Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Samuel 1:26

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

2Sa 1:26

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan.

Bereavement

Perhaps you know by experience what a choking sensation there is in looking at an emigrant vessel clearing out, even though you have no personal interest in anyone on board. The confusion and hurry that attend her departure; the crowded deck, the thronging crowd on shore to say, Farewell. Greyheaded men bidding good-bye to their native land, and a final good-bye, too. Who can ever forget the sobs that burst as the last rope was cast off and the great ship solemnly passed away. The loneliness that came upon you as with a rush then, how like, only very faint in degree, what comes when loved ones say good-bye in death and the time of their departure is at hand. (H. O. Mackey.)

The loss of a friend

Emma Lazarus used to tell how pathetically W. E. Channing spoke of his friend Thoreau’s removal. He never spoke of his death but always of Thoreau’s loss, or when I lost Mr. Thoreau. One day when I sat with him in the sunlit wood, looking at the gorgeous blue and silver summer sky, he turned to me and said, Just half the world died for me when I lost Mr. Thoreau. None of it looks the same as when I looked at it with him. (H. O. Mackey.)

Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

The love of Jonathan to David

I. The love of Jonathan to David was wonderful in its condescension, If we take into account the state of society at the time, the difference between a prince and a shepherd was not so great as it now appears. But still the social difference was great. The heir to the throne of Israel loved the shepherd lad.

II. This love was wonderful in its depth and intensity. Jonathan loved him as his own soul (1Sa 18:1). The love of Christ is in the same respect wonderful. His love is no feeble flame. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. His soul is indeed knit to us so closely that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

III. This love was wonderful in its unselfishness. Had Jonathan been of less nobler mould, he might have felt envious when David’s deed of valour brought him into such notice in the camp. But Jonathan’s generous nature knew nothing of such feelings. If they rose for a moment, they were strangled in their birth. Jonathan could expect to reap no advantage from his friendship. So with Christ’s love to us. We are eternally enriched by His love gifts, and can make but poor return. We give Him, it is true, our love, our service, our devotion, but what at best are these returns for His great love ,to us?

IV. This love was wonderfully practical. True love ever seeks to utter itself in action, rather than words. It finds in loving deeds its fittest expression.

1. This practicalness was seen in Jonathan taking his own robe and putting it on David, so that he was clothed in princely attire. Has not Christ ,clothed us with His own raiment? We become beautiful in His comeliness.

2. In the promise he made him (See 1Sa 20:4). Christ has made to us exceeding great and precious promises, even to a share of His glory, His eternal glory.

3. In pleading with his father on David’s behalf. The result of this pleading was David’s restoration to favour at court. There is, however, this difference. In this case Jonathan pleads David’s merit; but Christ pleads not ours, but His own.

4. Jonathan revealed to David his father’s thoughts concerning him. Saul proposed to slay him. Jonathan makes this known (See 1Sa 20:35). Jesus has unbosomed to us the father. He has made known to us His purpose of mercy. Jonathan’s was a warning voice, bidding David flee, but Christ’s is a voice of love, bidding us to return to the bosom of God.

V. The love of Jonathan was wonderfully constant. No change in David’s circumstances altered the character of his friendship. When David was an outlaw, when Saul was seeking his life, Jonathan remains true (See 1Sa 23:16). Whatever changes human friendship may know, the love of Jesus, like Himself, is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (The Study.)

Wonderful love.

My text is a fragment of the lament, composed and sung by David, to the memory of the slain. Let us forget the battle scene where poor Jonathan, all still and stark and blood-stained, lies, and let us turn to Calvary, and behold the wounded dying form of God’s beloved Son.

I. The love of Christ was wonderful when we consider those He loved.

1. There was nothing lovely in us. It is as natural for anything lovely to draw forth our admiration as for the magnet to attract the iron or the flower to attract the bee. There was great reason why Jonathan should love David. But when we come to consider our Lord’s love for us, we have to say–

What was there in me that could merit esteem,

Or give the Creator delight?

It is recorded that a minister once announced his intention of being in the vestry of his Church, for a certain time on a certain day, to meet any one who might have scriptural difficulties, that he might try to solve them. Only one came. What is your difficulty, said the minister. The man answered, My difficulty is in the ninth chapter of Romans, where it says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Yes, said the minister, there is great difficulty in that verse; but which part of the verse forms your difficulty? The latter part, of course, said the man. I cannot understand why God should hate Esau. The minister’s reply was this: The verse has often been a difficulty to me, but my difficulty has always been in the first part of the verse; I never could understand how God could love that wily, deceitful, supplanting scoundrel, Jacob.

2. There was nothing loving in us.–We haw a familiar saying, that love begets love. And it is very largely true in daily experience. Why is it that everybody loves you? said Dr. Doddridge to his little daughter when she was dying. I do not know, without it is because I love everybody. Many a one who could not aspire to be called beautiful, nevertheless has become greatly loved because of an affectionate, loving disposition they possess. But this is not the key that unlocks the mystery of Christ’s love to us. No love of ours drew it forth. If we love Him at all, it is because lie first loved us. Come, bright spirit, I charter you to find for us when first Christ’s love began. Away into the past speeds our messenger. He lingers at the cross. Pause not there, we say, He loved us before that. He waits a moment at the manger cradle. We know that His coming was a great sign of love, but it began not then. He flies on to the days of creation, and seeing the loving provision made for us he pauses yet again. Yet His love began not then. On flies the spirit into the dim recesses of eternity, when as yet there was no creation, when God was wrapped about in His own solitude, even there he finds God loved us. The task is given up, for he finds from all eternity God loved His people. We are stricken dumb at the greatness of such love. Its nature is indeed a marvel to us. Nothing lovely and nothing loving in us, and yet He loved us. Again let us give utterance to our text, and say, Thy love to me is wonderful.

II. The love of Christ is wonderful in its expression.

1. Calvary. The greater expression of the love of Christ is seen in Calvary. A tragedy in the street will always attract a crowd. Business men will spare a moment to make inquiries, frail women will venture in the throng to hear of the deed, and even the infirm and aged cannot be kept away. There was once a tragedy which stopped the flight of angels as well as the flight of men. A cross is lifted up, bearing its load of shame and pain. Who is He? How came He there? He is the Son of God! Love brought Him there. Thinkest thou it was the nails, the cords, that Roman soldiery kept Him there? It was none of these, it was love! Jesus our love was crucified. Here was love passing what tongue can tell, or mind imagine, or heart conceive. His love to us was wonderful.

2. We still have expressions of His love. It was the misfortune of David that he had to speak in the past tense–Thy love to me us was wonderful.

III. The, love of Christ is wonderful in its power.

1. There is its melting power:, We feel confident there is more power in love than in fear. Fear is a power, but love is a greater power. Some may have been driven into the kingdom by fear, but more have been wooed into it by love. It is said that when the Moravian missionaries first laboured in Greenland a considerable time passed without any fruit being seen to their labour. They had been earnest, truthful, consecrated, and yet there was no result. Anon they gathered the Greenlanders together and read the story of the Lord’s death as recorded by Matthew. The bare recital of the story without any comments upon it had a marked effect upon the Greenlanders. Tears were in many eyes. Some said, Did He die for me? Many gave themselves to the Lord, and thus commenced a great revival in those regions. The love of Christ is wonderful when we remember its melting power.

2. Think, too, of its constraining power. It bends the saint to the will of Christ. The love of Christ constraineth me. The word constrain is a strong word, meaning to press, to press painfully. It is used by Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is translated, being pressed in spirit. That well-known text, I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! contains this same word, translated straitened. The love of Christ is a great power. It restrains our life from useless aims, and compresses it into the right channel. There is a beautiful Greek story, which may be mythical in its origin, but bears in it a beautiful moral. It is said a prince, his wife, and two sons were taken prisoners by a neighbouring monarch, and were brought before him. Said the king to the prince, If I let your eider son go free, what givest thou me? And the prince made answer, saying, I will give thee half my possessions. And if I let your younger son go free what givest thou me? And the prince answered, I will give thee the other half of my domains. The monarch spoke again, saying, If I let the princess go free, what wilt thou give me? Now the prince had given all away for the redemption of his sons, and knew not what answer to make; but anon he said, If thou lettest my wife go free, I will give thee myself. So pleased was the monarch that he let them all free. As they went homeward the prince said to his consort, Didst thou see the beauty of the king’s countenance? Nay, said the princess. Didst thou see the glory of his court? Nay, again said the princess. Didst thou see the splendour of his throne? Nay, again replied his wife, for I had only eyes to see him who was willing to give himself for me. Oh, my soul, Jesus was net only willing but did give Himself for thee. Have only eyes for Him. The realisation of His love will be a power in thy life. No command of his will be grievous. His love will prove to be wonderful in its constraining power.

3. Christ’s love has also a translating power. There seem to be many persons, even good persons, who all their life are held in bondage by the fear of death. The only reason why this is so is that they must fail to understand the power of the love of Christ. What is death? It is the journey home. To be with Christ is how the apostle described the result of death. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. Now, if you really love a person, and realise deeply the love of that one to you, you long to get to them, and no journey, however inconvenient and distressful, would make you hesitate or shrink. You would be glad to go. Apply this to Christ and death. (W. L. Mackenzie.)

The love of Jonathan, and the love of Jesus

I. Jonathan’s love to David.

1. Jonathan’s was a singular love, because of the pureness of its origin. Jonathan loved David out of great admiration of him. When he saw him come back with the head of Goliath in his hand, he loved him as a soldier loves a soldier, as a brave man loves another brave man.

2. Jonathan’s love proved also to be most intense. It is said that he loved him as his own soul. He would at any moment have sacrificed his life to preserve the life of David; in fact, I do not doubt that Jonathan thought David’s life much more valuable than his own, and that he was quite willing to expose himself to peril that David might be preserved. Jonathan’s was a very intense love.

3. Jonathan’s love was very disinterested. David had been anointed king by Samuel. The kingdom was to be taken from the house of Saul, and given to the house of David. That friendship, in which a man can set himself on one side for the sake of another, is not yet so common that we can hawk it in the streets.

4. Jonathan’s love was a love which bore up under all opposition.

5. And this love was very active, for you know how he pleaded for David with his father. He went out into the field, and took counsel with David. He arranged plans and methods for David’s preservation; and, on one occasion, we find that he went to David in the wood, and strengthened his hand in God. Yes, his love was not a matter of mere talk, it was real, practical, active; it was a love which never failed.

II. The love of Christ to me. Thy love to me was wonderful.

1. I think that we feel this most when we see our Saviour die. Sit down at the foot of the cross, and look up. Behold that sacred brow with the thorny wreath upon it. See those blessed eyes, red with weeping; mark those nailed hands, that once scattered benedictions; gaze on those bleeding feet, which hurried on errands of mercy; watch till you can peer into that gaping side, how deep the gash, how wide the breach, see how the water and the blood come streaming forth! This is the Lord of life and glory, who this dies amid derision and scorn, suffering the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God.

2. I think, also, that we sometimes feel the greatest love to dear friends when we find others doing them despite. When David found that Jonathan’s body had been dishonoured by the Philistines, that they had taken away the bodies of King Saul and his sons to hang them on the wall of Beth-shan, then was he sorely troubled, and his love broke forth again in sighs, and cries, and tears. And I must say to-night that I love my Lord all the more because of the insults others heap upon him.

3. Now let me briefly tell the story of that love. Part of its wonder lies in the object of this love, that it should be bestowed upon me: Thy love to me. Then throw the emphasis on the first word, Thy love to me, and you have another part of the wonder, that is, in the Giver of this love. Now begin, if you can, to consider the commencement of this love. When did God begin to love His own elect? There was a time when He began to make the worlds; but from eternity He has loved His chosen. Before the first flash of light illumined the primeval darkness God loved His people. Christ’s love, then, is wonderful in its beginning; and when it began to work on me it was still wonderful, for what did I do? I refused it. And when Christ’s love led Him to come here, and take our nature, was it not wonderful? He reigned enthroned in heaven; seraphim and cherubim gladly did his bidding. He was God, and yet he came down from yonder royal palace to that stable at Bethlehem, and to the manger where the horned oxen fed. ‘Tis He! ‘Tis He! But as George Herbert reminds us, He hath unrobed Himself, and hung His azure mantle on the sky, and all his rings upon the stars; and there He lies, a babe in swaddling bands, taking human nature into union with His divinity because He loved us. The brotherly and condescending character of this love. Times have been when we, who love Christ’s name, have been in trouble, and He has been very near to us. Times have been when we have been misrepresented, and abused, and He has smiled, oh, so sweetly on us! Times have been when bodily pain has made us very faint, and He has put underneath us the everlasting arms. Think, also, of the comforting and thoughtful provisions of Christ’s love. Our lives are not all to our credit; there have been sad moments, when unbelief has crept in on the back of thoughtlessness, and you have been almost a sceptic. There have been evil moments when sin has insinuated itself into the imagination, and you have almost done that which would have been your ruin. Have there not been times in your life when you have been smitten, and if there had not been some One to uphold you, you would have fallen, almost unconsciously fallen, and there have lain down to die? But, oh, how Jesus has watched over you, and cared for you! But the love of Christ to us is most of all wonderful in its plans for the future. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The love of Christ

I. The love of Christ to us is wonderful, because there was nothing in us lovely. In the spangled sky, the rainbow, the woodland hung with diamonds, the sward sown with pearly dew, the rosy dawn, the golden clouds of even, the purple mountains, the hoary rock, the blue boundless main, Nature’s simplest flower, or some fair form of laughing child or lovely maiden, we cannot see the beautiful without admiring it. That is one law of our nature. Another is that so far as earthly objects are concerned, and apart from the beauty of holiness, we cannot help loving what is lovely, and regarding it with affection. Our affections are drawn to an object as naturally as iron is charmed by a loadstone. God made us to love; and when brought near to such an object our feelings entwine themselves around it, as the soft and pliant tendrils of the vine do around the support it clothes with leaves, and hangs with purple clusters. Such analogy is there between the laws of mind and matter! Without detracting from Jonathan’s merits, it must be owned that, however wonderful the love was which He bestowed on David, it was not bestowed on an unworthy object. One brave man loves another. In the old days of chivalry, men honoured courage in their enemies; loving and admiring bravery even when it was in arms against them. We turn now from them to Jesus and ourselves; and what do we find in man to win the love of Calvary? It is not enough to say that there was nothing lovely in us; that, as a holy God, God saw nothing in us to love. Sin, that abominable thing which He hates, the seed and germ of all evils, a thing so hateful that it is said, He cannot look on it, had so pervaded the nature of every individual man, and the whole race of men, that it necessitated God to abhor His own creatures. Look at a corpse! purred, bloated, infecting all the air; every feature of humanity shockingly defaced; the bright eye; the damask cheek; the sweet lips; the lovely form changed into vilest loathesomeness; a banquet to worms which, as they creep out and creep in, give a horrible life to death! Were the dearest, fondest object of our affections reduced to a state like that, how would we throw it, shuddering, from our embraces; regard it with the utmost horror; and turning away our eyes, call in pity for a grave to bury our dead. This may teach us how sin makes those whom God once loved with Divine affection abhorrent in His sight. Historians relate how, with all her baseness, her duplicity, her cruelty, her bloody bigotry, the passions and crimes that have left an indelible stain on her memory, Queen Mary had much queenly grace. So perfect was her form, her face so beautiful, her smile so winning, that it was only men cast in the stern mould of Knox that could resist their witchery. And to advert to better attractions than the beauty which is consumed before the moth, I have seen some who, with not a little calculated to repel, possessed in moral and mental excellencies, some loveable, compensating, and redeeming properties. But, in the sight of God’s infinite and unspotted holiness, sin left us none. If it be true of all mankind that they are altogether become filthy; true that there is none that doeth good, no, not one; true that every imagination of mans heart is evil continually; true that we may all adopt the words of the Apostle, and say, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing–then sin left us with nothing to engage, but everything to repel, the affections of a holy Saviour.

II. The love of Christ to us is wonderful, because there was nothing in us loving. We love what loves us. Such is the law of our nature; and love comes in time to see its own face reflected in the heart of another, as in water at the bottom of a draw-well. We cannot resist loving what loves us; it matters not who or what it is; though but the dog that barks, and bounds, and wheels in joyous circles around us on our return–the first to welcome and foremost to defend. I would hold his friendship cheap who did not love a dog that loved him; and care little for the child that would not drop some tears on the grave of his humble but faithful playmate–or, to borrow a figure from Bible story, of the little ewe lamb which the poor man nourished, which ate of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him as a little daughter. Let a poor dumb creature love us, we are drawn to love it in return, by a law of nature as irresistible and Divine as that which draws a stone to the ground, or makes the stream flow onward to the sea. Whatever secrets this key unlocks; whatever strange and singular marriages it may explain, it does not open the mysteries of Calvary; it does not explain the love of Christ. I have, indeed, seen some that had abandoned themselves to a life of vice who still respected virtue, and look back with remorseful regret to their days of childhood and the innocence of a father’s home. I have seen a profligate son, who, though wringing a pious mother’s heart and bringing her grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, yet loved her; mourning his own failings, he returned her affection; yielding to sin, still he clung to his mother as a drowning wretch to a piece of the wreck which he hopes may float him to the shore. Now, if our love of goodness had survived the loss of it; if we had retained any love to God after we had lost his image; if we had cast back some lingering looks on Eden; and, like Absalom, who felt pained at being two whole years in Jerusalem without being admitted into his father’s presence, if we had been grieved at God’s displeasure, then, with such goodly vestiges of primeval innocence, Christ’s love to us would not have been so wonderful. But there were no such feelings in man to awaken the love of Christ.

III. This love is wonderful in its expression. A sight is here that might have stayed an angel’s wing; and filled both heaven and earth with wonder. Who is this? Hear, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth! By the cross where He dies, the ear of faith catches the voice of the Eternal: This is my beloved Son. He there, who is buffeted by cruel hands, and meekly bears the blows; who faints from loss of blood, and sinks beneath his cross; who hangs upon the tree, while the blood streams from his hands and feet; whose dying ear is tilled, not with holy prayers and psalms, but with the shouts and mockery of an impious crew; He, hanging mangled and lifeless on the middle cross, with head dropped on his breast, the pallor of death spread over His cheek, the seal of death on His lips, the film of death on His eyes, is the Son of God. The Prince of life has become the prey of death; at once its noblest victim and its almighty conqueror. How did it happen? One word conveys the answer–that word is Love; love to sinners, to the greatest, guiltiest sinners. Love brought him from the skies; love shut Him up in Marys womb; love shut Him up in Joseph’s tomb; love wove the cords that bound His hands; love forged the nails that fastened Him to the tree; love wept in His tears, breathed in His sighs, spake in His groans, flowed in His blood, and died upon His cross. (T. Guthrie.)

Jonathan, the model friend

The most interesting thing in the life of Jonathan is the friendship that existed between him and David.

I. Jonathan was the model of–a loving–friend. A friend is good for nothing unless he really loves us. And the better he loves us, the more his friendship is worth. Let us look at some illustrations of what loving friends will be, and do. A boy in a town in Germany was playing one day with his sister, when the cry was heard–A mad dog! a mad dog! The boy saw the dog coming directly towards him; but instead of running away, he took off his coat, and wrapping it round his arm, boldly faced the dog, holding out his arm covered with the coat. The dog flew at his arm, worrying over it, and trying to bite through it, till men came up and killed him. Why didn’t you run away from the dog, my little man? asked one of the men. I could easily have done that, said the brave boy, but if I had the dog would have bitten my sister. He was truly a loving friend and brother. There is a well-known story of two men, who lived about four hundred years before the birth of Christ, that comes in very nicely here. Their names were Damon and Pythias. They were educated men, and what were called–philosophers–in those days, and were very warm friends. Some one accused Damon to Dionysius, the king of the country, of doing something that made him very angry. Kings, in those days, had the power of life and death in their own hands. So Dionysius ordered Damon to be put to death. Before this sentence was executed, Damon begged to be allowed to go home ‘and arrange the affairs of his family. The king said he might go, if he could get some one to take his place in prison, and to die for him, if he did not come back by the time fixed for the execution. As soon as his friend Pythias heard of this, he came and offered to take his place. He was put in prison, and Damon went to visit his family. The day fixed for the execution arrived, and Damon had not returned. He had to cross the sea to get back, and the wind had been ahead for several days. A platform had been erected, on which the execution was to take place, and the king sat by, on a sort of throne. Pythias was brought out for execution. He asked permission to say a few words to the crowd of spectators. Permission was granted. My countrymen, said he, this is a happy day for me. I am not only willing, but glad to die in the place of my friend Damon. I am thankful that the wind has kept him back. He will be here to-morrow. And it wilt be found that he has done nothing wrong. He is an honest, upright, honourable man, and I am glad of the opportunity to shed my blood in order to save his life. Executioner, do your duty. Just as he had finished speaking, a voice was heard in the distance crying–Stop the execution! The crowd around the scaffold took up the cry, and exclaimed, in a voice of thunder–Stop the execution! The execution was stopped. Presently, panting, and out of breath, Damon appeared. He mounted the scaffold. He embraced his friend Pythias; and said how happy he was that a change of wind had allowed him to get there just in time to save his life. And now, said he, I am ready to die. If I may not die for you, said Pythias, I ask the king to let me die with you; for I have no wish to live any longer in this world, when my friend Damon, whom I have loved so truly, is taken out of it. I have one other story to illustrate this part of our subject. A teacher in a day-school had to punish one of his scholars for breaking the rule of the school. The punishment was that the offending boy should stand, for a quarter of an hour, in a corner of the schoolroom. As the guilty boy was going to the appointed place, a little fellow, much younger than he, went up to the teacher, and requested that he might be allowed to bake the place of the other boy. The teacher consented. The little boy went, and bore the punishment due to the other boy. When the quarter of an hour was passed, the teacher called the boy to him, and asked if his companion had begged him to take his place. No, sir, he replied. Well, don’t you think that he deserved to be punished? Yes, sir; he had broken the rule of the school, and he deserved to be punished. Why, then, did you want to bear the punishment in his place? Sir, it was because he is my friend, and I love him.

II. Jonathan was the model of–a generous–friend. Let us look at some illustrations of this same kind of friendship. In one of the battles in Virginia, during the late war, a Union officer fell, severely wounded, in front of the Confederate breast-works. He lay there crying piteously for water, A noble-hearted Confederate soldier heard his cry, and resolved to relieve him. He filled his canteen with water, and though the bullets were flying across the field, and he could only go at the risk of his life, yet he went. He gave the suffering officer the drink he so greatly needed. This touched his heart so much that he instantly took out his gold watch and offered it to his generous foe. But the noble fellow refused to take it. Then give me your name and residence, said the officer. My name, said the soldier, is James Moore, of Burke County, North Carolina. Then they parted. That soldier was subsequently wounded, and lost a limb. In due time the war was over, and that wounded officer went back to his business as a merchant, in New York. And not long after, that Confederate soldier received a letter from the officer, to whom he had given the cup of cold water, telling him that he had settled on him $10,000, to be paid in four annual instalments of $2,500 each. $10,000 for a drink of water! That was noble on the part of the Union officer. But to give that drink of water at the risk of his own life was still more noble on the part of that brave soldier. I never think of it without feeling inclined to take off my cap and give a rousing Hurrah! for that noble Confederate soldier. Thomas Samson was a miner, and he worked very hard every day for a living. The overseer of the mine said to him one day: Thomas, I’ve got an easier berth for you, where there is not so much work to do, and where you can get better wages. Will you accept it? Most men would have jumped at such an offer, and would have taken it in a moment. But what did this noble fellow do? He said to the overseer: Captain, there’s our poor brother Tregony: he has a sickly body, and is not able to work as hard as I can. I am afraid his work will shorten his life, and then what will his poor family do? Won’t you let him have this easier berth? I can go on working as I have done. The overseer was wonderfully pleased with Samson’s generous spirit. He sent for Tregony, and gave the easy berth to him. How noble that was! It was indeed the very spirit of Christ. Now, all the four stories we have here show the same generous spirit that Jonathan had in his friendship with David. He was the model of a generous friend.

III. Jonathan was the model of–a faithful–friend. (R. Newton, D. D.)

True friendship deathless

May heaven give us such generous friendship as this ! A star that breaks the darkest clouds of earth and that will shine on us for ever. True friendship is immortal. The friendship, says Robert Hall, of high and sanctified spirits loses nothing by death but its alloy; failings disappear, and the virtues of those whose faces we shall behold no more appear greater and more sacred when beheld through the shades of the sepulchre. (Christian Endeavour Times.)

A test of friendship

Getting along well with another is a small matter. There is no friendship in that. Decent enemies can get on with each other, when there is no particular occasion for conflict or variance. But friendship makes both friends gladder, happier, more efficient in very sphere, together than apart. As Thoreau said, Friends should not only live in harmony, but in melody. (Great Thoughts.)

Divine goodness in human friendship–Luther and Melancthon

With such feelings did Luther and Melancthon meet; and their friendship continued till death. We cannot sufficiently admire the goodness and wisdom of God in bringing together two men so different, and yet so necessary to each other. Melancthon was as remarkable for calmness, prudence, and gentleness, as Luther was for wisdom, impetuosity, and energy. Luther communicated vigour to Melancthon; Melancthon moderated Luther. They were like positive and negative agents in electricity, by whose reciprocal action an equilibrium is maintained. If Melancthon had not been at Luther’s side, the torrent might have overflowed its banks. When Luther was not by, Melancthon faltered and gave way, even where he ought not. Luther did much by power; Melancthon did no less, perhaps by following a slower and gentler method. Both were upright, open-hearted, and generous: both, full of love for the word of eternal life, proclaimed it with a fidelity and devotion which governed their whole lives. (Merle D’Aubigne.)

True friendship in union of kindred spirits

And it came to pass that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. You knit things together that are of the same kind: things that are of the same substance, and fibre, and texture, and strength, and endurance. You knit a thread to a kindred thread. You knit a cord to a kindred cord. You knit a threefold cord to a threefold cord. You knit a chain of iron to a chain of iron; a chain of brass to a chain of brass; a chain of gold to a chain of gold; and a chain of gold of the same size, and strength, and purity, and beauty to a chain of gold of the same size, and strength, and purity, and beauty, Now, Jonathan’s soul was a chain of gold of the same size, and strength, and purity, and beauty as David’s soul. Jonathan, as being the elder man, had for long been looking and longing for a soul like David’s soul to which his own soul might be knit; and before the sun set that day the son of Saul had found in the son of Jesse a soul after his own soul, and he was at rest. Jonathan’s soul was that day knit to another soul, if possible, still more tender, and pure, and pious, and noble, and loyal than his own; till Jonathan was the happiest man in all Israel that day. And that pattern of friendship, knit that day between Jonathan and David, has been the ensample and seal of all true friendships among men ever since. It was a sweet fancy of Plato that at the great aboriginal creation of human souls they all came from the hand of the God of power, and wisdom, and love, and holiness twain in one. All human souls came into existence already knit together like the souls of Adam and Eve, like the souls of David and Jonathan, like the souls of Jesus and John, like the souls of Christ and His Church. But Sin, the great sunderer and separater and scatterer of souls, came in and cleft asunder soul-consort from soul-consort till all our souls since the fall start this lonely life alone. And all the longings, and cravings, and yearnings, and hungerings, and thirstings, and faintings, and failings that fill the souls of men and women–it is all in search of that brother-soul, that sister-soul, that spousal-soul that we have all loved long since and lost awhile. And every true friendship, every true courtship, every true espousalship, every true married-life is the Divine recovery and reunion of twin-soul to twin-soul, as all human souls were in the great beginning, and will for ever be in God and in God’s house of love and rest and satisfaction. And had Plato read Hebrew–and would God he had!–how he would have hailed Jonathan and David as another example of two long-lost and disconsolate souls finding rest in their primogenial, spousal, re-knit, and never again to be separated soul. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)

Passing the love of women.—

Passing the love of women

There are few things in this sinful earth so thoroughly Godlike, so fragrant of Heaven, as true, unselfish friendship, which hopes all things, believeth all things, beareth all things: and we shall have not read this Scripture in vain if we only learn this one lesson–to try and help each other, to try and stand by each other, shoulder to shoulder, in the great rough battle of life, and to have for our friends a love so pure, so disinterested, so trustful, that like that of Jonathan, it passeth the love of women. I might recall how for love of her country Joan of Arc armed her tender form and fought before Orleans, how for love of her husband Queen Eleanor sucked the poison from King’s Edward’s wound, how for love of perishing souls Grace Darling steered her boat through the waves of the wintry sea, and Elizabeth Fry braved the fever-haunted dungeons of Newgate to read Christ’s Gospel to the prisoners, and Florence Nightingale flitted like a guardian angel round the beds of the bloody hospitals of Scutari. I might tell you of the deeds of saintly women who worked and suffered for Jesus Christ, and whose names are written in Heaven, of Dorcas who sanctified the needle by her labours, of the pure S. Agnes, of the gentle S. Margaret, of the simple peasant maid of Milan, S. Veronica; but I would lead you to contemplate a purer, better love than any of theirs, a love passing the love of women, the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. It is human nature to love something, the worst of criminals has often shown an affection for some thing or person, one of the most cruel and blood-thirsty leaders of the old French Revolution loved a dog. A man either loves the creature or the Creator, and whilst I would have you love God’s creatures, aye, the dumb driven cattle, and those creatures which we call in our pride the lower animals, as well as your fellow men and women, I would remind you that your greatest, highest, strongest love shall be for Jesus who loved you and redeemed you from your sins. We should love Him because He first loved us, and his love is shown

(1) in the greatness of the undertaking to which it prompted Him, the Salvation of mankind. A greater work this than the creation, for God’s pleasure we were created, but by God’s pain and grief and suffering we were saved.

(2) Next, His love is shown in the humiliation which He suffered. He exchanged a throne in Heaven for a manger in Bethlehem, He gave up the peace of the untroubled courts of Paradise for the heat and clamour of a carpenter’s shop.

(3) Again, His love is shown in the greatness of the suffering which He endured. The hardest part of trouble is its anticipation, and our Blessed Lord knew from the first what men should do unto Him.

(4) But once again, the love of Christ is shown in the greatness of the deliverance which it purchased, and the richness of the inheritance which it procured. (H. J. W. Buxton.)

The love of woman

A young man named James Rivers was engaged to be married to a young woman named Ellen Boone. The time for their wedding was not far off when the war broke out. Then the wedding was put off. James went to the war. Battle after battle was fought, and he conducted himself like a brave soldier as he was. He was promoted again and again. His letters home were all full of hope and encouragement. The time passed swiftly on, and everyone was hoping that the sad strife would soon be ended. Then came the greatest struggle of the war. Thousands fell on both sides and sorrow took her seat by many firesides. Ellen Boone received a letter one day written in a strange hand. She hastily tore it open, and read as follows: Dear Ellen,–These lines are written for me by the ward master of the hospital. In the last battle I lost my arms. They have both been taken off close to the shoulder, and now I am a cripple for life. I send this note to tell you that you mustn’t think anything more of marrying me. I can never care for you now, as a husband ought to care for a good wife, as you would be. You are released from all the precious promises you have given me. They say I am doing well. Our regiment was badly cut up. Affectionately yours, James Rivers. No answer was ever written to that letter. James Rivers was alone for a few days in the great hospital, but he was not alone one day longer than it took to make a certain journey. One afternoon there were quiet footsteps on the hospital stairs and a lady was seen walking hastily down the aisle that led to the place where the armless soldier was lying. All the patients in the hospital were astonished when they saw her kneel down at his bedside and put her arms tenderly round his neck. And then she spoke the best words of all her life: James, don’t mind the lost arms too much. You are dearer to me now than when you had them. I will never let you leave me again. (Richard Newton, D. D.)

.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

For thee, i.e. for the loss of thee. For besides the loss of a true friend, and all the comfort of friendship, which is inestimable, he lost him who both could, and undoubtedly would, have given him a speedy, and quiet, and sure possession of the kingdom; whereas now he met with long and troublesome interruptions.

The love of women, i.e. that love wherewith they love their husbands or children; for their affections are usually more vehement and ardent than mens.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan,…. So he was, not only by nation and religion, but by affinity, having married the sister of Jonathan; and still more so by affection and friendship, he being a friend of David’s, that stuck closer to him than a brother, and who loved him as his own soul; he was distressed for him, not on account of his spiritual and eternal state, which he doubted not was happy, but for the manner of his death, his loss of him, and want of his pleasant conversation, of his counsel and advice, and assistance in his present circumstances:

very pleasant hast thou been unto me; in their friendly visits of, and conversation with, one another; many a pleasant hour had they spent together, but now must see each other’s faces no more in this world:

thy love to me was wonderful; as indeed he might well say, being towards one of a mean extract in comparison of his, to one who was not his own brother, but a brother-in-law; and to one that was a rival to the crown he was heir to, and would take it before him: and who ran the risk of losing his father’s affection, and even his life, for espousing his cause: see 1Sa 18:1;

passing the love of women; either that which they are loved with by men, or that with which they love their husbands and children; which is generally the strongest and most affectionate. The Targum is,

“more than the love of two women,”

than his two wives, Ahinoam and Abigail; so Kimchi; meaning that he was more strongly and affectionately loved by Jonathan than by them, who yet might love him very well too.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(26) Passing the love of women.By this strong expression, comparing Jonathans love for David to that of the faithful wife for her husband, David shows his appreciation of that wonderful affection which had existed between Jonathan and himself under the most untoward circumstances. It was such an affection as could only exist between noble natures and those united in the fear of God. In these last verses of the elegy which relate to Jonathan alone, David has given expression to his own personal sorrow.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

26. Distress is upon me Filled with heart-rending grief.

Thy love to me was wonderful See note on 1Sa 20:13.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

2Sa 1:26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

Ver. 26. My brother Jonathan. ] Frater quasi fere alter. I loved thee as entirely as any one doth a brother: thou lovedst me as much as any woman doth her husband or child. Of women we say, Quicquid volunt, valde volunt.

“ Aut te ardenter amat, aut te capitaliter odit. ” – Virgil.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Friendship

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:

Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:

Thy love to me was wonderful,

Passing the love of women.2Sa 1:26.

When the youthful David appeared before Saul after his duel with Goliath, he attracted the notice and won the heart of the kings eldest son. As he told his story with the winning modesty of a boy who has done a really brave thing as a matter of course and dislikes talking about it, we read that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. It was a sudden friendship. David was one of those divinely favoured natures that irresistibly attract every one they touch, and whose charm no one is able to withstand. The chivalrous nature of Jonathan fell at once under the spell of the heroic youth, introduced to him under circumstances so remarkable and so romantic. The sudden friendship was mutual and lasting. Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.

That friendship was soon severely tested. Jonathan had to choose between his own interests and those of his friend. He did not hesitate. The covenant was renewed with the distinct understanding on his part that David might, and probably would, come between him and the throne. The friends pledged themselves to stand by one another to death, and then they parted; for Sauls jealousy now threatened Davids life and he was a fugitive. The sacred narrative is plainly a transcript from life. The friends have arranged a meeting in a secret place, and determined on a sign to indicate whether David must fly or not. Jonathan draws his famous bow and shoots an arrow beyond the little lad who is with him, and as the boy runs forward to pick up the arrow, his master cries after him the words agreed upon as a message of danger, and as soon as the arrow has been recovered sends him away with his weapons. And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a place toward the South, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded. And Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed, for ever.

Once more they met, and, so far as we know, only once. It was when Saul was pursuing David persistently but unsuccessfully. It is impossible to imagine a more difficult situation than that of Jonathan. Indignant at his fathers obstinate injustice, unable to restrain his violence, he yet refused to desert him, and seems to have quietly exerted himself to protect his friend. For the third time the covenant was renewed. Jonathan, Sauls son arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God. And he said unto him, Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth. And they two made a covenant before the Lord. In the disastrous scene on Gilboa, Jonathan fought and fell by his fathers side, and the suggestion of that fact is borne out by the emphasis laid on the union of the two in Davids lament. Jonathan was a devoted son, as well as the most loyal of friends, and when he had to take sides in the final conflict, he stood by his misguided father. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided; I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

The subject is Friendship. Let us consider

I.The Marks of Friendship.

II.Its Value.

III.Its Place in Christianity.

I

The Marks of Friendship

1. There are not a great many friendships which have left an abiding record in human memories; but there is in legend the friendship of Theseus and Peirithous, of Orestes and Pylades, of Roland and Oliver on the borderland of legend and history; and in Jewish story this of David and Jonathan. The worlds later ages do not furnish so readily as the earlier ages examples of a friendship between men heroic enough in force and beauty to make a mark on the human mind.

Pythias was condemned to death by Dionysius the tyrant. He begged leave to go home to wish his friends good-bye and to arrange his affairs. He had a friend named Damon, who said, Let him go, and I will remain in prison and die for him if he does not return. Dionysius consented, and Pythias went off home, and came back just in time to meet his fate, and save the friend who had risked death for his sake. The tyrant was so struck by the nobility of heart in the two men that he pardoned Pythias, and said: Let me be a third person in so sacred a friendship.1 [Note: S. Gregory.]

2. Still friendship remains a great good among human goods, and it is well that we should know the secret of it, and by what care and art it can be engendered and preserved and heightened. Therefore it will not be amiss to look at this old tale of how David and Jonathan loved one the other with a love, as the poet of them says, passing the love of women, in the hope that by looking at it we may recover some portion of that lost secrethow friends are made and kept. Most of us have friends; all of us wish for them. How may we make and keep them? Three things are necessary to a genuine and lasting friendship.

(1) Spontaneousness.The love of Jonathan for David was a case of love at first sight. Jonathan had watched, as all Israel did, the unequal combat between the mailed giant and the shepherd; and he doubtless took a prominent part in the slaughter of the Philistines which followed the discomfiture of their champion. He was standing by, afterwards, when David, with modesty equal to his merit, gave Saul an account of his experience of Gods faithfulness; and was so impressed by what he saw and heard that it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

You are to find something in your friend which will be complementary to your own nature. His tastes, his aptitudes, his thoughts, so dissimilar from your own, will all help to contribute to your wealth. His point of view will reveal many things you have failed to observe from yours. His habits of mind will pleasantly and helpfully react upon your own. If there is genuine equality of friendship and neither of you requires that the other should merge his individuality or sink his convictions in your own, the friendship cannot easily fail to be a blessing to you both. You remember the canto of In Memoriam which Tennyson addressed to his brother. He had said that his friend, Henry Hallam, was more to him than his brothers were; and then he wrote those beautiful verses

More than my brothers are to me,

Let this not vex thee, noble heart!

I know thee of what force thou art

To hold the costliest love in fee.

But thou and I are one in kind,

As moulded like in Natures mint;

And hill and wood and field did print

The same sweet forms in either mind.

For us the same cold streamlet curld

Thro all his eddying coves; the same

All winds that roam the twilight came

In whispers of the beauteous world.

At one dear knee we profferd vows,

One lesson from one book we learnd

Ere childhoods flaxen ringlet turnd

To black and brown on kindred brows.

And so my wealth resembles thine,

But he was rich where I was poor,

And he supplied my want the more

As his unlikeness fitted mine.

So it is, I think, in all the best friendships. David sought and found his closest friendship outside his own family; in one from whom he was severed by antagonism, and conflicting interests; and such friendship was true and unbroken.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne, Relationships of Life, 133.]

(2) Disinterestedness.Jonathan was heir-apparent to the throne, but David had been anointed king by Samuel. The kingdom was to be taken from the house of Saul, and given to the house of David. Very naturally, the young prince Jonathan might have felt first envy, and then hatred of David, who was to supplant him; but instead of that, he said to him one day, very touchingly, Thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee. He meant to be his friend, and his helper, taking joy in seeing David wear the crown which might have adorned his own brow.

Contrast Jonathans love with Eliabs suspicion and envy. Smarting under a consciousness of his inferiority in faith and courage to his young brother, Eliab taunted him with forsaking his duty, and coming away from the farm to enjoy the excitement of camp life. I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. That is how his own mothers son greeted David. But the kings son loved him as his own soul.

I have no great expectations of the permanence of a friendship that is sought definitely and distinctly for purposes of gain. Friendship that lasts is nearly always, I think, in its origin, disinterested. It is a spontaneous outgoing of the affection and sympathy towards some other personality. And I want you to remember that there are few burdens heavier to bear than the burden of thoughts, desires, hopes, sorrows, intentions, ideals, which we can share with no one because we have no friend in life to share them with. Lord Bacon warned us, in his striking way, against being cannibals of our own hearts.2 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]

Friendship by its very nature consists in loving rather than in being loved. In other words, friendship consists in being a friend, not in having a friend.3 [Note: H. Clay Trumbull.]

If I have not succeeded in my friendships, Thoreau says in his journal, it was because I demanded more of them, and did not put up with what I could get; and I got no more partly because I gave so little.1 [Note: Henry David Thoreau, 113.]

By entering fully into the lives of others he freed himself from much of that painful self-consciousness which is the curse of a sensitive character. In proportion as his friendship was deep was his imagination penetrative into the characters of his friends, and that to such a degree that he took their lives into his own. And for all in whom he became interested, he was untiring in effort. He invented new plans for their lives, new interests, new pursuits. He sought ceaselessly for remedies for their trials, and means of escape from their perplexities. There never lived a truer friend.2 [Note: S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, 187.]

(3) Loyalty.Jonathan clung to David through good report and through evil report. It might be alleged that when David had, at one bound, leaped into the first place in the affections of the people, it was politic for Jonathan to pose as his friend; or it might be urged that Jonathan allowed himself to be carried away by a rush of emotion, and that that was why he abdicated so readily in favour of David. But Jonathan loved David equally when he was in adversity. When king Saul had turned against David and was hunting him as a partridge on the mountains, then it was Jonathans loyalty and courage that kept David from despairing. This is forcibly brought out in the incident at Keilah. David had done great things for the men of Keilah; for in obedience to Gods command, but in defiance of all counsels of prudence, David had attacked the Philistines and delivered Keilah out of their hands. Before long, however, Saul came to take David prisoner, and the men of Keilah had agreed to give up their champion, and deliver him into the hands of Saul. So David fled and took refuge in the wilderness of Ziph. It was a time of sore darkness and trial, and Davids faith was in danger of giving way. Now if Davids faith had failed, Jonathan might have regained the succession to the throne. What, then, did Jonathan do? He went to visit his friend in adversity, and strengthened his hands in God. Fear not, thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee. So on another occasion: Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee. Jonathan was loyal to the core.

He that wrongs his friend

Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about

A silent court of justice in his breast,

Himself the judge and jury, and himself

The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.1 [Note: Tennyson.]

Robertson of Brighton in one of his letters (Life and Letters, 447) tells how a friend of his had, through cowardice or carelessness, missed an opportunity of putting him right on a point with which he was charged, and so left him defenceless against a slander. With his native sweetness of soul, he contents himself with the exclamation, How rare is it to have a friend who will defend you thoroughly and boldly! Yet that is just one of the loyal things a friend can do, sometimes when it would be impossible for a man himself to do himself justice with others. Some things, needful to be said or done under certain circumstances, cannot be undertaken without indelicacy by the person concerned, and the keen instinct of a friend should tell him that he is needed. A little thoughtfulness would often suggest things that could be done for our friends, that would make them feel that the tie which binds us to them is a real one.2 [Note: Hugh Black, Friendship, 66.]

Brother and friend, the world is wide,

But I care not whether there be

The soothing song of a summer tide

Or the thrash of a wintry sea,

If but through shimmer and storm you bide

Brother and friend to me.

Brother and friend, the dear home days

Lie low on a fading shore;

But with buried fault and garnered praise

We look to the days before,

And bear in our hands oer all lifes ways

The best of the fruit they bore.

And never alone have I had to stand

To face what the fates might send,

Nor leaned for help in a weary land

On a reed that the winds might bend;

For my hand reached out till it grasped your hand

And held itbrother and friend.

So, as we tread lifes hills of pain,

Its levels of common need,

Face its worst and beat, find its loss and gain,

Let this stand in our creed:

We are each the othersheart, hand, and brain

By the love that is love indeed.

Brother and friend, the world is wide,

But I care not whether there be

The soothing song of a summer tide

Or the thrash of a wintry sea,

If but through shimmer and storm you bide

Brother and friend to me.1 [Note: Percy C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 26.]

II

The Value of Friendship

Lord Bacon reckons up the value of friendship in this way.

(1) It brings Comfort.A friend may play the part of a confessor and bring the relief and moral strength which belong to that character. No receipt openeth the heart but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart, to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

And then, dear friend, I thought of thee so lowly,

So unassuming, and so gently kind,

And lo! a peace, a calm serene and holy

Settled upon my mind.

Ah, friend, my friend! one true heart fond and tender,

That understands our troubles and our needs,

Brings us more near to God than all the splendour

And pomp of seeming worship and vain creeds.2 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox.]

(2) It gives Counsel.While friendship is balm to the wounded heart, it may also be light to the darkened understanding, and that not merely because a friend can give honest and wise counsel, but also because the mere act of talking to him clears up mental confusions, and gives clearness and consistence to thought. Friendship is the best antidote for self-conceit; for there is no such flatterer as is a mans self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a mans self, as the liberty of a friend.

The candid friend has a proverbially evil name. But in such cases there is perhaps more candour than friendship. A true friend will not, if necessary, shrink from warning. Any man, said Gladstone, can stand up to his opponents: give me the man who can stand up to his friends. Such occasions, however, are happily rare. But friendship should certainly be a support to virtue, not an encouragement to vice.1 [Note: Lord Avebury, Peace and Happiness, 182.]

It was Mr. Hamerton who said that the great loss of women is that they never hear the truth from men. Sir Arthur Helps has a passage to the same effect in his essay on The Art of Living with Others. He comments on the evils caused by chivalry. He says that, however great the unreason which women talk out of doors, nobody could be brutal enough to tell them that it is nonsense. He thinks the intellect of women has been injured because it has been petted. And he adds that if you put people on a pedestal and do a great deal of worship around them, the atmosphere is of insincerity and unreality. Now there is, undoubtedly, a large measure of truth in this; and we have to add that most women have come to demand admiration, not to say adulation, and that sort of artificial regard and deference which becomes an atmosphere in which the truth cannot live. I should be the last to deny the faults on the other side. Men too often regard the society of ladies as simply the opportunity for those light and graceful insincerities which cannot by any abuse of language be held to represent their real opinions. The idea seems to be that it would not be chivalrous to offend delicate sensibilities, and that to contradict a lady would be an offence against good form. Hence this species of feigned agreementno genuine homage of the truth, but a very unworthy condescension to untruth. In this respect I do venture to think that we are mending our ways; and I suggest to you young men and women that you will be doing something well worth the doing if the men among you make a point of treating the intelligence of women with equal respect, and if the women among you take care to let it be known that you value friendship as an opportunity for an exchange of real thoughts and sincere sentiments, and that you demand no judgment for your own opinions but the honest, candid, open judgment of clear intelligence.2 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]

(3) It provides Comradeship.A friend is the best of all comrades in the work and warfare of life, the most serviceable, the most trustworthy, the least likely to be deluded by irrelevant considerations. A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.

Bacons shrewd insight into average human life leads him in these concluding words to fall below the nobility of his theme. The father and the husband may add the character of the friend, and though this, perhaps, is not commonly attained, yet neither fatherhood nor the married state reaches its true altitude otherwise. Jeremy Taylor raised the question, whether a friend may be more than a husband or wife, and he answered with equal truth and decision: It can never be reasonable or just, prudent or lawful, but the reason is, because marriage is the queen of friendship, in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship; and it being made sacred by vows and love, by bodies and souls, by interest and custom, by religion and by laws, by common counsels and common fortunes; it is the principal in the kind of friendship, and the measure of all the rest.1 [Note: H. H. Henson.]

What is the best a friend can be

To any soul, to you or me?

Not only shelter, comfort, rest

In most refreshment unexpressed;

Not only a beloved guide

To thread lifes labyrinth at our side,

Or, with loves torch lead on before;

Though these be much, there yet is more.

The best friend is an atmosphere,

Warm with all inspirations dear,

Wherein we breathe the large free breath

Of life that has no taint of death.

Our friend is an unconscious part

Of every true beat of our heart;

A strength, a growth, whence we derive

Gods health that keeps the world alive.

Can friend lose friend? Believe it not!

The tissue whereof life is wrought,

Weaving the separate into one,

No end hath, nor beginning; spun

From subtle threads of destiny

Finer than thought of man can see.

God takes not back His gifts divine;

While thy God lives, thy friend is thine.1 [Note: Lucy Larcom.]

Walt Whitman is the poet of comrades, and sings the song of companionship more than any other theme. He ever comes back to the lifelong love of comrades. The mystery and the beauty of it impressed him.

O tan-faced prairie-boy,

Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift,

Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among the recruits

You came, taciturn, with nothing to givewe but looked on each other,

When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.

III

The Place of Friendship in Christianity

The accusation has not rarely been urged against the New Testament that it contains no precepts for the guidance of friendsnay, that friendship does not seem to be recognized by the sacred writers.

The truth is that friendship, the marriage of souls, is one of the ultimate facts of life, connected with an integral element of human nature itself, and that Christianity, the religion of the Incarnation, takes it for granted, and pours into it a wonderful treasure of purity, purpose, and permanence. Certainly we ought not to be astonished if we discover outside the Christian sphere splendid examples of all those virtues which are properly described as naturalconjugal love, patriotism, courage, friendship. What would be astonishing, and ought (did it indeed exist) to move in us the most profound perplexity and searching of heart, would be the absence or degradation within the Christian sphere of these natural virtues. Whatever is truly natural is necessarily Christian, the very witness of the Incarnation prohibits the notion that any natural excellence can be excluded from perfected humanity.

1. What was the secret which kept alive the friendship of David and Jonathan, in defiance of all that difficulty and danger, and family affection and duty, and most urgent self-interest could do to destroy it? The mere mutual liking of two gallant and generous young men, who had the same manly tastes and chivalrous sentiments, is not enough to explain it. The unsolderable spell which cemented this union of hearts was of no such stuff as that. The same passage which reminds us of what there was to imperil their friendship reveals also the secret of its safe keeping. Jonathan arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God. What is strengthening his hand in God? The expression is obscure, but its most natural meaning is that Jonathan heartened David in his danger and exile by reminding him of Gods promise, and by declaring his own faith in it. That touches the true bond of this friendship. What bound these two together was not natural and congenial temper, but the sympathy of a common faith. Each saw in the other one priceless virtuedevotion to a holy ideal; each knew that the other lived faithful to a sacred purpose, an ambition which was pure. If Jonathan loved David, it was because David was true to a divinely appointed destiny and followed it unshaken through peril and pain and discouragements. If, in turn, David loved Jonathan, it was because he, too, saw in his friend a lofty and pathetic obedience to a fate which was a fate of deprivation and endurance and humiliation, but yet was the fate which God had chosen for him. They loved each other so well, and with such steadfastness, because they loved God yet more: their loves in higher love endured. The glory that gathered upon their earthly affection was the glory which breathed upon it from a spiritual faith.

Jonathan is a pious man as well as a righteous one. He believes the Lords messages that He has chosen David to be king, and he submits; seeing that it is just and right, and that David is worthy of the honour, though it be to the hurt of himself and of his children after him. It is the Lords will; and he, instead of repining against it, must carry it out as far as he is concerned. Yes; those who are most true to their fellow-men are always those who are true to God; for the same spirit of God which makes them fear God makes them also love their neighbour.1 [Note: C. Kingsley.]

Love is the only permanent relationship among men, and the permanence is not an accident of it, but is of its very essence. When released from the mere magnetism of sense, instead of ceasing to exist, it only then truly comes into its largest life. If our life were more a life in the spirit, we would be sure that death can be at the worst but the eclipse of friendship. Tennyson felt this truth in his own experience, and expressed it in noble form again and again in In Memoriam

Sweet human hand and lips and eye,

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be;

Loved deeplier, darklier understood;

Behold, I dream a dream of good,

And mingle all the world with thee.

Thy voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run;

Thou standest in the rising sun,

And in the setting thou art fair.

It is not loss, but a momentary eclipse, and the final issue is a clearer perception of immortal love, and a deeper consciousness of eternal life.2 [Note: Hugh Black, Friendship, 113.]

2. Friendship was one of the noblest features of ancient life, and there are no worthier chapters of classical literature than those which record and discuss it; but will any thoughtful student of that literature deny that in two important particulars classic friendship tended to failure? It lacked security against sensual passion on the one hand, and on the other it lacked the moral exaltation which comes from the conviction of personal immortality.

Once let friendship be given that is born of God, nor time nor circumstance can change it to a lessening; it must be mutual growth, increasing trust, widening faith, enduring patience, forgiving love, unselfish ambitionan affection built before the Throne, that will bear the test of time and trial.1 [Note: Allan Throckmorton.]

David Lyall, in The Land o the Leal, referring to the long and healthful influence of the old schoolmaster, so dear to the whole countryside, talks in this strain: God grant, then, that Adam Fairweather be long spared, for on the day that we carry him down the brae to the kirkyard, a sweet savour will be lost to Faulds, which could never be restored. I should be very sorry to quarrel with so sweet a soul, so choice a spirit as David Lyall. Happily there is no cause. Still, I want to propound a doctrine that is to me a source of unfailing comfort. It may be variously stated and illustrated. First, there are those, God increase their number! whom no man, no army of men, could carry down the brae to the kirkyard. Next, a sweet savour cannot be lost: it abides to cheer, to solace, to sustain. Thus is it with the lamp of friendship: the lamp may be broken, yet the light shines on undimmed. Yes, it shines with even greater lustre when distance separates or death divides. Separation should not interfere with the shining of this lamp. Especially does this hold good of our crowned and glorified friends. I was going to say I had a friend, rather let me say I have a friend, even though he has passed beyond the veil. He is not now in the flesh, but his influence abides, and, as the days roll by, grows in power. In the old days his thoughts inspired, his words charmed, and his actions allured into nobler paths; but to-day, in the absorbing now, he is still a force in my life. I have not yet seen the sexton that could dig a grave deep enough to bury him. Such an one continues to live, and to yield the sweet aroma of his influence, and so enlarges our indebtedness.2 [Note: I. O. Stalberg.]

There is no friend of mine

Laid in the grave to sleep;

No grave, or green, or heaped afresh,

By which I stand and weep.

Who died! What means that word

Of men so much abhorred?

Caught up in clouds of heaven, to be

For ever with the Lord.

Thank God! for all my loved,

That out of pain and care

Have safely reached the heavenly heights,

And stay to meet me there.

3. Our Divine Master Himself stands in the historic category of friendship. Nothing less than friendship, in the deep, hallowed, exclusive sense which we are wont to give the word, could authorize, as nothing less could satisfy, the sublimely simple description of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, by which, in his Gospel, St. John at once conceals his name and confesses his identity. Our Master also felt drawn to some men more than to others, though He loved all. Of that young ruler who ran to Him with eager impulsiveness to offer allegiance, and yet made the great refusal when the stern conditions of allegiance were disclosed, we read that Jesus looking upon him loved him; and it is on record elsewhere in the Gospel that Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.

Cardinal Newman, in his beautiful sermon on Love of Relations and Friends, remarks on the apparent strangeness of the fact that the Son of God should have thus had a private friend. This shows us, he says, first, how entirely He was a man, as much as any of us, in His wants and feelings; and next, that there is nothing contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, nothing inconsistent with the fulness of Christian love, in having our affections directed in an especial way towards certain objects, towards those whom the circumstances of our past life, or some peculiarities of character, have endeared to us.

The whole subject of friendship makes clear to us the relationship we should hold to Jesus Christ. The only perfect friendship is a friendship that is inward and spiritual; but in imperfect and feeble natures like ours the varieties and degrees of friendship are endless. There is only one Being on whose love we may count without fail. It is not every one with whom we can hold fellowship. There are minds and lives with which we cannot have any free and intimate intercourse. There seems to be nothing in common between them and us. They are too high, too self-absorbed, they move in an orbit far removed from the range of our small careers. It is only a certain order of mind that can have close friendship with men like Plato and Spinoza and Hegel. The world in which these wise men live is not the same as that in which the majority of us think and toil. It is only trained scientific minds that can keep company with Newton and Darwin and Kelvin. We read Cromwells letters, and Wellingtons dispatches, but, somehow, while we feel these men are human like ourselves, their dealings are mainly with politicians and administrators and military leaders. Dante and Shakespeare and Milton are for imaginative natures; Gibbon and Macaulay and Lecky and Mommsen for those whose interest lies in tracing the rise and fall and growth and power of nationalities. These great minds are not companions for every one. They have their circle and school. Their empire does not cover humanity. There is only one, Jesus Christ, who offers His heart to all, be they what they may. With Him all may be in friendship.1 [Note: W. Watson, A Young Mans Ideal, 63.]

The last words of President Edwards, after bidding his weeping relatives good-bye, were: Now where is Jesus of Nazareth, my true and never-failing Friend? So saying he fell asleep.

4. We must, as Christians, bring our friendships under the yoke of Christ, and make them instruments of righteousness; we may not safely indulge the merely natural attraction which drew us first together. There must follow the covenant of mutual service and sacrifice. When the generous prince felt his heart go out to the young hero standing before his fathers throne, and when he gave place to his love and bound himself by the eager vows and protestations of friendship in its first enthusiasm, he little guessed the demands which that friendship would make on him, he little thought that his love for David would have to stand the strain of so many strange and disastrous contingencies. But from the first it was a consecrated thing between the young men, and at every fresh crisis of trouble, they renewed their covenant before the Lord. And even now, across those dim wastes of time, we can see how that consecrated friendship blessed them both. Jonathan, the bold, eager, heroic warrior, was softened and hallowed by his love for David, and grew into the noblest and most winning heroism of history by the discipline of that stern, exacting obligation which he had taken on himself in youth; and David, the gay, all-prospering, ambitious man, was lifted into chivalry and melted into tenderness by the spectacle of so much generosity, and such enduring love.

What might be done if men were wise

What glorious deeds, my suffering brother,

Would they unite

In love and right,

And cease their scorn of one another.

Oppressions heart might be imbued

With kindling drops of loving-kindness,

And knowledge pour

From shore to shore

Light on the eyes of mental blindness.

All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs,

All vice and crime might die together,

And wine and corn

To each man born

Be free as warmth in summer weather.

The meanest wretch that ever trod,

The deepest sunk in sin and sorrow,

Might stand erect

In self-respect

And share the teeming world to-morrow.

What might be done? This might be done,

And more than thismy suffering brother!

More than the tongue

Eer said or sung,

If men were wise, and loved each other!

Literature

Belfrage (H.), Sacramental Addresses, 23.

Henson (H. H.), Preaching to the Times, 146.

Hutton (R. E.), The Crown of Christ, ii. 253.

Kingsley (C.), The Gospel of the Pentateuch, 299, 313.

Mackenzie (W. L.), Pure Religion, 63.

Skrine (J. H.), The Mountain Mother, 17.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Evening by Evening, 32.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxxix. (1893), No. 2336.

Stalberg (I. O.), The Lamp of Friendship, 9.

Webster (F. S.), My Lord and I, 52.

Church of England Pulpit, lii. 134 (Cooper).

Churchmans Pulpit: Sixth Sunday after Trinity, x. 347, 351 (Kingsley); Sermons to the Young, xvi. 310 (Gregory).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

thy love: 1Sa 18:1-4, 1Sa 19:2, 1Sa 20:17, 1Sa 20:41, 1Sa 23:16

Reciprocal: Deu 13:6 – which is 1Sa 14:1 – Jonathan 2Sa 9:1 – show him 2Sa 19:30 – Yea Pro 17:17 – General Pro 18:24 – there Jer 22:18 – Ah my brother Mat 19:5 – cleave

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

CLOSER THAN A BROTHER.

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

2Sa 1:26

Two great qualities were combined in Jonathan, courage and faith. With such qualities, who could be more fit to succeed to the sceptre of Israel? And yet Jonathan waived all claim on behalf of the man whom he loved; he recognised in David qualities for rule greater than his own, and without a particle of envy he stood aside to make way for him. He had the true humility of soul which is content to take the lower place, and which is commended by our Lord in the Gospel.

I. The real friend will be like Jonathan, and true friendship is best described by the same words in which true charity is described.True friendship envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not easily provoked, rejoiceth in the truth, and never faileth. In the world, with its sorrows and its sufferings, its trials and temptations, there is nothing more truly precious than a real friend, such a friend as Jonathan was to David and David to Jonathan.

II. There is one Friend who is ever near at hand if only we will seek Him.In the Lord Jesus Christ are joined all the qualities of true friendship, He is a firm Friend, a constant Friend, a Friend that giveth good counsel, a Friend who has laid down His life on our behalf.

Canon Rawnsley.

Illustrations

(1) This poem owes much of its admirableness to the fact that it combines the passionate love of country and the true love of a friend. If ever a man was born for friendship it was David the king. Once and once only during his long eventful life did he find a man he could love with the multitudinous energy of his heart; and this man was the kings son, the darling of the nation, the beauty of the forest they called him, as like a gazelle he bounded from crag to crag in the mountains or dashed through the thickest of the wood. The homage paid by the poet to the beauty and the strength and the glorious prowess of his friend must be supplemented by the homage we know that he paid to the noble generosity of his friend. Such was Davids In Memoriam to the one personal friend of his life. He delighted to think of his friends brilliancy, his strength, his courage; he was the champion of Israel, the protector of his countrymen against the natural enemy, and now the enemy was triumphant and the young hero was slain. The poem suggests some thoughts on friendship.

(2) There have been in our timeand let us be thankful for itillustrious friendships, the fragrance of which still remains, and many of these there are still. In all such cases the bond has been a life with God. You must have known, you must still know such friendships. They are not ended on this side of the grave; for true Christian friendship we believe there is no death. What shall this man do?askest thou for thy friend? He has worked for his Master here, and for every cause his Master loved while He was on earth and loves still, and now that the end cometh the friend of man and the friend of Christ is called to other work yet more beneficent.

(3) A time will come, and has indeed come to many of us, when death will lay his finger again and again on what to us seemed a charmed circle, and then there will be sad gaps in that circle. The time will come for many of us when all that made up our earthly joy will have faded away, and our home will become what the kindly-hearted poet has described: I have had friends, I have had companions, in my days of childhood and in my schooldays. All are gonethe old familiar faces. And then it will indeed be a dreary thing that the friendships of the past have left no remembrances on which our heart can dwell thankfully.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

1:26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of {m} women.

(m) Either toward their husbands or their children.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes