ortunity escape; but the nobler
nature of David knows no personal animosity, and in these earliest days
is flecked by no cruelty nor lust of blood. He cannot, however, resist
the temptation of showing his power and almost parading his forbearance
by stealing through the darkness and cutting away the end of Saul's long
robe. It was little compared with what he could as easily have
done--smite him to the heart as he crouched there defenceless. But it
was a coarse practical jest, conveying a rude insult, and the quickly
returning nobleness of his nature made him ashamed of it, as soon as he
had clambered back with his trophy. He felt that the sanctity of Saul's
office as the anointed of the Lord should have saved him from the gibe.
The king goes his way all unawares, and, as it would seem, had not
regained his men, when David, leaving his band (very much out of temper
no doubt at his foolish nicety), yields to a gush of ancient friendship
and calls loudly after him, risking discovery and capture in his
generous emotion. The pathetic conversation which ensued is eminently
characteristic of both men, so tragically connected and born to work woe
to one another. David's remonstrance (1 Sam. xxiv. 9-15) is full of
nobleness, of wounded affection surviving still, of conscious rectitude,
of solemn devout appeal to the judgment of God. He has no words of
reproach for Saul, no weak upbraidings, no sullen anger, no repaying
hate with hate. He almost pleads with the unhappy king, and yet there is
nothing undignified or feeble in his tone. The whole is full of
correspondences, often of verbal identity, with the psalms which we
assign to this period. The calumnies which he so often complains of in
these are the subject of his first words to Saul, whom he regards as
having had his heart poisoned by lies: "Wherefore hearest thou men's
words, saying, Behold! David seeketh thy hurt." He asserts absolute
innocence of anything that warranted the king's hostility, just as he
does so decisively in the psalms. "There is neither evil nor
transgression in my hand, and I have not sinned against thee." As in
them he so often compares himself to some wild creature pursued like the
goats in the cliffs of Engedi, so he tells Saul, "Thou huntest my life
to take it." And his appeal from earth's slanders, and misconceptions,
and cruelties, to the perfect tribunal of God, is couched in language,
every clause of which may be found in his psalms. "The Lord, t