Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle; and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim.
 Thus the true king was now anointed; but it pleased God that the manner of his ascending the throne should be as peculiar as the choice. There never was such another since the world began, always excepting the One who in all things has the pre-eminence. Who ever trod such a pathway to the throne? Some, no doubt, have gone through trials severe enough; others have known what it was to suffer in their measure from enemies within till they reigned, from foes without afterwards. I do not speak now of those only whom God was pleased to select at various times for the special purpose of reigning over Israel; but even among men, as is known, it is no such uncommon circumstance. The like has happened at various times, and in almost all countries; but there was more than this with David. It is not merely that he who had rendered the greatest services to the king and the people was set aside and persecuted unrelentingly without any just cause; but the truth is that God ordered it so that he who had been chosen by the prophet at His own bidding, and already had the anointing of Jehovah, should be sustained for a considerable period for the express purpose of bringing out those most worthy qualities which were the fruit of His grace, tried as he was after a fiery sort, and put to the proof before all Israel, not so much in great feats as in dependence on the manifest intervention of Jehovah's care and wisdom and goodness.
