1 Samuel 23 – David is
instructed by the Lord to go help the people of Keilah against the Philistines.
He does and is successful. Saul learns of it and thinks the gates of Keilah
could be a useful trap for catching David. David uses the ephod Abiathar
managed to bring out of Nob to find out from the Lord that Saul is indeed
coming to Keilah after him, and that the men of the town will surrender him if
he stays. So David and his (now) 600 men
leave and wander here and there, in the wilderness of Ziph. Saul learns that David has left and gives up
the expedition.
Jonathan
comes out to meet David at Horesh. They
renew their covenant and Jonathan predicts David’s ultimate victory. People of the region go to Saul and tell him
of David’s presence. They offer to
surrender him into Saul’s custody and he blesses them. He sends them back to find out exactly where
David is. David is in the Arabah, south of Jeshimon when he learns Saul is
after him again. He goes into the
wilderness of Maon where Saul pursues until a messenger comes and tells Saul
that the Philistines have raided the land.
He returns to deal with them.
David goes to the strongholds of En-gedi.
1 Samuel 24 – After
dealing with the Philistines, Saul returns to the pursuit of David. He goes with 3,000 men to the wilderness of
En-gedi, in the direction of the Rocks of the Wild Goats it says.
Saul
comes to a cave near the road and goes in “to relieve himself” (24:3). Now
David and his men are in the cave when Saul came in, and his men think the Lord
has given him into their hands. David
cuts a corner of Saul’s cloak off as
if to demonstrate how into his hands the Lord has put him, but then becomes
conscience stricken: “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my
lord, the Lord’s anointed, to raise my hand against him; for his is the Lord’s
anointed” (24:6). He scolds his men and Saul is permitted to leave the cave
unharmed.
After
he leaves, David follows him and calls out to him, bowing to do obeisance
before Saul. He tries to prove to Saul
that he has nothing to fear from him. He
shows him the piece he cut from his cloak: “I have not sinned against you,
though you are hunting me to take my life.
May the Lord judge between me and
you! May the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you” (24:12).
Saul
responds to David’s voice with such pitiful affection: “’Is this your voice, my son David?’ Saul lifted up his voice and
wept. He said to David, ‘You are more
righteous than I; for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil .
. .For who has ever found an enemy, and sent the enemy safely away? So may the
Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. Now I know that you shall surely be king, and
the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand’” (24:16-19). He
gets David to swear that he will not cut off his (Saul’s) descendants. Here, I think, we
see the roots of Jesus’ admonition to love our enemies, be good to those who
despitefully use us. David leaves the judgment of Saul up to God and God alone.
Proverbs 26 – Here
are some more:
“Honor is no more associated with fools than snow with
summer or rain with harvest” (26:1).
“Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will
become as foolish as they are. Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of
fools, or they will become wise in their own estimation” (26:4-5). Hmm!
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool reverts to his
folly” (26:11).
“There is more hope for fools than for people who think they
are wise” (26:12).
“No wood, and the
fire goes out; no talebearer, and quarrelling dies down” (26:20).
“If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it
yourself. IF you roll a boulder down on others, it will crush you instead”
(26:27).
Proverbs 27 – Selections:
“Do not boast about tomorrow, since you do not know what
today will bring forth” (27:1).
“Better open reproof than voiceless love” (27:5).
“As no two faces are ever alike, unlike, too, are the hearts
of men.” (27:19)
Augustine (354-439)
Confessions
29 - Behold, O
Lord God, and behold patiently, as You are wont to do, how diligently the sons
of men observe the conventional rules of letters and syllables, received from
those who spoke prior to them, and yet neglect the eternal rules of everlasting
salvation received from you, insomuch that he who practices or teaches the
hereditary rules of pronunciation, if, contrary to grammatical usage, he should
say, without aspirating the first letter, a “uman” being, will offend men more than if, in opposition to your commandments, he, a
human being, were to hate a human being. As if, indeed, any man should feel
that an enemy could be more destructive to him than that hatred with which he
is excited against him, or that he could destroy more utterly him whom he
persecutes than he destroys his own soul by his enmity. And of a truth, there is no science of letters more innate
than the writing of conscience— that he is doing unto another what he himself
would not suffer. How mysterious are you, who in silence "dwellest on high," [Isaiah 33:5] Thou
God, the only great, who by an unwearied law dealest out the punishment of
blindness to illicit desires! When a man seeking for the reputation of
eloquence stands before a human judge while a thronging multitude surrounds
him, inveighs against his enemy with the most fierce hatred, he takes most
vigilant heed that his tongue slips not into grammatical error, but takes no
heed lest through the fury of his spirit he cut off a man from his fellow-men.
The precise “art” that Augustine
continues to lambaste in this treatise is “rhetoric,” the art or skill praised
and taught by the sophists from the 5th century BC on in Athens,
Greece general and then later throughout the Roman Empire. Sophists believed
that it was the most important thing a person could learn, and it isn’t really
very surprising that it should have originated in the first “democratic”
society. While it wasn’t democratic in the way we are today; there were many
slaves. But if you were a grown man and a citizen in Athens, you basically
passed all the laws and ran the city, decided if you went to war, etc. The
number of people entitled to vote probably surpassed 30,000 to 40,000. Of
course not all of them cared about voting, but it isn’t surprising that this
was the city where Sophistry originated and thrived. If you wanted to have your voice count in the huge debates that went on
in the outdoor amphitheater where they met, you basically HAD to have
rhetorical skills. Sophists came under fire from philosophers for caring more
HOW they spoke and HOW PERSUASIVE they were with language than with the “TRUTHS”
they articulated, but democracy needs skillful rhetoricians who care about the
truth. Augustine apparently had rhetorical skills “beaten into him” literally,
and he is terribly critical of the void in value-content (real truth) that he
saw in the school.
