Read Time: 9 minutes1 Samuel 19
The persecution turns open and murderous, and the chapter is a study in how Yahweh shields the anointed through a widening circle of unlikely deliverers. Saul speaks plainly now — he commands Jonathan and all his servants to kill David. But Jonathan, the heir who loves David as his own life, pleads for him and turns his father back for a time: “Let not the king sin against his servant, against David; because he hath not sinned against thee… wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood?” The king’s own son stands between the anointed and the spear, naming the murder for what it would be — sin against innocent blood. The one closest to the throne defends the one who will take it.
But the reprieve does not hold; the evil spirit returns and the javelin flies again, and David flees to his own house. Now it is Michal, Saul’s daughter and David’s wife, who shields him — letting him down through a window by night and laying an image in the bed with a pillow of goats’ hair for a head, to buy him time. It is from this very night that David’s own cry survives — Psalm 59 bears the title “when Saul sent, and they watched the house to kill him,” the hunted anointed calling Yahweh his defence from the watched house, in words that reach on to the greater David whom men also watched to take. Two of Saul’s own children, his son and his daughter, repeatedly protect David against their father; natural Israel’s king is increasingly isolated, his own house turning to guard the anointed he would destroy. The household of the persecutor becomes the refuge of the persecuted.
David flees to Samuel at Ramah — the height — and the chapter ends in one of the strangest deliverances in Scripture. Saul sends messengers to take David, and when they come upon the company of prophets prophesying with Samuel at their head, “the Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.” Three times he sends, and three times the men are overtaken by the Spirit and cannot do their errand. At last Saul goes himself — and the Spirit falls on him too, and he strips off his robe and prophesies before Samuel and lies down naked all that day and night, so that men ask again, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” The king who hunts the anointed is himself seized and disarmed by the very Spirit that has left him for David; even Saul’s malice cannot move a step where Yahweh sets a hedge.
The picture is of a Yahweh who guards his anointed by every means — a loving friend, a loyal wife, a band of prophets, and the king’s own body overcome by the Spirit — so that not one of Saul’s three sendings, nor his own coming, can lay a hand on David. It is the same keeping that surrounded the greater Son of David, whose hour had not yet come, whom none could take until he gave himself; no man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come. The anointed is immortal till his work is done; the persecutor exhausts himself against a hedge he cannot cross.
Yahweh hedges the anointed about — a friend who pleads, a wife who shields, the Spirit that overcomes even the hunter. Not one spear, not three sendings, can touch David before his time; the persecutor wears himself out against the hedge.
Isaiah 63
The chapter opens with one of the most arresting visions in the prophets — the lone warrior coming up from the south, his garments stained red. “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?” And the answer: “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” The names carry the picture: Edom means red — the land of Esau, the red brother — and Bozrah is the vintage town, the place of the grape-gathering. So the warrior comes red from the red land, his garments dyed at the place of the vintage: “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?” This is the King returning from judgment, his garments dyed not with his own blood here but with the blood of his enemies trodden in the winepress — the warrior of the day of vengeance, the same figure Revelation takes up when the King rides forth in a vesture dipped in blood to tread the winepress of the wrath of God. In the prophetic framework this is the King’s coming up from Bozrah at the head of his march to claim his inheritance, the day of vengeance that Isaiah 61 held back — “the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.”
The treading is done alone, and the aloneness is the point. “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me… I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me.” It is the same arm of Isaiah 59 that found no intercessor and brought salvation itself — the King who treads the press of judgment with no man beside him, as he bore the offering alone and rose alone. Vengeance and redemption are one act in one day: “the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.” The treading-down of the enemy is the deliverance of the redeemed.
The chapter then turns from the lone warrior to a tender remembrance of Yahweh’s old mercies and a lament. “I will mention the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh… in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them… but they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit.” The God who carried Israel “all the days of old” was grieved by their rebellion and turned to be their enemy — and yet the prophet remembers Moses and the days when Yahweh led them through the deep, and pleads on the ground of that old fatherhood. “In all their affliction he was afflicted” — the Yahweh who is no distant judge but one moved with the suffering of his people, who bore them and carried them.
And the chapter ends in intercession, the cry of the remnant for a Father who seems to have withdrawn. “Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Yahweh, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting… O Yahweh, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways… return for thy servants’ sake.” The prayer reaches past Abraham to Yahweh himself as Father and Redeemer, pleading for his return. It is the cry of the watchmen of chapter 62 carried into prayer — the remnant holding Yahweh to his fatherhood, asking him to come down, the very return the red-garmented warrior of the chapter’s opening will answer.
The lone warrior comes up from Bozrah, his garments red from treading the winepress alone — the day of vengeance and the year of the redeemed are one. Yet in all their affliction he was afflicted; the remnant pleads, Thou art our Father, return for thy servants’ sake.
Matthew 8
After the discourse comes the doing, and chapter 8 is a gathering of miracles that show the King’s authority reaching exactly the people the old order shut out. First the leper — the unclean man no one could touch — and the Lord “put forth his hand, and touched him,” the touch that should have defiled the clean instead cleansing the unclean. Then the centurion’s servant, a Gentile soldier’s plea, and the King marvels at a faith greater than any in Israel: “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” And he declares the gathering of the outsiders outright — “many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” — the feast of Isaiah 25 thrown open to the nations, while “the children of the kingdom shall be cast out.” The leper, the Gentile, the outsider: the King’s hand reaches them all.
The healings are then read by Matthew as the fulfilment of the Servant’s burden-bearing. He heals Peter’s mother-in-law and casts out spirits and heals all the sick, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Isa 53:4). The miracles are not mere displays of power but the Servant removing the weight of human affliction—the same One who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows now lifting the sicknesses of all who come. And yet he did not himself become ill. The sicknesses did not literally come upon him, as the churches say about him taking on our sin. Instead, he removed the sickness, just as he removes our sin. The healing ministry is the Servant-work made visible: he bears what he heals, taking the infirmity as his own.
The chapter sets the cost of following between the miracles, and it is sobering. A scribe offers to follow him anywhere and is told, “the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” The King who heals all has no home of his own — the despised Nazarene, the Servant with no form, the one who came not to be ministered unto. And to another who would first bury his father: “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” The claim of the kingdom is total and immediate; nothing, not even the strongest natural duty, may come before the call of the King.
The chapter closes with two displays of authority over the powers that terrify men — the storm and the demons. In the boat he rises and rebukes the wind and the sea, “and there was a great calm,” and the disciples marvel, “what manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” The One who calms the sea is the One whose voice stilled the deep at creation; the sea, the restless image of the nations and of chaos, obeys the King. Then in the country of the Gergesenes he casts the legion of devils out of the two possessed men into the swine, and the whole city comes out and begs him to depart — they would rather keep their swine and their quiet than the presence of the King who delivers. The powers obey him; men, fearing the cost, ask him to leave.
The King’s hand cleanses the leper, marvels at the Gentile’s faith, and bears the sicknesses he heals — himself took our infirmities. He stills the sea and casts out the legion; the powers obey, but the King of all has not where to lay his head.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day holds together the hunted anointed, the returning warrior, and the homeless King who bears the world’s affliction — three views of the one Christ across the span of his work. David is hedged about by Yahweh against every spear, kept until his time; the warrior of Isaiah 63 comes up from Bozrah in garments red from treading the winepress alone, the day of vengeance arrived; and the Lord of Matthew 8 reaches his hand to the leper and the Gentile and bears the sicknesses of all who come, yet has nowhere to lay his head. The persecuted shepherd, the lone treader of the press, and the homeless healer are the same One — kept through the persecution, bearing the affliction, and returning at last in power to tread down the enemy and redeem his own.
The aloneness binds Isaiah and the Gospel. The warrior treads the winepress alone — “of the people there was none with me… mine own arm brought salvation” — and the King of Matthew 8 walks the same solitary road, the Son of man with no place to lay his head, the One who bears our infirmities by himself as the Servant bore our griefs. This is the arm of Yahweh that found no intercessor and brought the salvation itself, the One who does alone what no other could do — bear the sickness, tread the press, save the people. And it answers the persecution of David: the anointed who is hunted and kept is the anointed who will return from Bozrah, alone and mighty to save, his garments red with the judgment of those who hated him.
The hope keeps its shape — kept, awaited, returning. David is preserved but not enthroned; the warrior’s coming from Bozrah is the day of vengeance still future, the year of the redeemed not yet come; the remnant of Isaiah 63 still pleads return for thy servants’ sake, the watchmen still cry. The King of Matthew 8 heals and calms and casts out, yet the kingdom is at hand, the feast with Abraham still to be sat down at, the children from east and west still to be gathered. The saint lives where the affliction is borne and the return is awaited — hedged about like David, pleading like the remnant, following the homeless King toward the day he comes from Bozrah.
So the exhortation gathers to trust, to following, and to the cry for his return. Trust the hedge Yahweh sets about his own — no spear touches the anointed before his time, and no trial touches the saint outside the keeping of the One who bore our sicknesses. Follow the homeless King wholly, letting nothing, not even the strongest natural claim, come before his call. And pray with the remnant, Thou art our Father, return — join the watchmen who give Yahweh no rest, looking for the warrior to come up from Bozrah, the day of vengeance and the year of the redeemed in one. He took our infirmities; he treads the press alone; he is coming. Follow, trust, and cry for his return.
The hunted anointed, the lone treader of the winepress, the homeless King who bears our sicknesses — one Christ, kept and returning. Trust the hedge, follow wholly, and cry with the remnant, Thou art our Father, return.