And the women sang to one another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
Read Chapter 18
Basil the Great
AD 379
Why do you grieve, my friend, when you yourself have suffered no misfortune? Why are you hostile to someone who is enjoying prosperity, when he has in no way caused your own possessions to decrease? If you are vexed even upon receiving a kindness [from the object of your spite], are you not quite clearly envious of your own good? Saul is an example of this. He made David’s great favors to himself a motive for enmity with him. First, after he had been cured of insanity by the divine and melodious strains of David’s harp, he attempted to run his benefactor through with a spear. Then, on another occasion, it happened that he and his army were delivered from the hands of the enemy and saved from embarrassment before Goliath. In singing the triumphal songs commemorating this victory, however, the dancers attributed to David a tenfold greater share in the achievement, saying, “Saul killed his thousands and David his ten thousands.” For this one utterance and because truth itself was its witn...
Sung. The chorus of their song is given. (Calmet)
"The women sung, Saul slew his thousands; and the virgins answered, And David "(Josephus)
The death of Goliath was equivalent to the slaughter of thousands, as he had filled the whole army of Israel with dismay. (Haydock)
For envy is a fearful, a fearful thing, and persuades people to despise their own salvation. In this way did both Cain destroy himself, and again, before his time, the devil who was the destroyer of his father. So did Saul invite an evil demon against his own soul; yet when invited, he soon envied his physician. For such is the nature of envy; he knew that he was saved, yet he would rather have perished than see him that saved him have honor. What can be more grievous than this passion? One cannot err in calling it the devil’s offspring. And in it is contained the fruit of vainglory, or rather its root also, for both these evils are apt mutually to produce each other. And thus in truth it was that Saul even thus envied, when they said, “David smote by ten thousands.” What could be more senseless? For why do you envy? Tell me! “Because such a one praised him”? Yet surely you ought to rejoice. Besides, you do not know even whether the praise is true. And do you therefore grieve because w...
But now notice in this incident how much trouble the passion of envy caused: when the king saw this young man enjoying such popularity and the dancing crowds calling out, “Saul’s conquests ran into thousands, David’s into tens of thousands,” he didn’t take kindly to their words … but overwhelmed by envy, he now repaid his benefactor with the opposite treatment, and the one whom he should have recognized as his savior and benefactor he endeavored to do away with. What an extraordinary degree of frenzy! What excess of madness! The man who had won him the gift of life and had freed his whole army from the foreigner’s rage he now suspected as an enemy, and, instead of the man’s good deeds remaining fresh in his memory and prevailing over passion, the clarity of his thinking was dulled with envy as though by a kind of drunkenness, and he regarded his benefactor as his enemy.
That is what the evil of this passion is like, you see: it first has a bad effect on the person giving birth to it. -...
You shall not be a hypocrite, lest your “portion be with them.” You shall not be ill-natured or proud, for “God resists the proud.” “You shall not accept persons in judgment; for the judgment is the Lord’s.” “You shall not hate any man; you shall surely reprove your brother, and not become guilty on his account”; and, “Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” Eschew all evil, and all that is like it: for he says, “Abstain from injustice, and trembling shall not come close to you.” Do not grow angry quickly, or spiteful, or passionate, or furious or daring, lest you undergo the fate of Cain, and of Saul and of Joab. The first of these killed his brother Abel, because Abel was found to be preferred before him with God, and because Abel’s sacrifice was preferred; the second persecuted holy David, who had slain Goliath the Philistine, being envious of the praises of the women who danced; the third killed two generals of armies—Abner of Israel and Amasa of Judah. - "Constitutions of the H...
