1 Chronicles 12:17

1Ch 12:17 And David went out to meet them, and answered and said unto them, If ye be come peaceably unto me to help me, mine heart shall be knit unto you: but if [ye be come] to betray me to mine enemies, seeing [there is] no wrong in mine hands, the God of our fathers look [thereon], and rebuke [it].

Ver. 17. If you be come peaceably.] It is not safe to be light of belief, or too forward to make friendship. Gedaliah perished by his credulity, and Queen Elizabeth oft complained that "in trust she had found treason." Mohammed, the great Turk, sent a couple of traitors to kill Scanderbeg, under pretence of great love to him and to the Christian religion, &c,

“ Tuta frequensque via est per amici fallere nomen. ”

The God of our fathers.] David could not do his enemies, whether covert or overt, a greater displeasure than to put them over into God’s hands to punish.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ch 12:17. David went out to meet them, and answered — That is, spake, for that word is often used in the Scriptures, even of him that speaks first. My heart shall be knit unto you — I shall ever esteem and love you, and show this by my actions to you hereafter. But if ye be come to betray me, &c. — Which your number, and quality, and near relation to Saul, give me some cause to suspect. Seeing there is no wrong in my hands — I have done no injury to Saul nor to you; but have spared him and you when it was in my power to have destroyed you. The God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it — Namely, by his power, manifested for me, and against you, for your perfidiousness. In saying, the God of our fathers, meaning both his fathers and theirs, he suggests a reason why they should not deal ill with him: namely, because they were both descendants from the same patriarchs, and servants of the same God. And thus he encourages himself to believe, that God would right him if he were injured. For he was the God of his fathers, therefore a blessing was entailed upon him: and a God to all Israel in particular, as well as a Judge to all the earth.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(17) And David went out to meet them.—From his fastness or hiding-place in the hill or wood. Literally, before them, i.e., confronted them. (Comp, same phrase, 1Ch_14:8.)

And answered and said unto them.—The familiar New Testament phrase, καὶ ὰποκριθϵὶς ϵἰπϵν αύτοῖς. David’s speech and the answer of Amasai have all the marks of a genuine survival of antiquity. “If for peace ye have come unto me to help me.” For peace, i.e., with friendly intent. (Comp. Psa_120:7.)

To help me.—Comp, 1Ch_12:1, where David’s comrades are called “helpers of the war,” ξύμμαχοι.

Mine heart shall be knit unto you.—Lite- rally, I shall have (fiet mihi) towards you a heart for union, or at unity: that is, a heart at one with and true to you. (Comp, “one heart,” 1Ch_12:38, and Psa_133:1, and terms like unanimis, δμόφρων.)

If ye be come to betray me.—Literally, and if to beguile me for my foes, that is, to betray me to them, as Authorised Version. The false part of Sextus Tarquinius at Gabii, or of Zopyrus at Babylon. (Comp. Psa_120:2.)

Seeing there is no wrong in mine hands.—Although (there be) no violence in my palms. (Comp. Job_16:17; Psa_7:4; Isa_53:9.)

The God of our fathers . . . behold and punish.—The verbs are jussive or optative. (Comp. 2Ch_24:22.). The psalms of David breathe a confidence that Jehovah is a righteous judge, who never fails to vindicate innocence, and punish highhanded violence and treacherous cunning. (Comp. Psa_9:12; Psa_10:14; Psa_18:20.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. David went out to meet them] Instead of letting himself be surprised he took up a favourable position in advance from which he could hold parley with them. The south of Judah with its ravines and cliffs affords many such positions.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As he went to Ziklag, there fell to him of Manasseh,.... Others besides the former, who joined him when he went with the Philistines; these joined him when he was dismissed from them, and was returning to Ziklag: namely:

Adnah, and Jozabad, and Jediael, and Michael, and Jozabad, and Elihu, and Zilthai, captains of the thousands that were of Manasseh; that tribe being, as the rest were, divided into hundreds and thousands; these were captains over the thousands of the militia of the tribe.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Hands. At that time he had done no injury to any man. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And answered, i. e. spake, as that word is oft used in Scripture, even of him that speaketh first.

Mine heart shall be knit unto you; I shall ever esteem and love you, and show this by my actions to you hereafter.

If ye be come to betray me to mine enemies; which your number, and quality, and near relation to Saul gives me some cause to suspect.

There is no wrong in mine hands; I have done no injury to Saul, nor to you; but have spared him and you when it was in my power to have destroyed you.

The God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it, to wit, by his hand and power manifested for me and against you for your perfidiousness.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. If ye be come to betray me to mine enemies — Here we observe an instance of David’s caution and reserve. He had some suspicion that these men of Benjamin and Judah might be crafty emissaries from Saul.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The solemn tone of David"s language recorded here, and the beautiful pathos and religious appeal of the last two sentences of the verse, bespeak sufferings and disappointments experienced by David heretofore through deception. It is, however, noticeable that there is no direct testimony of anything of this kind, least of all of any flagrant instance of it, on the part of such detachments of friends as had come to him; and that, though they had occasionally been contributed from sources not the most desirable. (1Sa_22:2)

Ver. 17.

The suspicion that has power to propitiate favour.

There is very great distinction to be drawn between suspicion and suspiciousness. The latter describes the character, expresses a characteristic, and reveals a tendency or bias that can find no admirer, unless it be a man of taste the most vitiated and unlovely. The former may be easily enough the necessity of accident or circumstance, It may possibly mark out the person who on occasion manifests it as deserving and plaintively claiming sympathy and help. The fact of its being betrayed rather than stifled, and the manner in which it expresses itself when it does so, may set up additional pleas for kindly interpretation, nudge some way further than merely to extenuate it. Habitual suspiciousness, then, must be either the result of the badness of inborn quality into the mysteries of which suggestion this is not the place to enter or the outgrowth of a life and of circumstance in nothing more unhappily placed than in producing this as their natural fruit, While of She suspicion that may avail even to ingratiate a man with the best of his fellows, silently beseech kindness and fidelity and propitiate favour, we have a touching example in the history of the text. Notice the explaining, justifying, and redeeming features of this suspicion.

I THE SUSPICION TO WHICH DAVID GIVES EXPRESSION AROSE IN THE MIDST OF CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH INVOLVED THE QUESTION OF LIFE OR DEATH. This question of life or death was that which actually caused the suspicion. He who felt it and spoke it was in supreme danger. The disposition of frankness, generosity, forgivingness, must be brought to think, calculate, be cautious under certain circumstances. If otherwise, that disposition is no longer entitled to its old honourable titles, but to titles of far less repute, not lovely, not of good report such as recklessness, or at least heedlessness. The very perfection of the former will be tarnished if they are not answerable to certain kinds of consideration. Forgivingness in itself is ever one of the noblest dispositions, but it is not under all conceivable circumstances to be exercised and to become forgiveness. The highest teaching, that of the New Testament and of Jesus, runs counter to this, and the sternest and deepest facts of human condition in the presence of God, and placed under the light of Christ"s atonement, disown it. For then forgiveness would both come of indifferent and insufficient estimate of the just and the right, and would be adapted to give fearful encouragement and incentive to the same. So in the same way, confidence is not to be reposed with an equal unhesitatingness in all cases, just because confidingness is an engaging quality and graces the character, while suspicion does the reverse. In the higher moral aspects and relations of our merely human life we constantly recognize this as a principle. And in the highest spiritual aspects and relations of our life its illustrations are inevitable and are arresting even to the point of admiration. There is a sense in which the supreme issues of life or death have been felt by the holiest men who have lived to warrant the expression, for the moment, of some doubt, until the tremblingness of the human heart and the feebleness of the human hand have really felt the force of the Divine presence and the comfort of the Shepherd"s "crook and staff." Many of the supreme facts of our present life, if not all of them, bring us very near indeed to those of our spiritual "unseen" life. But even far within these limits human hearts ask large things of one another, and invoke an immensity of trust and repose an immensity of trust not unfrequently where it is little recognized, little honoured. One walks out with his life in his hand and a weight on his heart almost intolerable, to meet another whose mirth it may be to make mischief, and to hear his sentence and receive his destiny to all human intents from light lip and unthinking heart. This sobers human trust and checks the luxuriant growth of mutual confidence, and justifies David when he prefers to express, rather than seem to disdain, his already hard-bought experience of human compassions and" tender mercies," and finally, sometimes turns the action of suspicion toward men into the virtue of deeper trust toward God.

II THE SUSPICION TO WHICH DAVID GIVES EXPRESSION WAS NOT ONE THAT GREW OUT OF A HEART THAT KNEW IT BECAUSE ITSELF DID THE DEEDS OF IT AND SCENTED ITS OWN REWARD, BUT FROM ONE CONSCIOUS OF INTEGRITY. David directly appeals to Heaven in attestation of his not having earned any faithless treatment at the hands of Saul, and of any such as might possibly be emissaries of Saul. It is a great thing to be able to make such an appeal honestly and with the firmness that comes of the inner answer of a good conscience. It would have been very different, it was very different, with Jacob. When, after an absence of twenty-one years from his father"s house, he must now return and meet Esau, he met him with ill-suppressed suspicion and very natural distrust, and the worst misery of which was that they were self-inflicted and richly merited. A similar proneness to suspicion, a similar distrust of every unwonted whisper of the winds of providence, or unwonted sign of a fellow-creature"s countenance or tone of his voice, evidently dogged the steps and days and very hours of those of Joseph"s brethren who had been "verily guilty concerning" him. For all such suspicion there is no redeeming word to be spoken, except that it is of that retribution which, partial though its manifestations be at present, helps to establish thoughtful men"s faith in the great throne of righteousness, justice, and judgment. But far otherwise is it now with David"s suspicion. "If," says he, "ye be come to betray me to mine enemies there was the fear and the mistrust and the suspicion there is no wrong in mine hands there is the fearless assertion of innocence God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it." So does this sort of suspicion issue, in appealing to the omniscience of God, in leaving the matter of avenging and rebuking to God, and in committing his own cause and himself to the care and love of him that judgeth righteously.

III THE SUSPICION TO WHICH DAVID GIVES EXPRESSION WAS ONE BORN OF A HEART THAT NEVERTHELESS YEARNED TO TRUST, TO REPOSE CONFIDENCE, TO LOVE WITH THOROUGH UNION. David any way incurs the risk of going forth to meet these volunteers. It would have been madness to do so had Saul himself been in the company. When Saul was most in David"s hand and within his power, it is noticeable that, with all his generous and God-taught sparing of him, David does not neglect the manifestly necessary precaution as to himself and his own safety. The oft-aimed javelin, though it had missed its literal aim, had not missed mark altogether. It had fixed what might sometimes, what under other circumstances often has been worse than any javelin in the breast or heart, viz. a lifelong cause for caution and distrust. But let there be any justifiable doubt, any reasonable ground for hope in fair play and sincerity, and it is not David"s heart that will be slow to respond to it, hazard its genuineness, and welcome its approach. What an honest speech his is! Nothing disguised, he acknowledges he needed "help." "To help me" is his humble confession, untinged by haughtiness. And nothing affected, warrior though he was, good with every weapon, the sling and stone upward, yet his heart"s deepest desire is peace: "If ye be come peaceably." And nothing ungenuine; his own individuality is not sheltered under the cloak or behind the bulk of a big-sounding "cause" or "principle," or other professed issue at stake. No; he says, "If ye be come unto me. " But what then? what of all this? Why, "Mine heart shall be knit unto you," my heart shall be one with you. There is no offer to make any other bargain. There is no condition of any sufficient credentials, and such as will bear searching and microscopic examination. He takes an honest face, an honest tone, an open offer, a loving heart, one that is prepared to trust and longs to trust suspicion its strange and unwelcome work. And this constitutes for him the inner gift and discernment, to recognize their counterparts in others. And his gladdened ear hears the cheers of his own catchword, "peace," twice re-echoed for himself, and again "one cheer" for his "helpers." While God"s Name and praise and faithful promise close the matter of the dialogue: "Thy God helpeth thee," Happy if every beginning of suspicion ended with such confidence!

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The God of our fathers - He calls God, the God of our fathers, both his fathers and theirs; thus he minds them, not to deal ill with him; for they were both descendents from the same patriarchs, and servants of the same God. And thus he encourages himself to believe, that God would right him, if he was abused. For he was the God of his fathers; therefore a blessing was entailed upon him: and a God to all Israel in particular, as well as a Judge to all the earth.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

As he went to Ziklag, there fell to him of Manasseh,.... Others besides the former, who joined him when he went with the Philistines; these joined him when he was dismissed from them, and was returning to Ziklag: namely:

Adnah, and Jozabad, and Jediael, and Michael, and Jozabad, and Elihu, and Zilthai, captains of the thousands that were of Manasseh; that tribe being, as the rest were, divided into hundreds and thousands; these were captains over the thousands of the militia of the tribe.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

And there came some of the sons of Benjamin and Judah up to the stronghold, to David to the stronghold where David was hiding from Saul. And they took David’s sister’s son with them, because the sons of Benjamin were concerned that David might think that the sons of Benjamin had come to bind him and deliver him into Saul’s hands. Therefore, they took Amasa with them to David, and also some of David’s kinsmen from the rest of Judah, as it is written, “some of the sons of Benjamin and Judah,” in order that David would see that they came with them in good faith, so that he should not suspect them of anything.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.