Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
FOR I SAID: I WILL NOT PUT OUT MY HAND AGAINST MY LORD, BECAUSE HE IS THE LORD’S ANOINTED.—“Anointed” (Christus), that is, anointed to be king by God through Samuel. David gives two reasons why he did not harm Saul: the former, that he is his “lord”; the latter, that he is the “anointed” of the Lord, as though to say: It was a matter of conscience for me to touch him whom God’s anointing has consecrated. Rightly St. Augustine, book 2 Against the Letters of Petilian, chapter 47: “David,” he says, “on account of the sacred anointing both honoured Saul living and avenged him slain. And because he cut off even a scrap from his robe, he trembled with a smitten heart.”
12. BUT THOU LIEST IN WAIT FOR MY LIFE TO TAKE IT AWAY.—Each of David’s words has great emphasis, and increases his clemency and virtue. For he shows that he vies by his kindness with Saul’s snares and ill-doing, and that he is as beneficent to him as Saul was cruel and maleficent to him. St. Chrysostom, besides the homily On David and Saul, wrote a notable homily whose title is: That David raised a more magnificent trophy by sparing Saul than by slaying Goliath; where, repeating what I quoted at verse 7, he adds that David here inflicted a notable blow on the devil, who thirsts for and stirs up only slaughter: “He went up,” he says, “having wounded his enemy with countless wounds; for though he had saved Saul, yet he in truth pierced that enemy the devil with many wounds. David therefore came out of the cave bearing that right hand worth the price of the whole world, and at the same time his head crowned with the crown of justice and meekness,” etc.
The same Chrysostom, in the next homily, teaches that David here deserved the laurel of martyrdom not single but manifold: “Consider this,” he says, “that from Saul’s snares he was crowned with a triple and quadruple crown of martyrdom. For he who saved his enemy, who once and again, nay frequently, had hurled a spear at his head, when he had gained the power to kill him, nevertheless spared him. And this though he knew that after the clemency shown he would be assailed by him again: it is plain that by his purpose of mind he earned the crown a thousand times, and being killed a thousand times for God, he bore very many crowns of martyrdom; who, as Paul also says, died daily for God. For when he could have removed from the midst the enemy who lay in wait for him, for God’s sake he would not; he preferred to be in daily peril rather than to be freed from so many deaths by a just slaughter.”
David to God’s judgment, because he had not a human one. For Saul, who ought to have been judge, was his enemy and persecutor. He does this to expostulate sharply with Saul, showing the supreme injustice of the persecution; and to terrify him and turn him from persecuting, by threatening God’s judgment and vengeance. So St. Athanasius, to the Emperor Constantine seduced by the Arians and ordering him to go into exile, said: “The Lord judge between me and thee, O Emperor, because thou hast believed the calumnies of my enemies.” So Socrates, book 1, History chapter 25, and Baronius, vol. 3, page 426.
David, more moved by passion, to seek vengeance from God on Saul, but from the first impulse of mind and an undeliberated act, and therefore sins lightly, says Abulensis. For he did not deliberately wish God’s vengeance on Saul; whence on hearing of his death he sorrowed seriously and gravely. Add that David seems to seek this vengeance from a right zeal of justice, that God might chastise Saul’s great crime as an example to others, that they may not dare to persecute the pious, so that the scandal Saul had given to Israel may be repaired. So Moses, Numbers 16, Jeremias 17, and David in the Psalms, at times rightly and holily ask of God just vengeance on the wicked.
“FROM THE WICKED WICKEDNESS SHALL GO FORTH.”—“Wickedness” may here be taken simply: first, properly for the fault itself; second, metonymically for its penalty: if you take it for the fault, the sense will be, as though he said: The wickedness of killing proceeds only from a wicked murderer; here and elsewhere I have always shown myself dutiful and respectful toward thee and all others; so that this maxim belongs to that of verse 12: “See that there is no evil in my hand, nor iniquity, neither have I sinned against thee; but thou liest in wait for my life.”
If for the penalty, the sense is, as though he said: The wicked are followed by the penalty of their wickedness; for penalty accompanies guilt as the executioner the culprit. There is no need, therefore, for me to stretch forth my hand against thee, O Saul, and kill thee; because thy wickedness, God avenging, will kill thee. For thou shalt be killed by a wicked man, not by me who am pious. For wicked Saul killed himself with his own wicked hand, and was the avenger and executioner of his own wickedness, as will appear in chapter 31.
This proverb, taken from the usage and mouth of the common people, serves directly, says Cajetan, to make manifest these three things: first, David’s piety in abstaining from the slaughter of Saul and from every appearance of impiety; second, the impiety of those flatterers who slandered David before Saul and incited him to David’s slaughter; third, to confute Saul himself, who impiously persecuted the pious David.
15. WHOM DOST THOU PURSUE, O KING OF ISRAEL? A DEAD DOG, AND A FLEA,—as though to say: A most vile, most abject, most feeble man, like a dog and a flea such as I am, thou pursuest. Why then dost thou pursue me? It is unworthy for a king to fight with a flea, as it was unworthy of Domitian to hunt flies.
17. AND SAUL SAID: IS THIS THY VOICE, MY SON DAVID? AND SAUL LIFTED UP HIS VOICE, AND WEPT.
See here how effective David’s voice was; see likewise how powerful was his deep humility and kindled charity, which broke Saul’s adamantine heart, and made it mild and placid, so that it dissolved in tears of love. Whence St. Chrysostom, in the homily already cited: “How great,” he says, “a change was suddenly made! He who had never borne to call him even by a simple name, having even the very appellation in hatred, now adopts him into kinship, calling him son. What then more fortunate than David, who made a father of a murderer, a sheep of a wolf? who filled the furnace of anger with abundant dew, who turned the tempest into calm, and quenched all the swelling of the raging mind’s wrath? For David’s words, entering the mind of this savage man, wrought all this change.” Behold, David heaped these coals of fire, according to the admonition of St. Paul, Romans 12:20, upon Saul’s head, with which he kindled him to love him in return. Chrysostom then adds examples to show how powerful is the voice of the pious: “The voice of the Saints has frequently made the elements stand still, and changed the powers of men. Josue only spoke, and the sun and moon stood. So Moses entered the sea, and it gave way; so those three children quenched the force of the fire by their hymns with this voice. In like manner Saul also grew warm at the same voice, saying: Is this thy voice, my son David? What then did David? Thy servant, O lord my king. After this a contest arises, and a rivalry which should treat the other with greater honour. Saul indeed took him into kinship, calling him son; David called him lord. What he says is of this sort. One thing, he says, one thing I seek, thy safety and progress in virtue; thou hast called me son, but it is enough for me if thou hold me as a servant, only that thou lay aside anger, that thou suspect no evil of me, nor take me for an enemy or plotter.”
Hence Chrysostom gathers that it is in our power to reconcile an enemy to us, if we humble ourselves before him and show him charity, according to Proverbs 15:1: A mild answer breaketh wrath. “In us, therefore,” says Chrysostom, “it lies either that the anger of enemies be extinguished, or be provoked to a greater blaze, if we assail him with harsh words.” He proves it by the example of fire which he adds: if you blow on a spark of fire you rouse a conflagration; on the contrary if you spit on it you extinguish it, and both are in your hand; since both, he says, proceed from your mouth. The same happens in enmity with a neighbour, if you bring swollen and senseless words; you rouse his fire, you kindle his coals; but if you bring mild and measured words before he flares up, you will have quenched all his anger.
18. THOU ART MORE JUST THAN I.—St. Chrysostom continues: “You see how he condemns his own malice and proclaims the just man’s virtue, and purges himself with no one compelling. Do the same thou when an enemy falls into thy hands: do not accuse him, but purge thyself, that thou mayest drive him to condemn himself. For if we accuse, he is embittered; if we excuse, he, reverencing our humanity, will soon condemn himself.” And after some intervening lines: “For he did not simply say: Thou hast done good to me, but: Thou hast rendered me good. That is: for plots, for slaughter, for countless evils, thou hast repaid me with great benefits. But I even so did not become better, but after those thy benefits I persevered in malice; but thou even so wast not changed, but constantly held to thy way, following with benefits us who plotted against thee again and again. In each of these words, how many crowns David appeared worthy of!”
20. FOR WHO, WHEN HE HATH FOUND HIS ENEMY, WILL LET HIM GO ON IN A GOOD WAY?—will suffer him to depart safe and unharmed: for the “good way” is that which leads to life, the bad that which leads to death. Saul speaks from his own character and that of like worldly men, who kill their enemies when occasion is given. For the saints do the contrary of evil, and overcome evil with good, as David did here. Whom among others St. John Gualbert imitated, who, meeting armed an unarmed enemy, when he asked that his life be given him for the love of Christ crucified for his enemies, spared him.