For thus it is written: "And David's heart smote him because he had taken away the skirt of his cloak."(1) But to the men with him, who advised him to destroy Saul thus delivered up into his hands, he saith, "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's christ, to lay my hand upon him, because he is the Lord's christ." Therefore he showed so great reverence to this shadow of what was to come, not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it prefigured.Whence also that which Samuel says to Saul, "Since thou hast not kept my commandment which the Lord commanded thee, whereas now the Lord would have prepared thy kingdom over Israel for ever, yet now thy kingdom shall not continue for thee; and the Lord will seek Him a man after His own heart, and the Lord will command him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee,"(2) is not to be taken as if God had settled that Saul himself should reign for ever, and afterwards, on his sinning, would not keep this promise; nor was He ignorant that he would sin, but He had established his kingdom that it might be a figure of the eternal kingdom.Therefore he added, "Yet now thy kingdom shall not continue for thee." Therefore what it signified has stood and shall stand; but it shall not stand for this man, because he himself was not to reign for ever, nor his offspring; so that at least that word "for ever" might seem to be fulfilled through his posterity one to another."And the Lord," he saith, "will seek Him a man," meaning either David or the Mediator of the New Testament,(3) who was figured in the chrism with which David also and his offspring was anointed.But it is not as if He knew not where he was that God thus seeks Him a man, but, speaking through a man, He speaks as a man, and in this sense seeks us.For not only to God the Father, but also to His Only-begotten, who came to seek what was lost,(4) we had been known already even so far as to be chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.(5) "He will seek Him" therefore means, He will have His own (just as if He had said, Whom He already has known to be His own He will show to others to be His friend).Whence in Latin this word (quaerit) receives a preposition and becomes acquirit (acquires), the meaning of which is plain enough; although even Without the addition of the preposition quaerete is understood as acquirere, whence gains are called quaestus.
CHAP.7.-- OF THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL, BY WHICH THEPERPETUAL
DIVISION OF THE SPIRITUAL FROM THE CARNAL ISRAEL WAS PREFIGURED.
Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel says to him in the word of the Lord, "Because thou hast despised the word of the Lord, the Lord hath despised thee, that thou mayest not be king over Israel."(6) And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it, and prayed for pardon, and besought Samuel to return with him to appease the Lord, he said, "I will not return with thee: for thou hast despised the word of the Lord, and the Lord will despise thee that thou mayest not be king over Israel.And Samuel turned his face to go away, and Saul Laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and rent it.And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom from Israel out of thine hand this day, and will give it to thy neighbor, who is good above thee, and will divide Israel in twain.And He will not be changed, neither will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should repent; who threatens and does not persist."(7) He to whom it is said, "The Lord will despise thee that thou mayest not be king over Israel," and "The Lord hath rent the kingdom from Israel out of thine hand this day," reigned forty years over Israel,--that is, just as long a time as David himself,--yet heard this in the first period of his reign, that we may understand it was said because none of hid race was to reign, and that we may look to the race of David, whence also is sprung, according to the flesh,(1) the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.(2)But the Scripture has not what is read in most Latin copies, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel out of thine hand this day," but just as we have set it down it is found in the Greek copies, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom from Israel out of thine hand;" that the words "out of thine hand" may be understood to mean "from Israel." Therefore this man figuratively represented the people of Israel, which was to lose the kingdom, Christ Jesus our Lord being about to reign, not carnally, but Spiritually.
And when it is said of Him, "And will give it to thy neighbor," that is to be referred to the fleshly kinship, for Christ, according to the flesh, was of Israel, whence also Saul sprang.But what is added, "Good above thee," may indeed be understood, "Better than thee," and indeed some have thus translated it; but it is better taken thus, "Good above thee," as meaning that because He is good, therefore He must be above thee, according to that other prophetic saying, "Till I put all Thine enemies under Thy feet."(3) And among them is Israel, from whom, as His persecutor, Christ took away the kingdom; although the Israel in whom there was no guile may have been there too, a sort of grain, as it were, of that chaff.For certainly thence came the apostles, thence so many martyrs, of whom Stephen is the first, thence so many churches, which the Apostle Paul names, magnifying God in their conversion.