Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 19:9

"And an evil spirit from Jehovah was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand; and David was playing with his hand." — 1 Samuel 19:9 (ASV)

And the evil spirit ... was upon Saul. Again the terrible malady was upon the king—probably brought on by the wild storm of jealous fury which Saul allowed to sweep unchecked across his soul. Once more—

“Out of the black mid-tent’s silence, a space of three days,
Not a sound has escaped to your servants of prayer nor of praise,
To betoken that Saul and the spirit have ended their strife,
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.”

BROWNING: Saul.

But the time when the skilled musician with his divine strains had roused him into life again was past (see 1 Samuel 16:21–23), not now as in old days, when, to use the words the great poet put into David’s mouth—

“—I looked up to know
If the best I could do had brought solace: he did not speak, but
slow
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care,
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow; through
my hair
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head.
with kind power—
All my face back, intent to peruse it as men do a flower.
Thus held he me there, with his great eye that scrutinized
mine,
And oh, all my heart how it loved him! ...”

BROWNING: Saul.

This time, seizing the tall spear which was always by his side, he hurled it with deadly intent at the sorrow-stricken, loving face, and David fled in hot haste from the doomed presence forever. The Septuagint was offended at the statement “evil spirit of (or from) Jehovah,” and cuts the knot by leaving out “Jehovah.” It is, no doubt, a hard saying, and no human expositor has ever been able fully to explain it.

To the expression Ruach Jehovah, “Spirit of Jehovah” (for “of” is more accurate than “from”), and the equivalent phrase, Ruach Elohim, “Spirit of God” (1 Samuel 16:14–15), the epithet “evil” is added. We cannot attempt to fathom the mysteries of the spirit world—we have absolutely no data—we simply possess in the sacred book a few scattered notices, which indicate the existence of evil spirits.

To suppose that these malignant or evil beings were part of the heavenly host employed by the Eternal is a supposition utterly at variance with our conception of the All-Father.

We may, however, acknowledge two main considerations:

1. We can safely grant the existence of evil spirits—probably beings fallen through sin and disobedience from their high estate.
2. We may also suppose that these evil spirits—all, of course, belonging to the Eternal, even in their deep degradation (so though “evil,” still “spirits of God, or Jehovah,”)—receive occasional permission, for some wise—though to us unknown—reasons, to tempt and plague for a season the souls of certain men.

The introduction to the Book of Job (Job 1:6; Job 2:1–7), and the circumstance which led to the death of King Ahab before Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22:19–22), at least favour this hypothesis. The presence of those evil spirits, or “devils,” who possessed those unhappy ones whom we meet so often in the Gospel story, points to the same conclusion.

Why certain souls should have been exposed to this dread experience is, of course, beyond our understanding. From the limited information available to us, it seems, however, that the power of the evil spirit was sometimes permitted to be exercised for one of two reasons:

• as a trial of faith, as in the case of Job; or
• as a punishment incurred by the soul’s desertion of God, as in the case of Saul.