in weakness, not expelled even by such
joyous faith, that he plaintively besought God's mercy, and laid before
His mercy-seat as the mightiest plea His own inviting words, "Seek ye My
face," and His servant's humble response, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek."
Together, these made it impossible that that Face, the beams of which
are light and salvation, should be averted. God's past comes to his lips
as a plea for a present consistent with it and with His own mighty name.
"Thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my
salvation." His loneliness, his ignorance of his road, and the enemies
who watch him, and, like a later Saul, "breathe out cruelty" (see Acts
ix. 1), become to him in his believing petitions, not grounds of fear,
but arguments with God; and having thus mastered all that was
distressful in his lot, by making it all the basis of his cry for help,
he rises again to hope, and stirs up himself to lay hold on God, to be
strong and bold, because his expectation is from Him. A noble picture of
a steadfast soul; steadfast not because of absence of fears and reasons
for fear, but because of presence of God and faith in Him.

Having abandoned Adullam, by the advice of the prophet Gad, who from
this time appears to have been a companion till the end of his reign (2
Sam. xxiv. 11), and who subsequently became his biographer (1 Chron.
xxix. 29), he took refuge, as outlaws have ever been wont to do, in the
woods. In his forest retreat, somewhere among the now treeless hills of
Judah, he heard of a plundering raid made by the Philistines on one of
the unhappy border towns. The marauders had broken in upon the mirth of
the threshing-floors with the shout of battle, and swept away the year's
harvest. The banished man resolved to strike a blow at the ancestral
foes. Perhaps one reason may have been the wish to show that, outlaw as
he was, he, and not the morbid laggard at Gibeah, who was only stirred
to action by mad jealousy, was the sword of Israel. The little band
bursts from the hills on the spoil-encumbered Philistines, recaptures
the cattle which like moss troopers they were driving homewards from
the ruined farmsteads, and routs them with great slaughter. But the
cowardly townspeople of Keilah had less gratitude than fear; and the
king's banished son-in-law was too dangerous a guest, even though he was
of their own tribe, and had delivered them from the enemy. Saul, who had
not stirred from his mood