1 Samuel 18:8 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 18:8
And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
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 be…
Proverbs 13:10 Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.
1 Samuel 20:31 For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unt…
Esther 3:5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath.
James 4:5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
Proverbs 27:4 Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?
Numbers 11:1 And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt amo…
Numbers 22:34 And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it dis…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 18:6-11
Now begin David's troubles, and they not only tread on the heels of his triumphs, but take rise from them, such is the vanity of that in this world which seems greatest.
I. He was too much magnified by the common people. Some time after the victory Saul went a triumphant progress through the cities of Israel that lay next him, to receive the congratulations of the country. And, when he made his public entry into any place, the women were most forward to show him respect, as was usual then in public triumphs (Sa1 18:6), and they had got a song, it seems, which they sang in their dances (made by some poet or other, that was a great admirer of David's bravery, and was more just than wise, in gi…
SAUL ENVIES HIS PRAISE. (Sa1 18:5-9)
the women came out of all cities of Israel--in the homeward march from the pursuit of the Philistines. This is a characteristic trait of Oriental manners. On the return of friends long absent, and particularly on the return of a victorious army, bands of women and children issue from the towns and villages, to form a triumphal procession, to celebrate the victory, and, as they go along, to gratify the soldiers with dancing, instrumental music, and extempore songs, in honor of the generals who have earned the highest distinction by feats of gallantry. The Hebrew women, therefore, were merely paying the customary gratulations to David as the deliverer of t…
Saul hath slain his thousands - As it cannot literally be true that Saul had slain thousands, and David ten thousands; it would be well to translate the passage thus: Saul hath smitten or fought against thousands; David against tens of thousands. "Though Saul has been victorious in all his battles; yet he has not had such great odds against him as David has had; Saul, indeed, has been opposed by thousands; David, by ten thousands." We may here remark that the Philistines had drawn out their whole forces at this time: and when Goliath was slain, they were totally discomfited by the Israelites, led on chiefly by David.
The Church Fathers
Saul was greatly angered, etc. But the people who gloried in the law, angered against the preachers of grace, and the word displeased them, which, with the Gospel shining forth, set an end to the shadows of the law; and he said, raging against the Lord and against His Christ: Behold, the followers of this doctrine assert that while I indeed, doing the commands of the Mosaic law, serve shadows and figures, their Jesus brought the light of truth and life to the world; that through the law, good things of the earth, which cannot be everlasting, were promised to me; He through the grace of His Gospel grants the eternal joys of the heavenly kingdom to His faithful. Therefore, with everyone competing, neglecting the rite of the altar and sacrifices, to attend the hearing of this doctrine, what remains for me except only that he has not also taken away the summit of the kingdom from me? This because, although Christians, surpassing us in number, are all humbled and cast down in new and unknown poverty.
It is usual, indeed, with persons of a weaker character, to be so built up in confidence by certain individuals who are caught by heresy, as to topple over into ruin themselves. How does it come to pass, they ask, that this woman or that man, who were the most faithful, the most prudent and the most approved in the church, have gone over to the other side? Who that asks such a question does not in fact reply to it himself, to the effect that men whom heresies have been able to pervert ought never to have been esteemed prudent or faithful or approved? This again, I suppose, is an extraordinary thing, that one who has been approved should afterwards fall back? Saul, who was good beyond all others, is afterwards subverted by envy. David, a good man "after the Lord's own heart." is guilty afterwards of murder and adultery. Solomon, endowed by the Lord with all grace and wisdom, is led into idolatry by women. For to the Son of God alone was it reserved to persevere to the last without sin.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
David — Beloved, the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, a citizen of Bethlehem. His father seems to have been a man in humble life. His mother’s name is not recorded. Some think she was the Nahash of 2 Sam.…
David · .Saul’s jealousy of — .Saul’s jealousy of
Envy · .Saul, of David — .Saul, of David
Hatred · Exemplified: Saul — Exemplified: Saul
Jealousy · .Saul, of David — .Saul, of David
Prudence · .David, in his conduct toward Saul — .David, in his conduct toward Saul
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on 1 Samuel 18:8
And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him,.... Partly because they called him plain Saul, and not King Saul; did not give him his royal title, which might serve to strengthen his suspicion, after suggested; and chiefly because they attributed a greater number of slain to David than to him, as follows:
and he said, they have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they ascribed but thousands; and so had given more honour to an inferior officer than to the commander-in-chief, more to a subject than to a sovereign:
and what can he have more but the kingdom? there is nothing left out of their song, and nothing remains to be given him but that; some think that Saul knew, by th…
Saul's jealousy towards David.
(Note: The section Sa1 18:6-14 is supposed by Thenius and others to have been taken by the compiler from a different source from the previous one, and not to have been written by the same author: (1) because the same thing is mentioned in Sa1 18:13, Sa1 18:14, as in Sa1 18:5, though in a somewhat altered form, and Sa1 18:10, Sa1 18:11 occur again in Sa1 19:9-10, with a few different words, and in a more appropriate connection; (2) because the contents of Sa1 19:9, and the word ממּחרת in Sa1 19:10, are most directly opposed to Sa1 18:2 and Sa1 18:5. On these grounds, no doubt, the lxx have not only omitted the beginning of Sa1 18:6 from their version, but also S…
