when Jacob beheld their hosts at Mahanaim (the word David uses), or as Elisha showed them long after to his servant. Then he calls those followers who loved him, but did not yet love God, to taste, try by experience the wonderful goodness of his God.

In arid, thirsty Adullam, the outlaws need have no fear of hunger, even though they never robbed nor used violence. Lions might suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord shall never want any manner of thing that is good. He calls his brave men round as children to hearken while he sings to them the safe simple secret of happiness, four lines that may well be the rule of life-echoing on from David's harp at his cavern door to St. Peter's Epistle (1 Pet. iii. 10-12) :—

For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile :

Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the LORD are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the LORD is against them that do evil.

There is something of penitence in these lines—perhaps David's own confession of the guile he had used towards the High Priest, which had led to fearful consequences ; and, indeed, there is a strain of repentance in the later verse, where he speaks of God's mercy to the contrite heart and humble spirit. Continual penitence that hates his own sins, for their unlikeness to God, is the great characteristic of David, and keeps up his loving trust that in every trouble he will be delivered-hurt and bruised; but his bones, his strength, never broken. In those words he further prophesies how when the Anointed hung on the Cross, as the Paschal Lamb, a bone of Him was not broken; and both in these types alike show how it always is with the Body of Christ, the Church. As long as she puts her trust in God and lives in love and penitence, her troubles may be great, but her bone, her strength, shall not be broken. So again with each single Christian. Let him follow David's rule, repeated by St. Peter: let him taste for himself the goodness of the Lord, and angels will encamp about him, and God shall deliver his soul, and never leave him destitute.

LESSON LXXV.

THE SLAUGHTER OF THE PRIESTS.

B.C. 1060.-I SAM. xxii. 6-23.

When Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men that were with him, (now Saul abode in Gibeah under a tree in Ramah, having his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him ;)

Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds ;

That all of you have conspired against me, and there is none that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or sheweth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?

Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub.

And he enquired of the LORD for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.

Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests that were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king.

And Saul said, Hear now, thou son of Ahitub. And he answered, Here I am, my lord.

And Saul said unto him, Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread, and a sword, and hast inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?

Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son-in-law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honourable in thine house?

Did I then begin to enquire of God for him? be it far from me : let not the king impute any thing unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more.

And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou, and all thy father's house.

And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the LORD; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not shew it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the LORD.

And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod.

And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword.

And one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David.

And Abiathar shewed David that Saul had slain the LORD'S priests.

And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul: I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house.

Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life but with me thou shalt be in safeguard.

COMMENT.-Saul held his state under his great terebinth tree at Gibeah, towering above all the people, with the spear that served him for a sceptre in his hand. He was grim, fierce, and furious at finding that David, whose very name he would not speak, was gathering men about him, and that it was by Jonathan's warning that he had escaped. Bitterly and sadly spoke the old King, as one complaining that he had no real friends about him, and never perceiving that this was his own doing. Then, to inflame his wrath, up spake the malicious Edomite herdsman, Doeg. He declared that Ahimelech had inquired of the Lord for David—a thing only done for the Chief of the State, and therefore treason—describing his gifts, and concealing how he had himself been deceived. Now Saul especially regarded David as a rival set up against him by Samuel and the priesthood, and his rage was great. He sent for Ahimelech and reproached him fiercely; and when he answered with a brave defence of David's faithfulness and an entire denial of the charge of having inquired of the Urim for him, Saul's frantic passion broke forth, and he sentenced all the priests to instant death. None of the Israelites would perform the hideous command, but the spiteful Edomite and the herdsmen under him were ready enough to execute the massacre, and not only killed eighty-five priests, but sacked the whole priestly city of Nob, slaying the wives and children of the priests, and likewise the Gibeonite servants, who dwelt there under the protection of Joshua's oath of old. Thus had the miserable Saul made a further desert for himself, and cut off the last link that had bound him to holy things!

Ahimelech was the son of Ahitub, son to the wicked Phinehas, and this cruel slaughter was a fulfilment of the warning made to

Eli nearly a century before, that "all the increase of his house should die in the flower of their age." So it is that man's guilt is overruled to bring about God's judgments and purposes. Only one of the priests of Nob escaped the slaughter, namely, the young Abiathar, who fled to David with his dreadful tale, and remained with him as the companion of his wanderings, bringing with him the Ephod with the Urim and Thummim, all of sanctity that was left to the unhappy people of Israel. David took blame to himself as the occasion of this horrible deed, and his grief and indignation against the slanderer Doeg were poured forth in several Psalms, in which he foretells the utter destruction of the false witness, and therewith carries on a prophecy of those who should witness falsely against a greater High Priest than Ahimelech.

Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man?
The goodness of God endureth continually.

Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs;

Like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.

Thou lovest evil more than good;

And lying rather than to speak righteousness.

Thou lovest all devouring words,

O thou deceitful tongue.

God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away,

And pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place,

And root thee out of the land of the living.

The righteous also shall see, and fear,

And shall laugh at him :

Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength;

But trusted in the abundance of his riches,

And strengthened himself in his wickedness.

But I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God:

I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.

I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it :

And I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

PSALM lii.

Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshing-floors.

Therefore David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the LORD said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah.

And David's men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah : how much more then if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?

Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him, and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines

into thine hand.

So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

And it came to pass, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand.

And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah. And Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars.

And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.

And David knew that Saul secretly practised mischief against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring hither the ephod.

Then said David, O LORD God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.

Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O LORD God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the LORD said, He will come down.

Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the LORD said, They will deliver thee up.

Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah: and he forbare to go forth.

COMMENT.- David was induced to leave his retreat in the cave of Adullam by the prophet Gad, who had probably been bred up in one of Samuel's colleges of prophets. He brought him commands from