8
1SA 22:8
18
1SA 22:18
Saul then commanded Doeg to cut down the priests, and he at once performed the bloody deed. On the expression “ wearing the linen ephod,” compare the remarks at 1 Samuel 2:18. The allusion to the priestly clothing, like the repetition of the expression “ priests of Jehovah,” serves to bring out into its true light the crime of the bloodthirsty Saul and his executioner Doeg. The very dress which the priests wore, as the consecrated servants of Jehovah, ought to have made them shrink from the commission of such a murder.
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19
1SA 22:19
But not content with even this revenge, Saul had the whole city of Nob destroyed, like a city that was laid under the ban (vid., Deuteronomy 13:13.). So completely did Saul identify his private revenge with the cause of Jehovah, that he avenged a supposed conspiracy against his own person as treason against Jehovah the God-king.
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“ That you have all of you conspired against me, and no one informs me of it, since my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse.” בּכרת , lit. at the making of a covenant. Saul may possibly have heard something of the facts related in 1 Samuel 20:12-17; at the same time, his words may merely refer to Jonathan's friendship with David, which was well known to him. ואין־חלה , “and no one of you is grieved on my account ... that my son has set my servant (David) as a lier in wait against me,” i.e., to plot against my life, and wrest the throne to himself. We may see from this, that Saul was carried by his suspicions very far beyond the actual facts. “As at this day:” cf. Deuteronomy 8:18, etc.
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