Questions on the Book of Kings #6
"For if a man ever rises to pursue you, etc." [1 Samuel 25:29] This Abigail, interceding on behalf of herself and her household, said to David, whom her husband had offended by his foolishness and drunkenness: "For if a man ever rises to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound up in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God. But the souls of your enemies will be whirled about, like in the circuit and sling's round; she beautifully distinguishes the state of the just from the lot of the reprobate with this comparison. For indeed she calls the souls of these living, so as to imply on the contrary that those are preoccupied with spiritual death, according to that saying of the prophet: The soul that sins shall die (Ezek. XVIII). She likens these to a bundle, and those to a stone of a sling; for a bundle is tied up, so that it may remain whole and be preserved; the stone is placed in the sling to be cast away. So indeed in this world the elect are compressed by the pressures of tribulations, so that being thus admonished, they may bind themselves more closely to each other with mutual love and be preserved forever in unity by the hand of their Redeemer. But the reprobate, the more freely they are let loose to their own pleasures in this life, the further they are cast away from the glory of the divine vision in the future, so that it may rightly be said of them: And indeed they are expelled from your hand. However, it marvelously describes the omnipotent providence of the heavenly protector when it says the soul of the holy man is necessarily kept with Him like in a bundle of the living. For as it is very easy for anyone to preserve a bundle of grass or hay held in their hand, so the power of our Lord and Savior effortlessly protects all the elect throughout the world from the beginning to the end of the age, so that none of them may perish in any way. According to what He Himself speaks of them in the Gospel under the figure of sheep: "And they follow me," He says, "and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John X). Just as a single bundle is bound with any kinds of ties, so the whole assembly of saints is bound together by the one and the same faith, hope, and love, and surrounded by one divine protection. The meaning of the letter is clearly evident, because the soul of David, despite his enemies pursuing him, was always kept in the land of the living. Moreover, his enemies, beset by adversities, were to be disturbed and driven out of their territories, like a stone whirled in a sling, or even taken away from human affairs.
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