1 Samuel 22:6

SAUL CALLS A COUNCIL AGAINST DAVID

"Now Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men who were with him. Saul was sitting at Gibeah, under the tamarisk tree on the height, with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him. And Saul said to his servants who stood about him, "Hear now, you Benjaminites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, that all of you have conspired against me? No one discloses to me when my son makes a league with the son of Jesse, none of you is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day." Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, "I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, and he inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him provisions, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine."

"When Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men with him" (1 Samuel 22:6). This is a reference to David's having been publicly "discovered" as an enemy of the king and an outlaw in Israel. There was no way that such information could have been hidden. Saul himself had forced David to flee for his life; and David's family, most naturally, were also afraid. Ruthless, savage tyrants of Saul's type frequently murdered whole families because of their hatred of any one of them.

"Hear now you Benjaminites" (1 Samuel 22:7). It is significant here that Saul's "court" consisted solely of the members of his own little tribe; there had been no effort whatever to unite all Israel in a cohesive kingdom, in which effort it would have been wise to enlist members of all the tribes.

"Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards, and make you commanders, etc." (1 Samuel 22:7). Saul here threatens the Benjaminites with the idea that, if another king is chosen, he will favor his tribe in the same manner that Saul has favored the Benjaminites.

"None of you is sorry for me" (1 Samuel 22:8). One can only pity this paranoid sufferer. No one had warned him of danger, simply because none existed; no one was sorry for him, because all of his fears and apprehensions were monstrous creatures of his own evil imagination, having no reality whatever. Indeed it was an evil spirit that the Lord allowed to possess him.

THEN ANSWERED DOEG THE EDOMITE

This evil character told as vicious and unprincipled a lie as Satan himself could have invented; and yet much of what he said was true, thus illustrating the fact that the most savage and hurtful lies are the ones blended with truth. "There is no God but God; and Muhammed is the prophet of God," is another example. Doeg failed to include the manifest innocence of Ahimelech in his tale of what Ahimelech had done for David, thus definitely and purposely leaving the impression with Saul that Ahimelech had championed David's cause against that of the king.

Another evident truth here is that slander is in the same class with murder. The slanderer is always a murderer, whether or not, like Doeg, he thrusts his victims through with a literal sword.