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<p>We have here Saul falling and David rising.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. Here is Saul made a terror to himself (<a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.16.14" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.16.14">1 Sam. 16:14</a>): <i>The Spirit of the Lord departed from him</i>. He having forsaken God and his duty, God, in a way of righteous judgment, withdrew from him those assistances of the good Spirit with which he was directed, animated, and encouraged in his government and wars. He lost all his good qualities. This was the effect of his rejecting God, and an evidence of his being rejected by him. Now God took his mercy from Saul (as it is expressed, <a class="bibleref" title="2Sam.7.15" href="/passage/?search=2Sam.7.15">2 Sam. 7:15</a>); for, when the Spirit of the Lord departs from us, all good goes. When men grieve and quench the Spirit, by wilful sin, he departs, and will not always strive. The consequence of this was that <i>an evil spirit from God troubled him</i>. Those that drive the good Spirit away from the do of course become prey to the evil spirit. If God and his grace do not rule us, sin and Satan will have possession of us. The devil, by the divine permission, troubled and terrified Saul, by means of the corrupt humours of his body and passions of his mind. He grew fretful, and peevish, and discontented, timorous and suspicious, ever and anon starting and trembling; he was sometimes, says Josephus, as if he had been choked or strangled, and a perfect demoniac by fits. This made him unfit for business, precipitate in his counsels, the contempt of his enemies, and a burden to all about him.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. Here is David made a physician to Saul, and by this means brought to court, a physician that helped him against the worst of diseases, when none else could. David was newly appointed privately to the kingdom. It would be of use to him to go to court and see the world; and here his doing so is brought about for him without any contrivance of his own or his friends. Note, Those whom God designs for any service his providence shall concur with his grace to prepare and qualify for it. Saul is distempered; his servants have the honesty and courage to tell him what his distemper is (<a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.16.15" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.16.15">1 Sam. 16:15</a>), <i>an evil spirit</i>, not by chance but <i>from God</i> and his providence, <i>troubleth thee</i>. Now, 1. The means they all advised him to for his relief was music (<a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.16.16" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.16.16">1 Sam. 16:16</a>): “Let us have a <i>cunning player on the harp</i> to attend thee.” How much better friends had they been to him if they had advised him, since the evil spirit was from the Lord, to give all diligence to make his peace with God by true repentance, to send for Samuel to pray with him and to intercede with God for him! then might he not only have had some present relief, but the good Spirit would have returned to him. But their project is to make him merry, and so cure him. Many whose consciences are convinced and startled are for ever ruined by such methods as these, which drown all care of the soul in the delights of sense. Yet Saul’s servants did not amiss to send for music as a help to cheer up the spirits, if they had but withal sent for a prophet to give him good counsel. And (as bishop Hall observes) it was well they did not send for a witch or diviner, by his enchantments to cast out the evil spirit, which has been the abominably wicked practice of some that have worn the Christian name, who consult the devil in their distresses and make hell their refuge. It will be no less than a miracle of divine grace if those who thus agree with Satan ever break off from him again. 2. One of his servants recommended David to him, as a fit person to be employed in the use of these means, little imagining that he was the man whom Samuel meant when he told Saul of a neighbour of his, better than he, who should have the kingdom, <a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.15.28" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.15.28">1 Sam. 15:28</a>. It is a very high character which the servant of Saul’s here gives of David (<a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.16.18" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.16.18">1 Sam. 16:18</a>), that he was not only fit for his purpose as a comely person and skilful in playing, but a man of courage and conduct, a mighty valiant man, and prudent in all matters, fit to be further preferred, and (which crowned his character) <i>the Lord is with him</i>. By this it appears that though David, after he was anointed, returned to his country business, and there remained on his head no marks of the oil, so careful was he to keep that secret, yet the workings of the Spirit signified by the oil could not be hid, but made him shine in obscurity, so that all his neighbours observed with wonder the great improvements of his mind on a sudden. David, even in his shepherd’s garb, has become an oracle, a champion, and every thing that is great. His fame reached the court soon, for Saul was inquisitive after such young men, <a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.14.52" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.14.52">1 Sam. 14:52</a>. When the Spirit of God comes upon a man he will make his face to shine. 3. David is hereupon sent for to court. And it seems, (1.) His father was very willing to part with him, sent him very readily, and a present with him to Saul, <a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.16.20" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.16.20">1 Sam. 16:20</a>. The present was, according to the usage of those times, bread and wine (compare, <a class="bibleref" title="1Sam.10.3,1Sam.10.4" href="/passage/?search=1Sam.10.3,1Sam.10.4"><span cl
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