A Lesson from the First Book of Samuel, 17.37
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!” Then Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a helmet of bronze on his head, and clothed him with a coat of mail. And David girded his sword over his armor, and he tried in vain to go, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these; for I am not used to them.” And David put them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in his shepherd’s bag or wallet; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine. And the Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked, and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, ruddy and comely in appearance. And the Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.”
A Lesson from his commentary on First Samuel by the Ven. S. Bede
The people of the Jews put upon David [who we understand figuratively to be the Incarnate Lord Jesus] the outward forms of the Law’s observances, in various ways: by circumcising Him on the eighth day, by bringing Him to the temple thirty-three days after that, by making an offering for Him, by teaching Him the carnal sabbath and by offering Him examples of the paschal lamb that should be offered every year, and other things of this kind, very beneficial in their own time, which used to arm against all the fiery weapons of the most evil one both those who instructed the Jewish people spiritually in the Law, the head, as it were, and also the very people itself, Saul’s body, as it were. Saul’s sword is the Law which was given through Moses, but David’s armor is the work of grace and truth which was brought about through Jesus Christ. When David chose for himself give smooth stones out of the brook, and put them into the shepherd’s bad, which he had with him, and he took a sling in his hand, we see figuratively that the Lord showed that He chooses instead that we should spiritually observe the Law which is written in five books, by drawing it from the troubled minds of those who, having a veil over their hearts, could not look on Moses’s face, and by lifting it up into the free air of the light of the Gospel. For this reason, He also caused the spiritual understanding of this Law, now lifted aloft, to be entrusted to the hearts of those spiritual pastors whom He had with Him as companions. To this He added the aid of the sling made, as it were, by the intertwining of the triple rope of allegorical, moral, and anagogical sense, and suitably equipped with these weapons, He, destined to be the victor, set out to fight the worldly prince.
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