1 ซามูเอล 22:18 วิจารณ์

David, being driven from Achish, returns into the land of Israel to be hunted by Saul. I. David sets up his standard in the cave of Adullam, entertains his relations (Sa1 22:1), enlists soldiers (Sa1 22:2), but removes his aged parents to a more quiet settlement (Sa1 22:3, Sa1 22:4), and has the prophet Gad for his counsellor (Sa1 22:5). Saul resolves to pursue him and find him out, complains of his servants and Jonathan (Sa1 22:6-8), and, finding by Doeg's information that Ahimelech had been kind to David, he ordered him and all the priests that were with him, eighty-five in all, to be put to death, and all that belonged to them destroyed (Sa1 22:9-19) from the barbarous execution of which sentence Abiathar escaped to David (Sa1 22:20-23).

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 22 This chapter gives us an account of the flight of David from place to place, from Gath to the cave of Adullam, where his relations came to him; from thence to Mizpeh in Moab, where he got leave of the king of Moab for his father and mother to dwell there; and from thence, by the advice of Gad the prophet, departed into the land of Judah, and came to the forest of Hareth, Sa1 21:1; and of the complaint of Saul to his servants of their unfaithfulness to him, and indolence and unconcern at the behaviour of Jonathan and David to him, Sa1 22:6; when Doeg the Edomite informed him of David being seen by him at Nob, and of his receiving food and a sword from Ahimelech the priest, who inquired of the Lord for him, Sa1 22:9; upon which Saul sent for Ahimelech and all the priests at Nob, and charged them with a conspiracy against him; and notwithstanding the defence the priest made, Saul ordered him and the rest of the priests to be slain by his guards; which they refusing, Doeg became the executioner of them, and of all the inhabitants of the city of Nob, and the cattle in it, Sa1 22:11; only Abiathar a son of Ahimelech escaped and fled to David with the sorrowful news; which greatly affected David, looking upon himself to be the occasion of this sad disaster, and he took Abiathar under his protection, and promised him safety, Sa1 22:20.

And the king said to Doeg, turn thou and fall upon the priests,.... For determined he was they should die; if one would not put them to death, another should, and who so fit for this bloody work as the false accuser of them, and false witness against them? and Doeg the Edomite turned; immediately, he at once obeyed the king's orders, as brutish as they were: and fell upon the priests; with his sword in hand: and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod; not the ephod of Urim and Thummim, which was only worn by the high priest, but a garment wholly linen, worn by common priests; the Targum is,"who are fit to be clothed with a linen ephod;''not that they were clothed with it, but were deserving of it; or it designs the great and more honourable among the servants of the Lord, as Kimchi observes, for such were clothed with this garment, as Samuel and David; and he thinks it suggests, that more were slain than these; and the Septuagint version makes them to be eight hundred five, and Josephus (h) three hundred eighty five; in the slaying of whom, as the same writer says, Doeg was assisted by some wicked men like himself; and the slaughter did not end here, as the Sa1 22:19 shows. (h) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 12. sect. 6.

Indeed, when Saul heard that the priests had helped David unwittingly, he had them brought to him, and he killed them. It was fitting for you too that innocent blood be hung about your neck, as was Saul’s case. But the Son of David escaped from your hands amid the Gentiles. David was persecuted by Saul, just as the Son was by Herod. The priests were slain because of David, and the infants because of our Lord. Abiathar escaped from the priests, as John did from the infants. In [the person of] Abiathar the priesthood of the house of Eli was brought to an end, and in John the prophecy of the sons of Jacob was terminated.

You put in the front of your letter what would be pleasing, that it is written in the book of 1 Kings [Samuel]: “Samuel served as a boy before the Lord, girded in a linen ephod and having a small duplicate cloak which his mother had made for him and would bring to him day after day when she went up with her husband to offer sacrifice on the day of sacrifice.” Thus you inquire about this linen ephod with which the coming prophet will also be girded, namely, whether it will be a girdle, or, as many believe, some type of clothing. And if you clothe him, how will it be bound together? And why is the adjective linen added after the ephod? You also wrote down to be read the following: “And a man of God came to Eli and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: “I revealed myself to the house of your father when they were in the land of Egypt serving in the house of Pharaoh and I chose the house of your father from all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, that they might go up to my altar and burn incense and wear ephods.” ’ ” You took as an exemplar of the entire order of the book to follow that passage where Doeg the Edomite killed the priests at the king’s command. “Doeg of Syrus turned,” the Scripture says, “and fell upon the priests of the Lord and killed on that day three hundred and five men,” or, as the Hebrew reads, “eighty-five men,” all wearing ephods.And Nob, the city of priests, he killed with the edge of the sword, men and women, infants and toddlers, calves and foals and sheep, all to the edge of the sword. But Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech, son of Ahitub, was saved and fled after David. I will not delay now except to anticipate the textual problem where we read “all wearing ephods,” but the Hebrew has “all wearing linen ephods.” You will learn in what follows why I say this. And add this to it: Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, fled to David and went down with David to Keilah, having the ephod in his hand. Then, Saul abandoned his pursuit when David came to Keilah, where, because it was feared that Saul would arrive and besiege the city, David said to Abiathar, “Bring down the ephod of the Lord.” These are excerpts from the book of Kings [Samuel] pushing you to transcend the book of Judges, in which Micah from Mt. Ephraim gave eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, which he had promised, who is said to have made graven and molten images out of them. Notice also that in a short while it is called ephod and teraphim, since surely if it is a girdle or a type of clothing, it cannot also be a graven or molten image. Acknowledge the error of almost all Latin thinkers who allege that the ephod and teraphim, named later, were part of the molten images made from this silver which Micah had given to his mother.

While the holy man David was on the run from Saul’s persecution, he fled to a place where he thought he would be safe. He passed by the house of a priest named Ahimelech and accepted loaves from him. In so doing, he acted in the role not of a king only, but of a priest too, because he ate the bread of the presence which “it was unlawful for anyone other than the priests to eat,” as the Lord reminds us in the Gospel. Saul, when later he began to hunt him, was angry with his retainers because none of them was willing to betray David. The story has just been read from the book of the Kingdoms [Samuel]. But there was a man present that day named Doeg, who was an Edomite and the principal herdsman in Saul’s service; he too had come to Ahimelech the priest. He was present again when Saul raged against his followers because none of them would betray David. Doeg revealed where he had seen him. Saul immediately sent for the priest and all his family to be brought before him, and [he] ordered that they be killed. Not one of Saul’s entourage dared raise a hand against the priests of the Lord, even under orders from the king. But this Doeg, who had betrayed David’s whereabouts, was like Judas; he did not recoil from his evil purpose but persisted in bringing forth fruit from that same root even to the end, the kind of fruit typical of a rotten tree. So at the king’s order Doeg killed the priest and all his family, and afterwards the city of the priests was demolished.We have seen, then, that this man Doeg was the enemy of both David the king and Ahimelech the priest. Doeg was a single person, but he represents a whole class of people. Similarly David embodies both king and priest, like one man with a dual personality, though the human race is one. So too at the present time and in our world let us recognize these two groups of people, so that what we sing, or hear sung, may profit us. Let us recognize Doeg still with us today, as we recognize the kingly and priestly body today, and so we shall recognize the body that is opposed to king and priest still. Notice from the outset how mysteriously significant their names are. Doeg is said to mean “movement,” and Edomite means “earthly.” Already you can see what kind of people this “movement,” this Doeg, symbolizes: the kind that does not remain stable forever but is destined to be moved elsewhere. As for “earthly”: why expect any fruit from an earthly person? But the heavenly humans will last forever. So, to put it briefly, there is an earthly kingdom in this world today, but there is also a heavenly kingdom. Each of them has its pilgrim citizens, both the earthly kingdom and the heavenly, the kingdom that is to be uprooted and the kingdom that is to be planted for eternity.

When David was fleeing from Saul, he came to the priest Abimelech. He was received by him and obtained the loaves of proposition and the sword with which he had slain Goliath. The loaves of proposition denoted his role as priest, the consecrated sword his future rank as most powerful king. The Edomite Doeg happened to be there in charge of the mules and reported everything to King Saul. Then Saul was angry and caused Abimelech and the other priests of the same city to be slain by Doeg. This Doeg through whom such events occurred was called the Edomite from the name of his land. The names combined, according to the authority of the fathers, mean “earthquakes.” Such meaning attached to the names is rightly related to the acts of antichrist, for Doeg the Edomite was the foe of David, just as antichrist will be the enemy of Christ. Doeg destroyed priests; antichrist will make martyrs. Doeg through the meaning of his name denotes earthquakes; antichrist will disturb the whole world when with sacrilegious presumption he will constrain it to worship his name. So antichrist is rightly understood by the name of Doeg the Edomite, since he is seen to be similar to him in these striking parallels.

And the king said to Doeg the Edomite: Turn you, etc. Which the impious persecutors said to the most wicked ministers, evidently moved from every state of rectitude and further defiled by the innocent blood of the steadfast: Turn to evil, and after the crime of betrayal, also increase the infliction of tortures on the faithful of Christ, compelling them either to die or to deny.

And he slaughtered, etc. Eighty-five men slaughtered on that day signify those who come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 22); undoubtedly strong in deeds, and perfected equally in the spiritual observance of the Gospel and the law. Indeed, eighty-five is made up of five times ten plus seven; and five indeed refers to the justly well-known senses of our body, while ten and seven pertain to the law and the Gospel, on account of the Decalog of the law and the grace of the Holy Spirit more abundantly poured out upon all flesh in the times of the shining Gospel, and thus it is rare for anyone to doubt; and therefore whoever, with a strong spirit, interprets whatever they can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, to fulfill the commands of the law and attain the promises of grace, as if multiplying ten and seven by five, completes the sum of eighty-five men. They are also rightly described as clothed with an ephod, that is, a linen garment over the shoulder, to show that all their works (for shoulders are usually taken for works) are recommended and adorned more perfectly before the glory of martyrdom by the mortification of the flesh.

David flees to the cave of Adullam, where he is joined by four hundred men of various descriptions, Sa1 22:1, Sa1 22:2. He goes afterwards to Moab; and by the advice of the prophet Gad, to the forest of Hareth, Sa1 22:3-5. Saul, suspecting his servants of infidelity, upbraids them, Sa1 22:6-8. Doeg informs him of David's coming to Nob; of his being entertained by Ahimelech; on which Saul slays Ahimelech and all the priests, to the number of eighty-five, and destroys the city of Nob, Sa1 22:9-19. Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, only escapes; he joins with David, by whom he is assured of protection, Sa1 22:20-23.

And Doeg - fell upon the priests - A ruthless Edomite, capable of any species of iniquity. Fourscore and five persons - The Septuagint read τριακοσιους και πεντε ανδρας, three hundred and five men; and Josephus has three hundred and eighty-five men. Probably the eighty-five were priests; the three hundred, the families of the priests; three hundred and eighty-five being the whole population of Nob. That did wear a linen ephod - That is, persons who did actually administer, or had a right to administer, in sacred things. The linen ephod was the ordinary clothing of the priests.

DAVID'S KINDRED AND OTHERS RESORT TO HIM AT ADULLAM. (Sa1 22:1-8) David . . . escaped to the cave Adullam--supposed to be that now called Deir-Dubban, a number of pits or underground vaults, some nearly square, and all about fifteen or twenty feet deep, with perpendicular sides, in the soft limestone or chalky rocks. They are on the borders of the Philistine plain at the base of the Judea mountains, six miles southwest from Beth-lehem, and well adapted for concealing a number of refugees. his brethren and all his father's house . . . went down--to escape the effects of Saul's rage, which seems to have extended to all David's family. From Beth-lehem to Deir-Dubban it is, indeed, a descent all the way.

Saul then commanded Doeg to cut down the priests, and he at once performed the bloody deed. On the expression "wearing the linen ephod," compare the remarks at Sa1 2:18. The allusion to the priestly clothing, like the repetition of the expression "priests of Jehovah," serves to bring out into its true light the crime of the bloodthirsty Saul and his executioner Doeg. The very dress which the priests wore, as the consecrated servants of Jehovah, ought to have made them shrink from the commission of such a murder.