melts his heart for a time. "And it came to
pass that when David had made an end of speaking, that Saul said, Is this
thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept. And he
said to David, 'Thou art more righteous than I--for thou hast rewarded me
good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. And thou hast shewed me this
day how thou hast dealt with me; for as much as when the Lord delivered
me into thine hand, thou killedst me not. For if a man find his enemy,
will he let him go well away? Wherefore the Lord reward thee good for
that thou hast done unto me this day. And now, behold, I know well that
thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be
established in thine hand.'"

And so it will be with you, my friends. "If thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink, for so thou shalt heap coals of fire
on his head." Thou shalt melt the hardness of his heart. Thou shalt
warm the coldness of his heart. Nobleness in thee shall bring out in
answer nobleness in him, and if not, thou hast done thy duty, and the
Lord judge between him and thee.

But Saul's repentance does not last. Soon after we find him again
hunting David in the wilderness, seemingly from mere caprice, and without
any fresh cause of offence. The Ziphites--dwellers in the forests of the
south of Judea--came to Saul and said, "Doth not David hide himself in
the hill of Hachilah. Then Saul arose and went down to the wilderness,
having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the
wilderness of Ziph. And Saul pitched in the hill of Hachilah. But David
abode in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the
wilderness." Again Saul lies down to sleep--in an entrenched camp, and
David and Abishai, his nephew, go down to the camp at night as spies.
Then comes the story of my text--how Abishai would have slain Saul, and
David forbade him to lift his hand against the Lord's anointed, and left
Saul to the judgment of God, which he knew must come sooner or later--and
merely took the spear from his bolster and the cruse of water to show he
had been there.

Once again Saul's heart gives way at David's nobleness: for when David
and Abishai got away while Saul and his guards all slept, David calls to
Abner (verse 14-25), and rebukes him for not having guarded his king
better. "Art not thou a valiant man? Wherefore, then, hast thou not
kept thy lord the king? The thing is not