Bible Commentaries

1 Kings 1:23 — And they told the king, saying, Behold Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. Behold Nathan the prophet. — Who was a privy counsellor to David, though he had so sharply reproved him. 2 Samuel 12:1-12 He bowed himself before the king. — Note here the exemplary modesty and submission of so great a prophet. How far from this is the false prophet of Rome!

1 Kings 1:26 — But me, [even] me thy servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and thy servant Solomon, hath he not called. But me, even me. — As some useless person, as an ουτιδανος , as if I were no prophet of the Lord, or as if there were not a woe to such rebellious children as "take counsel, but not of God; and cover with a covering, but not of his Spirit, that they may add sin to sin." Isaiah 30:1

1 Kings 1:36 — And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king, and said, Amen: the LORD God of my lord the king say so [too]. Amen: the Lord … say so too. — Amen is, (1.) Assenting; (2.) Assevering; (3.) Assuring. It is as much as So be it; yea, So it shall be; It must be so, if, as here, the Lord our God say so too. Only we must stretch out our hearts after our Amen, say the Rabbis, and be swallowed up in God.

1 Kings 2:2 — I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; I go the way of all the earth. — Behold, I die, as Genesis 48:21 . Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man. — sc., In understanding and courage, 1 Corinthians 14:20 making up thy want of years by thy virtues, and not prevaricating either for fear or favour. The least deviation in the greatest and highest orb is both most sensible and most dangerous.

1 Kings 2:20 — Then she said, I desire one small petition of thee; [I pray thee], say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay. I desire one small petition of thee. — Small she called it, but Solomon, who saw further into the matter, judged otherwise of it. 1 Kings 2:22 There are depths of the devil which every one cannot dive into. “ Ut fugias quae sunt noxia, tuta time. ”

1 Kings 8:24 — Who hast kept with thy servant David my father that thou promisedst him: thou spakest also with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled [it] with thine hand, as [it is] this day. Who hast kept with thy servant David. — See 1 Kings 8:15 . We may pray to good purpose, though in the selfsame words as before. Christ himself did so in his agony when he prayed most earnestly. Let this comfort those who complain that they cannot vary their petitions.

2 Kings 20:7 — And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid [it] on the boil, and he recovered. Take a lump of figs. — This poultice was fit enough for the carbuncle, but yet could never have cured him so soon without a miracle. See on 2 Kings 20:1 . And he recovered. — Non ex facultate ficuum, sed ex Dei verbo, saith Junius: By a supernatural virtue added to the figs, which else could not have wrought the cure.

2 Kings 24:13 — And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said. All the treasures. — That is, All that he met with, or thought meet. See 2 Kings 25:13-15 . And cut in pieces all. — Yet not all neither. See Ezra 1:7 .

2 Kings 24:6 — So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead. So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers. — Respectu habito ad communem naturae legem; Jehoiakim died, being slain in Jerusalem, and as "an ass cast forth beyond the gates"; Jeremiah 22:18-19 or else, going captive to Babylon, he died by the way, ingloria vita recessit, without burial or mourning. 2 Chronicles 36:6 He is also cut out of the roll of the kings of Judah. Matthew 1:11

1 Chronicles 11:25 — Behold, he was honourable among the thirty, but attained not to the [first] three: and David set him over his guard. Behold, he was honourable among the thirty. — Yea, and above them too. And David set him over his guard. — Heb., Over his hearing; that is, over those praetorian soldiers that were ever within his hearing and at his hand, viz., the Cherethites and the Pelethites, who stuck to him in all his troubles, and were now his bodyguard. 1 Chronicles 11:26

1 Chronicles 6:22 — The sons of Kohath; Amminadab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son, Korah his son. — This was that sinner against his own soul, Numbers 16:1 whom the earth swallowed up quick. Howbeit his children came to good, many of them, as Elkanah, Samuel, the sons of Korah, in David’s days. Dathan and Abiram, his fellow sinners, are stigmatised for their stubbornness, Numbers 26:9 as before them was Cain, Genesis 4:15 and after them Ahaz. 2 Chronicles 28:22

1 Samuel 12:16 — Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes. Now therefore stand and see. — He had bidden them before Stand and hear, 1 Samuel 12:7 now, Stand and see: that both these two learned senses, as Aristotle calleth them, being affected together, they might be instructed, lest else God’s soul should be disjointed from them, as Jeremiah 6:8 . "Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see." Isaiah 42:18

1 Samuel 15:28 — And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, [that is] better than thou. The Lord hath rent the kingdom. — And given it to the man that shall hereafter tear off the skirt of thy garment, as Lyra here noteth out of the Rabbins, whence also Saul said then, "And now behold I know well that thou shalt surely be king," … 1 Samuel 24:20

1 Samuel 17:11 — When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid. They were dismayed, and greatly afraid. — Even valiant Jonathan also, who both knew the promises, and had lately found the performance in that glorious conquest he had over these Philistines. 1 Samuel 14:13-15 But it is the Lord who strengtheneth and weakeneth the arm of either party, Ezekiel 30:24 and he had decreed that David should have the glory of the day.

1 Samuel 18:15 — Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid of him. He was afraid of him, — viz., Lest the people should make him king. He had sent him from court as an eye sore, and yet he ceaseth not to malign him. He could not come at David’s heart; he will therefore needs feed upon his own. See 1 Samuel 18:12 . Invidia semper se devorat primum, uti vermis nucleum ex quo nascitur. Envy is destructive.

1 Samuel 2:5 — [They that were] full have hired out themselves for bread; and [they that were] hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. And they that were hungry ceased. — Nimirum famelici esse, to be still hungry; they were "filled with good things," as Luke 1:53 . Is waxed feeble. — Weak for prolification; or having luctuosam faecunditatem, as Jerome saith of Laeta, who had born many children, but with this she had buried them.

1 Samuel 21:13 — And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. And he changed his behaviour — See the title of Psalms 34:1 This was a sorry shift, and can hardly be excused. The chameleon, saith Pliny, is the most fearful of all creatures, and therefore turneth itself into all colours, that it may shift for itself: so fearful men.

1 Samuel 3:15 — And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision. And Samuel … opened the doors of the house. — His modesty appeareth in that, (1.) He doeth his former office of doorkeeper, though he were now become a prophet: he was not at all puffed up with his new honour; (2.) He is not forward, but fearful to tell Eli the oracle, which yet he might not conceal.

1 Samuel 3:7 — Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, — i.e., He knew him not in that way peculiar to prophets: for otherwise he knew the Lord a far deal better than Eli’s two sons did, 1 Samuel 2:12 and yet he and they had all one tutor. But he hath his chair in heaven who teacheth the heart, saith a father.

1 Samuel 30:14 — We made an invasion [upon] the south of the Cherethites, and upon [the coast] which [belongeth] to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire. Upon the south of the Cherethites, — i.e., Of the Philistines. 1 Samuel 30:16 See Ezekiel 21:15 Zephaniah 2:5 . Some think the Cretians might from these have their name and original. And upon the south of Caleb, — i.e., Of the Calebites, amongst whom lay David’s possessions which he had with Abigail.