THE KING’S BUSINESS
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with him again if he had repented. And so may those today who once knew the Lord and had the Lord with them but who know Him no longer and have Him no longer with them, recent and have Him with them again (perhaps in fuller manifesta tions of His presence than they ever knew in the good old times). v. 34. “ So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger,, and did eat no meat the second day of the month.” Jonathan gave up at last his attempts to reconcile Saul to David. His. anger and grief were not so much for his father’s treatment of himself as for his treatment of David whom he loved. And we ought not to be so much grieved' for men’s treatment of us as for the treatment of our David, our Lord and' Saviour, Jesus Christ, Whom we love. v. 35. "And it came to pass in the morn ing, that Jonathan went out into a field at the time appointed with David, and a little lad with him.” It would not do for any one to see Jonathan with David for that would imperil his own life as well as the life of David; so they had arranged a very simple plan by which Jonathan could let David know whether it was safe for him to come out of hiding, and at the same time not let anybody else know there had been any communication between David and Jonathan (vs. 18-22). : v. 41. “And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of the place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground." Whatever the perils might be, they must meet at least once more. David did not for one moment distrust Jonathan’s fidelity. Jonathan might have good reason to play him false, but David knew that he would not do it, and Jonathan did not play him false. • "And they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.” This parting of David and Jonathan was exceedingly touching; there were demon strations of affection on the side of each such as are rarely seen, but David seems to have been the one who was most over come. There certainly was nothing un-
Jonathan had been very confident at first that his father plotted no evil against David (v. 21). David had shown him that he might be mistaken (vs. 3-10). Evidently, Jonathan’s confidence in his father was not very deep. It is an appalling thing when a father’s character is such that even his own son (and that, too, a son of so trust ful a nature as Jonathan’s) is forced to distrust him. Jonathan, to his surprise and dismay, soorr discovered how deep his fa ther’s hatred of David was (v. 30). Saul, in his wrath at Jonathan, because of his. championship of David, did not hesitate to even insult Jonathan’s mother and impugn Jonathan’s legitimacy, he no longer regards Jonathan as his own son (v. 30). He dis closes the fact that his wrath at Dayid will be satisfied with nothing short of David’s death (v. 31). At any cost, David must die. Then Jonathan sought to arouse his father to the baselessness of his wrath at David, but this only intensified Saul’s anger, he will even murder his own son who seeks to defend the one he so intensely hates (v. 33). There had been a time when Jehovah had been with Saul (v. 13), but He was with him no longer (cf. ch. 18:12). The change in Saul’s experience was ap parent to all who knew him at all inti mately. So much of the Bible history is taken up with "the dark picture of his last days, and the days of his disobedience and apostacy and consequent moral shipwreck, that we almost forget that there ever was a better time in his history when God was with him (ch. 10:7), when the Spirit of God was upon him (ch. 11:6), when he went out to do battle for Jehovah, when he was humble, brave, generous, large-hearted and obedient to God. It is this bright pic ture of his early public life that makes the dark ending so unspeakably sad; and this awful change all came because he “rejected the Word of the Lord” (ch. 15:23). The saddest men on earth are those who are forced to say, “I once knew what it meant to have the Lord with me, but He is not with me now.” There are many of whom this is true. Saul might have had the Lord
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