Benjamin, but they vowed that they would not again give any of them his daughter to Benjamin to wife. But the people soon relented, and began to lament that a tribe should be cut off from Israel. The few remaining Benjamites had taken refuge in a rocky fastness of the desert; but as their vow did not permit the other tribes to give them wives, the extinction of the tribe seemed inevitable. In this dilemma inquiry was made, which one of the tribes had not come up to Mizpeh and appeared before the Lord when the vow was made; and it was found that none of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead were there. Twelve thousand men were sent against Jabesh, who slew the entire population, except four hundred virgins, whom they saved as wives for the Benjamites.
It is easy to see that the dreadful outrage of the wicked Benjamites on the wife of the Levite involved the crime of profanation. The men of Jabesh-gilead, by not joining the rest of the tribes to avenge this enormity, virtually consented to it, and thus became partakers of the crime of those who had committed it. All, therefore, were destroyed, with the exception of the four hundred virgins, representing that only those affections which had not been united to and defiled by the falsities of so great an evil could be preserved and united to truths. The Benjamites, who had committed the crime, and the men of Jabesh, who had consented to it, were, with a few exceptions, both destroyed, and the remnants of the males of one tribe, and the remnants of the females of another, were united to preserve and build up a tribe anew. Thus is it also sometimes spiritually. Departure from the principles and path of religion may be so serious as to almost exterminate all perception of truth and affection of goodness; but by the Lord's providence a remnant of both may be saved, that when repentance and amendment take place, the remains of what is good and true may be brought together and united to form the commencement of a new state of life.
Profanation being the subject treated of in the war of Nahash against the men of Jabesh, their previous crime may be supposed to have contributed to bring upon them the present assault, or may show, if not in their actual, at least in their representative character, the ground of such an attack. The people, it is true, were not the same, but their representative character was not necessarily changed. In the present case we see in the men of Jabesh a disposition to yield to Nahash; for they offer to serve the Ammonites, and are only deterred by the hard conditions imposed upon them. We now come to inquire what those conditions signify.
We can easily account for those conditions on natural grounds. Putting out the right eye, like cutting off the thumbs and great toes, according to the barbarous custom of the times, was for the purpose of rendering them unfit for war. This natural reason is not inconsistent with the spiritual sense.
The eyes of the body correspond to the understanding of the mind, the right eye to the understanding of good, the left eye to the understanding of truth. This signification of the eyes, and of the right eye in particular, is clear from the manner of Divine speech, as we find it in the New Testament, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light. But if your eye be evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness." The mind is the spiritual body, and all that is said of the material is true of the spiritual. When the eye is evil, the evil eye, or the evil that is in the eye, must be removed, that the body itself may be preserved. "If your right eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell." This plucking out of the right eye in obedience to the will of God is the opposite of the thrusting out of the right eye in obedience to the will of man, as the enemy of God. One denotes the removal from the understanding of the evil which prevents the perception of goodness, the other involves the destruction of the faculty itself by which goodness is perceived. This is the consequence of profaning the truth. It deprives the mind of the power of perceiving goodness; it puts out the right eye; and this is for a reproach upon all Israel, for when the understanding of goodness is destroyed the whole mind is full of darkness. Errors in matters of faith obscure the understanding, but do not necessarily corrupt the heart. Such errors are motes in the eye, which indeed prevent it from seeing clearly, but are not like the beam that perverts the vision. Nor are they like the thrusting out of the right eye, which disables us, as soldiers of the Lord, who should follow Him, as the Captain of our salvation, in warring against the enemies of our souls, the evils of our own hearts.
Such is the evil represented by that which first brought Saul into action as the captain of the Lord's people. When he heard of the straits of the men of Jabesh, and the condition to which they had been compelled to submit, the Spirit of God came upon him, and his anger was greatly kindled. Truth, animated with the spirit of truth, inspired him with zeal, which is anger as a generous sentiment. Virtuous anger is zeal. It is an unselfish indignation against wrong, and an ardent desire to vindicate innocence against injury. Zeal differs from anger in this: zeal has love within it; anger has evil within it. They are similar in their outward appearance, but are entirely different in their inward state. From this similarity of appearance between anger and zeal, anger is ascribed to God in the letter of Scripture, because the literal sense of Scripture is written according to appearances, the real truth, as contained in the spiritual sense, being, that the Lord is a zealous but not an angry God. But to effect deliverance the Spirit of truth and its zeal must be propagated and spread through all the affections and thoughts of the mind till they come into act. Saul, therefore, proceeded to arouse all Israel to go at once to the rescue of their distressed brethren. He took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel, threatening a similar treatment to the oxen of those who refused to come up to succour the inhabitants of Jabesh. Thus are we instructed that all, especially those who are under the yoke, must obey the call, and fight against evil and falsehood under the banner of divine truth, and that to those who refuse to obey its commands the truth is a sword that will cut them to pieces, that will divide and dissipate all the affections and perceptions of the natural mind. But the call was universally responded to. The fear of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. It was not the fear of Saul, or the dread of his significant threat, but the dread of Jehovah, that Divine name which is expressive of Divine love; so that they obeyed from love, for this is holy fear.
When numbered in Bezek the men of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. Bezek was one of the cities of Judah, which he took from the Canaanitish king, Adoni-Bezek, whose thumbs and great toes he cut off, which the king acknowledged as a just retribution for having done the same to seventy kings who gathered their meat under his table. These cruel mutilations are symbols of the privation of power which evil brings upon those who commit it; the law of retaliation, though in their case unconsciously inflicted, being the result of the eternal law which prevails alike in heaven and in hell, that as we do to others, so shall it be done to us. In that place, memorable for the infliction, upon an enemy of Judah, of a punishment similar in its nature and meaning to that which an enemy of Manasseh threatened to inflict upon them, the tribes assembled and were numbered. It is the first time that Judah and Israel are mentioned together as including all the tribes; two names under which they are frequently mentioned afterwards, as representative of the two universal principles of goodness and truth, or love and faith, which constitute the Church and kingdom of the Lord. The numbering of the people, when done in conformity with the Divine will and wisdom, represented the arrangement of the principles of the Church according to just order, and in due subordination, so that they may act in harmony and unity under one head, and that head the Lord Himself. The numbers themselves are expressive of the combined qualities of the principles, or of the graces and virtues, of which the Church or religion consists; for the thousands refer to goodness, and three to truth: the general principle of order amongst them being according to the laws of truth, is further indicated by these being divided into three companies, which also refers to that trine of will, understanding, and action, or of love, faith, and works, in which the principles of the Church are in their fullness and power.
The messengers who had come to seek for help were now dismissed with the tidings that on the morrow by the time the sun be hot the men of Jabesh should have help; tidings which gladdened their hearts, and enabled them to announce to their enemies that on the morrow they would come out to them. That was, we conclude, the last of the seven days, and the answer was no doubt intended to lead the Ammonites to believe that all their hopes of succour had been disappointed. But the morrow brought a new state of things. In the morning watch Saul led his three companies into the midst of the host, and they slew the Ammonites until the heat of the day, and they who remained were scattered, so that two of them were not left together. The morning watch was the dawn of a new state, a state of deliverance out of temptation. It was a state of light advancing to a state of love—from the morning watch to the heat of the day, which saw the Ammonites so completely scattered that two of them were not found together: the dispersion that followed the slaughter was so complete that no evil and falsity were left together. As good and truth constitute the strength of the righteous, evil and falsity constitute the power of the wicked; and when their connection is severed their power is gone.
When the battle was ended, and Saul's character as a leader was established, the people, flushed with victory, demanded of Samuel that the men who had spoken slightingly of Saul as a saviour of Israel should be brought out and slain. But Saul with true nobility of soul said, "There shall not a man be put to death this day: for today the Lord has worked salvation in Israel." It is singular, but it nevertheless is true, that overcoming in one temptation sometimes leads to another. So far as we think we have overcome a temptation by our own strength, we fall into the temptation to ascribe to ourselves the merit of our deliverance; and so far as we claim merit to ourselves we deny it to others. Saul's words correct this double evil. He ascribes the salvation of Israel that day to the Lord, and declares that after so signal a manifestation of the saving power of the Most High not a man should be put to death. Not death but life marks the state of true spiritual triumph. Thus are the suggestions of the lower thoughts of the mind reproved and corrected by the higher, by referring all power, and therefore all merit, to the infinite Source of good.
" Then said Samuel to the people, Come, and let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there. And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal." This was the third time that Saul was made king. It was the renewal and confirmation of his appointment by the anointing of Samuel and the lot among the tribes. There must be something significant in this in reference to Saul's representative character. On the two previous occasions Saul was appointed without any direct choice or act of the people themselves. They no doubt recognised the Divine appointment in the lot; but this was to be a voluntary and deliberate act of their own. So with the Lord's people spiritually. They can see the truth, and acknowledge that it is from the Lord, as it comes to them through the Word and is witnessed by the law and the testimony; but not until it has the testimony of their own experience, especially in enabling them to overcome evil and obtain deliverance from it, do they themselves confirm it and establish its reign in their own hearts and lives. The place where the renewal of the kingdom took place is not without its significance in this confirmatory act. Gilgal is remarkable for two very important and significant acts in the history of the Israelites. It was in Gilgal that Joshua set up the twelve stones that he took out of the midst of Jordan, where the priests' feet had stood while the ark of the covenant and the people passed over; and it was here that the whole of the men of Israel were circumcised after they had thus entered the Holy Land. It was in reference to this occasion that it received its name. "For the Lord said to Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day." This was truly the beginning of the new life, the life of the spiritual Canaan as distinguished from that of the natural Egypt. Gilgal thence signified the doctrine of natural truth, serving for introduction into the Church. But that which is first in the order of the regenerate life becomes the last; for, as we have had occasion to remark, the spiritual life, and the particular states in it, begin and end in ultimates. The quality of the first and of the last state is indeed different. The mind returns to its first state invested with knowledge and experience, and finds in its first truth the confirmation of its subsequent acquirements. The renewal of the kingdom in Gilgal is thus representative of the confirmation of Divine truth in the regenerate mind, by which it is made, actually, because practically, the governing principle in the thoughts and affections. The sacrifices and peace-offerings which they sacrificed to the Lord when they had made Saul king, and the mutual rejoicing between the king and the people, tell us of the conjunction which is effected with the Lord when order is established in the kingdom of the regenerate mind, and its principles, the ruling and the governed, exist in harmonious relation to each other, and rejoice together.
Saul being firmly established in the regal office, the function of Samuel as judge has ceased. He now, therefore, delivers what might be called his valedictory address to the people. He speaks to them respecting the manner in which, during his long term of office, he had discharged its duties; and he vindicates his integrity with the entire consent of the whole of the assembled tribes of Israel. "Behold," he says, "I have hearkened to your voice in all that you said to me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walks before you: and I am old and gray-headed; and, behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my childhood to this day. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before His anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you." To this direct and solemn appeal the people responded, "You have not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither have you taken ought of any man's hand. And he said to them, The Lord is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this day, that you have not found aught in my hand. And they answered, He is witness."
Samuel is one of the most remarkable of the public characters mentioned in sacred history, and one of the most eminent of the instruments raised up by the Lord for reformatory purposes in evil times. At the time of his appearance in Israel the nation was demoralized and the priesthood was licentious. The judicial office, which had become corrupt, he restored to integrity, and the offering of the Lord, which had come to be abhorred, he made to be honoured: he brought the people back from a degrading and impure idolatry to the worship of the true God; and by public sacrifice and prayer, without the use of carnal weapons, of which indeed their enemies had deprived them, he obtained for Israel deliverance from what might have been the beginning of an exterminating war.
The history of Samuel is no less remarkable for its typical than for its actual character and deeds. Elkanah, the father of Samuel, had two wives. Like the two wives of Jacob, one was fruitful, and the other and best beloved was barren. The same truth is represented by both. In the early stage of the regenerate life the natural affection is fruitful, but the spiritual affection is barren. That which is natural is first, and afterwards that which is spiritual: but the spiritual affection, though barren, has an ardent desire to bear, and this desire is in due time blessed with children. Samuel was the answer to Hannah's prayers, and her devotion of the child to the Lord was the fulfillment of the vow she made in asking for a son. Samuel was a second Joseph to the children of Israel, and, like the son of Rachel, while he saved the house of Israel, he was an eminent type of the Saviour. His personal history and character bear some considerable resemblance to those of the Lord Himself. His early life is associated with the temple; and one part of his mission was to expel the mercenary dealers from its sacred precincts. From the age of twelve, when, according to Josephus, he delivered the Divine message to Eli, we hear nothing more of Samuel till, in mature manhood, he appears as a prophet before the children of Israel; and thenceforth his life is one of singular purity and usefulness. Like