For All Gleaners

"... his hands were feeble."—2Samuel 4:1.

The man spoken of was Saul's son, and as the son of a king what reason had he to have enfeebled hands?—The reason is, that Abner was dead.—But could not a king's son do without Abner?—Have not king's sons abundant resources in themselves, without being dependent upon outsiders however distinguished?—All history replies in the negative.—Men belong to one another.—The king's son was nothing without Abner, but much with him. The unit one is but a singular number, but the moment a cipher is added to it it becomes ten, and another cipher turns the ten into a hundred.—The integer is little by itself, the cipher is nothing at all when it stands alone, but when they are brought together they begin to make themselves felt.—It is precisely so in our social relations.—What is the husband without the wife?—What is the son without the father?—What is the scholar without the teacher?—What is the flock without the shepherd?—It is of no account to reason that there is a variety of value in men, some being worth much, and others being worth little; the fact is that they must all be brought into co-operation, and in their unity they must begin to realise their strength.—The pastor without the Church is almost powerless; the Church without the pastor is as sheep not having a shepherd.—In proportion to a man's greatness will he value the help of others.—His very greatness, provided it be intellectual and moral, will enable him to see that every man has his value and his importance in society, and that the more men are entrusted with influence the more they are developed in moral dignity, provided the conscience be pure, and the motive of the whole life be unselfish and lofty.—It would seem as if Jesus Christ himself felt that he needed the presence and sympathy of his disciples.—Once he said, "Will ye also go away?"—True, he could have done without them all, but in a higher truth he needed them all, and he failed not to make them feel how near and dear they were to all his loftiest solicitudes.

Nobleness and Selfishness

2Samuel 4:9-12

WE remember the trouble which David had, again and again, with king Saul. For reasons which are obvious upon the narrative, Saul sought repeatedly to take the life of David, whom he once loved with a father's idolatrous fondness. He pursued him upon the mountains, he followed him into the caves, he did everything in his kingly power to inflict undeserved and fatal punishment upon David. Upon one occasion a young Amalekite came to David and told him that Saul was dead. David then questioned him as to the manner of his death, and the young Amalekite said that as he himself was upon the mount of Gilboa, he saw Saul hard-pressed, the chariots and the horses and the enemy were quickly following, and Saul begged the young man to stand upon him and kill him that he might not fall by the hand of the enemy. The young man accepted Saul's suggestion and killed him, and then ran to Ziklag to tell David that his enemy was dead; and, instead of being pleased with the tidings, David charged him with having put forth his hand and destroyed the Lord's anointed, and he called for his young men and told them to fall upon the Amalekite and smite him till he died, for that he had touched God's own king. We praise Cæsar for slaying the man who brought intelligence of Pompey's death; let us have some reverent regard for this passion in the heart of David—this loyalty and all but adoration for the man who was king of Israel.

Those who did not understand David, or took narrow and partial views of his character, imagined that they could always please him by relating some misfortune that had befallen the house of Saul. King Saul had a son who was of weak mind and of weak body, inanimate, dependent largely upon others for all that he was and did, especially dependent upon his uncle Abner. This man was accustomed to take a midday sleep. He went up into his room one midday to slumber, and there went in upon him two young men, Baanah and Rechab by name, and they made as though they would have fetched wheat from the royal residence, and when they found Ish-bosheth asleep they smote him under the fifth rib and beheaded him, and ran through the plain all night until they reached Hebron, and when they found David they said, "The Lord hath avenged his servant; here is the head of the son of king Saul." This brought the circumstance already related to David's mind. He said, "When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings. How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? Shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?" And he slew them and hanged them up over the pool of Hebron—hanged the men who thought to have played a trick in his favour, and to have courted his patronage by slaying his enemies.

David seems to have taken the large and true view of these men who brought him tidings which they thought would have pleased him. He said, "They are essentially mean men; their meanness in this case counts for me, but I will none of them—hang them, drown them, burn them—they only want an opportunity to thrust the dagger under my fifth rib that they have drawn from the life of Ish-bosheth." We would teach this lesson especially to the young, and make it very clear to them, and write it upon their hearts and upon their minds, that they who would do a mean trick for us would not hesitate to do a mean trick against us.

It is not enough to be clever in life—we must also be right. There is nothing more contemptible than cleverness when it is dissociated from integrity. Always endeavour to avoid a merely clever person. Cleverness is a two-edged instrument, cleverness is a word you may apply to a thimble-rigger. Keep the word "cleverness" for very small occasions and for very small persons. Associate it with moral sensibility, associate it with the moral virtues, and it becomes proportionately dignified. To the so-called clever man we would give this word: You are said to be about the sharpest man in your neighbourhood; it is even said that you can take in any number of unwary people over your counter: you have such a glib and oily tongue that any persons coming to deal with you can be hoodwinked and deceived, and can spend their money for that which is not bread, and their strength for that which profiteth not, and that when they go out of your place of business you laugh at them. You tell persons that what they are about to buy is of the very best quality, when you know that nothing worse was ever put into human hands. You sell off at an alarming sacrifice—of conscience; you deal in the cinders of great fires and the wreck of large bankruptcies. This may be clever, but it is not right. We urge you to make, as men of business, all you possibly can—get all the money you legitimately can make, but let every shilling be honestly won. You will find far more spending in it than in money that is feloniously pocketed. The first thing you have to make out in all life is, what is right. "That ye may be sincere." What does that word sincere mean? It is two Latin words in one, and it means without wax, a term employed in describing the quality of honey, without wax. Or it is a Greek word, which refers to porcelain, and the meaning of it is that if the china be held up between the eye and the sun, it is sincere, without speck or flaw or breach. What should we look like if Christ were to take us up and look at us as we look critically at porcelain? That is the only true view to take of ourselves. Judging ourselves by ourselves we become fools; by social standards we are all respectable and good and fair and decent and honourable, but the grand test is the law of divine rectitude, the standard and the balance of the sanctuary of heaven.

The real test of success is at the end. We never know what an action is, as to its real value, until we reach the end. Things may look tolerably well in the process—there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death. What talk Baanah and Rechab had that night as they hurried across the plain, what pictures they drew how David would receive them, how he would house them in the royal palace, how he would show them to the military and to the populace, and call for loud huzzas, how they would be the brothers whom the king would delight to honour, riding upon his noblest steeds, and for the time being sit at the front of his ranks and crowned with glory and honour. One said to the other, "Will not the king be pleased?" The reply was, "I cannot tell what he will give us in return for this—we shall be great in Israel; "and having so said, they sped along at an accelerated pace, that they might be early in Hebron, and delight the king with the good gospel. Any man overhearing the two brothers in their colloquy, would have imagined that they were going straightforward to sit with the king upon his throne. They went to Hebron, and never left it. The men were to be promoted—were promoted to the gallows. The clever men died as the fool dieth, and the earth was not allowed to have their bones.

Let us be instructed by the narrative, for it may be even so with some of our own purposes and schemes. A thing is only everlasting in its consolations and honours in proportion as it is genuinely right. Is our trade, is our purpose, is our programme, is our policy, is our set in life right? If so, we have succeeded, even before we have begun. We have seen many a card house blown over; we have seen the rats enter many a knave's castle and eat it all up. If we are wrong, we are carrying the enemy in the ship, and the enemy will not awake until we are in mid-ocean, and then he will sink the vessel. Let us believe the voice of history; do not suppose that all this history is so much waste; it is the voice of human experience, and no wise man can afford to neglect the accumulated testimony of the experience of the race.

Behold the contrast between nobleness and selfishness, as seen in David and in those who brought him tidings concerning the fate of Saul, and the ill-luck of his child. There are moments when a man is almost God; and it was so with David in this case. He had his moments of fretfulness about Saul, and his moments of supreme fear, but in his heart he loved the grand old king of Israel; and where there is a supreme love it rises above everything, and sacrifices everything that would oppose its sovereign sway. Why, David never would touch Saul harmfully. There was one occasion when Saul was in his power, when David arose and cut the skirt off Saul's robe, and when Saul had gotten away some distance, David cried after him, "My father," and the mighty Saul looked back and said, "Is this thy voice, my son David?" And David said, "See, behold thou hast been in my power today and I spared thee. How long wilt thou believe the foolish reports and the malicious rumours of mine enemies?" And Saul lifted up his voice and cried like a child. If David would not touch the king himself, if David held Saul in this high honour and veneration himself, what would he say to young men who came in with tidings of ill-fortune or with stories of blood? Put the two circumstances together, and see in the man who spared the king an explanation of the grandeur and nobleness of his temper when he was confronted by tales unworthy of the honour and the conscience common to human nature.

Have we any supreme love? Is our heart ever washed by a great tide of loving emotion about any man, woman, or little child? Then blessed are we; that river rises sometimes and submerges the whole life, and bears away all the ill-thinking and ill-behaviour of many days. Let us not allow our emotion to be talked down, nor allow the fountain of our tears to be sealed up so that it cannot be broken on any occasion. Sometimes it is good for the heart to sink under its own tears; it comes up out of that baptism sweeter and fresher than ever.

Beware of taking narrow views of life, then. The young Amalekite and Baanah and Rechab were men who saw only little points in a case. They were wanting in mental apprehensiveness and in moral expansion. There are many such men in the world, keen as a hawk in seeing little points, blind as a mole in beholding the measure of a circumference. Let us pray for that enlargement of mind which sees every aspect of a question. Such minds appear to be weak when they are only judicial. The narrow man always appears to be the strongest, the man who is capable of one idea only always appears to be the most emphatic teacher and leader of the nation or of the church; whereas the man of great apprehensiveness and expansiveness of mind sees so many points, has to collect and focalise so many considerations, that he is often thought to be weak, vacillating and hesitant, when he is really and truly a great judge and a patient critic.

To the man who has but one thought his work is easy. He rolls out that thought and keeps repeating it, and becomes credited, and not unduly in some cases, with earnestness, because of his tenacious attachment to that single idea. There are men who cannot preach so; they have to be answering mentally, while they are speaking audibly, a thousand ghosts. O, the ghosts, the sprites, that chatter in the preacher's soul when he is many a time, apparently in his most earnest and vehement moods! The questions they ask, the difficulties they suggest!—and he has to choke them down, and speak the word which will be commonly understood by the average human mind. The Lord grant us more and more comprehensiveness and penetration of visual power that we may see all things necessary to the true guidance and direction of our life!

Selected Note

"They took the head of Ish-bosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron" (iv. 12).—Ish-bosheth (man of shame), a son of king Saul, and the only one who survived him. In 1Chronicles 8:33, and 1Chronicles 9:39, this name is given as Eshbaal. Baal was the name of an idol, accounted abominable by the Hebrews, and which scrupulous persons avoided pronouncing, using the word bosheth, "shame," or "vanity," instead. This explains why the name Eshbaal is substituted for Ish-bosheth. Jerubbaal for Jerubbesheth (comp. Judges 8:35 with 2Samuel 11:21), and Merib-baal for Mephibosheth (comp. 2Samuel 4:4 with 1Chronicles 8:34 and 1Chronicles 9:40). Ish-bosheth was not present in the disastrous battle at Gilboa, in which his father and brothers perished; and, too feeble of himself to seize the sceptre which had fallen from the hands of Saul, he owed the crown entirely to his uncle Abner, who conducted him to Mahanaim, beyond the Jordan, where he was recognised as king by ten of the twelve tribes. He reigned seven, or, as some will have it, two years—if a power so uncertain as his can be called a reign. Even the semblance of authority which he possessed he owed to the will and influence of Abner, who kept the real substance in his own hands. A sharp quarrel between them led at last to the ruin of Ish-bosheth. Although accustomed to tremble before Abner, even his meek temper was roused to resentment by the discovery that Abner had invaded the harem of his late father Saul, which was in a peculiar manner sacred under his care as a son and a king. By this act Abner exposed the king to public contempt; if he did not indeed leave himself open to the suspicion of intending to advance a claim to the crown on his own behalf. Abner highly resented the rebuke of Ish-bosheth, and from that time contemplated uniting all the tribes under the sceptre of David. Ish-bosheth however reverted to his ordinary timidity of character. At the first demand of David, he restored to him his sister Michal, who had been given in marriage to the son of Jesse by Saul, and had afterwards been taken from him and bestowed upon another. It is, perhaps, right to attribute this act to his weakness; although, as David allows that he was a righteous man, it may have been owing to his sense of justice. On the death of Abner Ish-bosheth lost all heart and hope, and perished miserably, being murdered in his own palace, while he took his midday sleep, by two of his officers, Baanah and Rechab. They sped with his head to David, expecting a great reward for their deed; but the monarch—as both right feeling and good policy required—testified the utmost horror and concern. He slew the murderers, and placed the head of Ish-bosheth with due respect in the sepulchre of Abner, b.c. 1048 (2Samuel 2:8-11; 2Samuel 3:6-39; 2 Samuel 4.).

Prayer

Almighty God, our prayer is that we may be filled with the Spirit of Christ. He who has not the Spirit of Christ is none of his. We would dwell in love, as Christ dwelt in love; we would love our Father in heaven, and love one another as brethren. Hereby we know that we have passed from death unto life, because of this new love. Once we were strangers; now we are of the household of God in Christ Jesus the Son. Thus is our life enlarged; we are members of a family; we are enclosed within all domestic charities; we live upon the hospitality of God, and the strong is called upon to help the weak This is thy church, thou Saviour of the world; this is the very commonwealth of heaven: may we enter into its spirit, and know one another lovingly and helpfully, that so we may make up to each other that which is lacking on the one side, and receive that which we so much require. Thus shall the world be at peace; human life shall be one sweet sacred harmony; there shall be goodwill on earth towards men. We pray for this time—so restful, so bright, so like the Giver of the gift, the blessed Son of God. Now we have tasted of the bitterness of controversy, and clamour, and alienation, and differences amounting to hostility: why not now enter into thy peace, realising our brotherhood in Christ, hailing one another at the cross, seeing how much we all need the blood which cleanseth from all sin? May our agreements be greater than our differences; may our union in Christ sanctify all diversities of opinion. We pray for one another, that as life reveals itself to each the Lord's light may shine upon those who are in trouble about the mystery of being. Thou knowest what life is to us—now a great cloud filled with terror, and now a bright day all summer long, bright and full of music; now life is a gate which incloses us, and we cannot escape—a limit, a boundary, which mocks our frame: and now, suddenly, it becomes a great liberty, a wide sanctuary, open as the firmament of heaven. Whether we are in this state or in that, let thy sanctifying blessing fall upon us that we may be comforted on the one hand and chastened on the other, cheered lest we be swallowed up of overmuch sorrow, and subdued lest we become the victims of presumption. Deal out to us what bread we need; regard our hunger, and satisfy our thirst: but above all things take not thy Holy Spirit from us: may he dwell with us, live within us, take up his abode with us and train our life through all processes and stages to obedience, to wisdom, to pureness. Pity all our littlenesses, vanities, conceits; deal not harshly with us in view of our manifold mistakes, but when thou comest to deal with our sin—black, awful sin—then look at the cross of Christ, at the atonement of the blessed Son of thy bosom, and let his blood, in all things, speak better than that of Abel. At the cross, pardon us; at the cross, pity us; at the cross, give us heart again. Amen.

2 Samuel 4

1. And when Saul's son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled [by the loss of a great man].

2. And Saul's son had two men that were captains of bands: the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon a Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin: (for Beeroth also was reckoned to Benjamin:

3. And the Beerothites [Beeroth was one of the four cities of the Gibeonites] fled to Gittaim [neither the cause nor the place of the flight can be determined with certainty], and were sojourners there until this day.)

4. And Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son that was lame of his feet [and therefore incapacitated for the rulership]. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.

5. And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went, and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ish-bosheth, who lay on a bed at noon [according to eastern custom].

6. And they came thither into the midst of the house, as though they would have fetched wheat [like fetching wheat]; and they smote him under the fifth rib: and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.

7. For when they came into the house, he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, and they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him, and took his head, and gat them away through the plain [of the Jordan] all night.

8. And they brought the head of Ish-bosheth unto David to Hebron, and said to the king, Behold the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul thine enemy, which sought thy life; and the Lord hath avenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed [an impious and cruel interpretation].

9. ¶ And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said unto them, As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity,

10. When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings:

11. How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?

12. And David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.