1 Samuel 25:29 Sermons: Though men may rise up to pursue you, and to seek your soul, yet the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD your God. He will sling out the souls of your enemies, as from the hollow of a sling.

Bible > 1 Samuel > Chapter 25 > Verse 29

◄ 1 Samuel 25:29 ►

And should someone pursue you and seek your life, then the life of my lord will be bound securely by the LORD your God in the bundle of the living. But He shall fling away the lives of your enemies like stones from a sling.

Sermons

The Bundle of Life	A. Mckenzie, D. D.	1 Samuel 25:29
The Bundle of Life	J. S. Maver, M. A.	1 Samuel 25:29
The Bundle of Life	B. Dale	1 Samuel 25:29
The Bundle of Life and the Sling	D. Fraser	1 Samuel 25:29
David's Activity and Advancement	B. Dale	1 Samuel 25:1-44
The Prosperous Fool	B. Dale	1 Samuel 25:2-39
Abigail	B. Dale	1 Samuel 25:14-42

Pulpit Commentary Homiletics

The Bundle Of Life

1 Samuel 25:29. (CARMEL.)

B. Dale

1. The bundle of life, or the living (the word bundle, tseror, being used once before of the bag or purse of money which each of Joseph's brethren found in his sack of corn, Genesis 42:35), signifies the society or congregation of the living out of which men are taken and cut off by death (Barrett, 'Synopsis of Criticisms'). It contains those who possess life, continued and prosperous life, in the present world in the midst of the dangers to which they are exposed, and by which others are taken away from "the land of the living" (Isaiah 4:3). Life is a gift of God, and its continuance is presumptive of his favour.

2. What is here desired and predicted concerning them is based upon their moral distinction from other men. They are, like David, servants of God, and differ from others, as David from Saul and Nabal, in their character and conduct. They constitute the community of the godly in "this present evil world," and "their names are written in heaven."

3. They are of inestimable worth in the sight of God. He values all men because of their capacity for goodness, but much more some on account of their actual possession of it. Their worth surpasses all earthly possessions and distinctions. "The whole system of bodies (the firmament, the stars, the earth, and the kingdoms of it) and spirits together is unequal to the least emotion of charity" (Pascal).

4. They are his special possession; belong to him in a peculiar manner, because of what he had done for them "above all people," and their own voluntary devotion to him. "Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself." "The Lord taketh pleasure in his people," and calls them "my jewels" (Malachi 3:17).

5. They live in intimate communion with him. "A people near unto him" (Psalm 148:14); "bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God."

6. They are preserved safely from the malicious designs of their enemies, and from all evil. "Should a man arise to pursue thee and seek thy soul," etc. The expression is derived from the common usage of men, who put valuable things together and keep them near their persons to prevent their being lost or injured. "Your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).

7. They have a common participation in the strength and blessedness afforded by his presence and favour. Their life is of the highest kind - life in the truest, fullest sense, directly derived from him who is "the Fountain of life," and involving all real good. "In thy presence," etc. (Psalm 16:11.) The life of others is but "a race to death," and they are "dead while they hive."

8. They are designed for useful service; not merely to be looked upon and admired, but employed according to the will of the owner. It is for this that they are preserved.

9. They have "the promise of eternal life." Their spiritual fellowship with God and with each other in this life is an earnest of its continuance and perfection in the life to come. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." The pious Jew dies with the words of the text upon his lips, and has them inscribed upon his tomb. "Whosoever is so hidden in the gracious fellowship of the Lord in this life that no enemy can harm him or injure his life, the Lord will not allow to perish, even though temporal death should come, but will then receive him into eternal life" (Keil). "And so shall we ever be with the Lord."

10. Their destiny (like their character) is the opposite of that of the ungodly. "Concerning the bodies of the righteous it is said, 'He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds' (Isaiah 57:21); and of their souls it is said, 'And the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God.' But concerning the bodies of the wicked it is said, 'There is no peace, saith God, to the wicked.' And of their souls it is said, 'And the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling'" (Talmud, quoted by Hurwitz). - D.

Biblical Illustrator

The soul of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of life.

1 Samuel 25:29

The bundle of life

A. Mckenzie, D. D.

The imagery, of course, is Oriental. It is very true that the life of man is bounded up with the Divine; "bound up in the bundle of life," how expressive it is — tied to Him. The soul and life of man is in the bundle with the life of God.

1. This is the beginning of human history. There is but one life in the world, and that life pours itself out and becomes the life of man. And man's life is like the life of God, and it is, in its measure, the life of God. This life is very realistically described as being breathed out from the lips of the Almighty into the muscles of man.

2. Now this is something that gives us not only a very exalted idea of God, but a very exalted idea of man. I do not know of anything that needs to be more impressed upon us today than the dignity of human nature — let me change the word — the divinity of human nature. Nothing can exalt a man above the greatness of his nature, the greatness that is his because his life is a Divine life, his life is in the bundle of life with God. Let us remember this, that whatever happens, we are made of God's will, that God wanted us to be made, that He wanted us to be here. There is something we can do that nobody else could do, and that God's wealth in the world is the wealth of men and women who can meet Him, answering love with love, answering with wisdom and confidence and obedience.

3. It is very easy to see what comes out of this. There comes out of it on the one side God's great delight in us. "The Lord's portion is His people." As long as God is rich, we are rich, as long as God is happy we can be happy if we want to be. As long as God is wise we are wise if we want to be. We are in the bundle with Him. You are bound up in the bundle of life, whatever happens to you happens to Him, and if you choose to have it so, whatever happens to Him, according to the measure of your day, will happen to you. And God likes this trust, this confidence. The more we trust Him the more He is delighted in us. God depends upon us. We are in the bundle of life, and when we drop out of the bundle of life and leave God alone — well, did you ever have a child go out of your house and leave you? That is a little bit of the feeling that God has when we get out of the bundle of life, when we seek after pleasures which he has forbidden, when there is anything in our business that He does not approve. It is so ordained that while we are in the bundle of life with God we are free perfectly. We are not compelled to be there. You can get out of the bundle of life any time you want to. We find a great deal going on in the world that does not seem to be consistent with the bundle of God. How can there be all this misery if London is in the bundle with God? But all London is not in the bundle with God. It ought to be, it can be, but it has slipped away. Yet it is pretty plain that a good many of us have got outside the bundle of God. How does God regard it? How do you regard it? I would like to ask what would happen to God if you get out of the bundle. What would happen if your boy, whom you love a hundred times more than you love Him, got out of your bundle? From the first of Genesis we find how man slipped out of God's bundle. One day they came to Christ and found fault with Him because they said He ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and He turned and said, "You do just the same." "Oh, no," they said, "we never do such a thing." "Do you not? You have a hundred sheep and lose one — what do you do?" "I go after it to bring it back." "Why do you do that? Why do you not send someone else after it? Because it is my sheep." "Precisely. That publican, he is not 'a' publican; he is 'My' publican, 'My' sinner, 'My' boy." God is trying to get you back into the bundle. Every man who is unhappy, every man who does not love Christ and confess Him has dropped out of the bundle. Christ is trying to get him back into the bundle.

(A. Mckenzie, D. D.)

The bundle of life

J. S. Maver, M. A.

It is a very beautiful expression, especially when you consider what the word bundle would mean in those times. Nowadays we do not usually associate anything precious with a bundle. It is rather the other way. If a household were removing, for instance, it would be the odds and ends, the things of little value, that would likely be put into a bundle for convenience of removal. The precious things of the household would be secured in some safer way than by being simply huddled together in a bundle. A commercial traveller, in journeying by rail, would have his big bundles in the van, but anything particularly valuable would be carried by himself in pocket book or hand bag securely fastened. But in those primitive days they had not such elaborate means of securing safety. In shifting their tents to pastures new, any things of special value would simply be bound up in a bundle, and the husband or wife would see to it that that bundle was well looked after on the journey. It would be with them on their camel, or somewhere where they could always see it. Note, however, in passing, that other metaphor Abigail makes use of with regard to the enemies of David: "The souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out, as out of the middle of a sling." It is a very forcible way of putting it. It just means emphatically the opposite of the care and attention connected with the bundle. What could be thought more lightly of than the stone slung out of a sling? So, the bundle implies that which is particularly valuable, whereas the stone slung out of a sling suggests that which is worthless, not worth taking any trouble or concern about. But let us direct our attention to the other wish that Abigail expresses regarding" David. It is a beautiful thought, the thought of being bound in God's bundle of life.

1. Does it not, for one thing, imply, very specially, safety? They are safe who are bound in God's bundle of life. It is a great word in the Bible sense — safety — greater than we shall ever comprehend here. God's desire is to save men from themselves, from their sins, from their spiritual foes.

2. Another thought implied in the phrase, the bundle of life, is that of preciousness. So, in the bundle of life, we have to consider not man's but God's estimate of values. The neediest are, in a sense, the dearest. Look at the publicans of old as compared with the self-righteous Pharisees.

3. But one thing more also is suggested by the bundle, viz., that it will not always be a bundle. After all, the bundle is but a temporary arrangement. Only for the time being, when a household would be removing, would the valuables be packed up in a bundle, with little regard to arrangement and order. But in the new home the bundle would be opened, and each article put carefully in a place of its own. And so with God's opening and rearranging of the bundle of life. The words of Abigail, in connection with David, seem to refer to the present life, to David's safety here from the foes that were assailing him. I am aware that the Jews, nowadays are in the habit of using the phrase in reference to the life beyond. But is it not more in harmony with the idea of a bundle to apply the phrase to the present life? It is here, not hereafter, that things are not as they should be, not as we would wish them to be; it is here that there is the medley and confusion of a bundle. The best and the worst are often in strange positions, and juxtapositions, in this world. And look, too, how those dear to us often get separated, far and wide in life. But the time will come when there shall be separation no more, "and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." May that be our prayer and trust for us all, that, when all is over, so far as this world is concerned, it will not be for us a being slung out as out of the middle of a sling, but only the opening of the bundle, and the rearrangement and final settlement in the eternal home. But remember, too, that while here, just as the contents of the good wife's bundle, though mixed together for the time being, would still be precious, and still safe, amid all the temporary disorder, so, even here, where things are oft inexplicably mixed, and many things are hard to understand, and harder still to bear, they are nevertheless safe and precious, now and evermore, in His sight, who are bound in God's bundle of life.

(J. S. Maver, M. A.)

People

Abigail, Ahinoam, Caleb, David, Israelites, Jesse, Jezreel, Laish, Maon, Michal, Nabal, Palti, Paltiel, Phalti, Samuel, Saul

Places

Carmel, Gallim, Hebron, Maon, Paran, Ramah

Topics

Anyone, Arms, Bag, Band, Bound, Bundle, Care, Danger, Enemies, Hollow, Hurl, Kept, Master, Middle, Midst, Pocket, Pursue, Pursuing, Putting, Rise, Risen, Riseth, Safe, Securely, Seek, Sling, Someone, Soul, Souls, Stones, Though, Violently, Yet

Outline

1. Samuel dies
2. David in Paran sends to Nabal
10. Provoked by Nabal's rudeness, he minds to destroy him
14. Abigail understanding thereof
18. takes a present
23. and by her wisdom
32. pacifies David
36. Nabal hearing thereof, dies
39. David takes Abigail and Ahinoam to be his wives
44. Michal is given to Phalti

Dictionary of Bible Themes

1 Samuel 25:29

1 Samuel 25:14-31

8458 peacemakers

1 Samuel 25:14-35

5744 wife
5922 prudence

Library

If Then to Sin, that Others May not Commit a Worse Sin...
21. If then to sin, that others may not commit a worse sin, either against us or against any, without doubt we ought not; it is to be considered in that which Lot did, whether it be an example which we ought to imitate, or rather one which we ought to avoid. For it seems meet to be more looked into and noted, that, when so horrible an evil from the most flagitious impiety of the Sodomites was impending over his guests, which he wished to ward off and was not able, to such a degree may even that just …
St. Augustine—Against Lying

Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed.
"Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord."--Jeremiah i. 8. The Prophets were ever ungratefully treated by the Israelites, they were resisted, their warnings neglected, their good services forgotten. But there was this difference between the earlier and the later Prophets; the earlier lived and died in honour among their people,--in outward honour; though hated and thwarted by the wicked, they were exalted to high places, and ruled in the congregation. …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

How the Meek and the Passionate are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 17.) Differently to be admonished are the meek and the passionate. For sometimes the meek, when they are in authority, suffer from the torpor of sloth, which is a kindred disposition, and as it were placed hard by. And for the most part from the laxity of too great gentleness they soften the force of strictness beyond need. But on the other hand the passionate, in that they are swept on into frenzy of mind by the impulse of anger, break up the calm of quietness, and so throw into …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Appendix xix. On Eternal Punishment, According to the Rabbis and the New Testament
THE Parables of the Ten Virgins' and of the Unfaithful Servant' close with a Discourse on the Last Things,' the final Judgment, and the fate of those Christ's Righ Hand and at His Left (St. Matt. xxv. 31-46). This final Judgment by our Lord forms a fundamental article in the Creed of the Church. It is the Christ Who comes, accompanied by the Angelic Host, and sits down on the throne of His Glory, when all nations are gathered before Him. Then the final separation is made, and joy or sorrow awarded …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Letters of St. Bernard
I To Malachy. 1141.[924] (Epistle 341.) To the venerable lord and most blessed father, Malachy, by the grace of God archbishop of the Irish, legate of the Apostolic See, Brother Bernard called to be abbot of Clairvaux, [desiring] to find grace with the Lord. 1. Amid the manifold anxieties and cares of my heart,[925] by the multitude of which my soul is sore vexed,[926] the brothers coming from a far country[927] that they may serve the Lord,[928] thy letter, and thy staff, they comfort …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

The Exile Continued.
"So David fled, and escaped and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done unto him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth" (1 Sam. xix. 18)--or, as the word probably means, in the collection of students' dwellings, inhabited by the sons of the prophets, where possibly there may have been some kind of right of sanctuary. Driven thence by Saul's following him, and having had one last sorrowful hour of Jonathan's companionship--the last but one on earth--he fled to Nob, whither …
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

Barzillai
BY REV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, M.A., D.D. "There is nothing," says Socrates to Cephalus in the Republic, "I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom it is right to learn the character of the way, whether it is rugged or difficult, or smooth and easy" (p. 328 E.). It is to such an aged traveller that we are introduced in the person of Barzillai the Gileadite. And though he is one of the lesser-known characters …
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known

The Section Chap. I. -iii.
The question which here above all engages our attention, and requires to be answered, is this: Whether that which is reported in these chapters did, or did not, actually and outwardly take place. The history of the inquiries connected with this question is found most fully in Marckius's "Diatribe de uxore fornicationum," Leyden, 1696, reprinted in the Commentary on the Minor Prophets by the same author. The various views may be divided into three classes. 1. It is maintained by very many interpreters, …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Promise in 2 Samuel, Chap. vii.
The Messianic prophecy, as we have seen, began at a time long anterior to that of David. Even in Genesis, we perceived [Pg 131] it, increasing more and more in distinctness. There is at first only the general promise that the seed of the woman should obtain the victory over the kingdom of the evil one;--then, that the salvation should come through the descendants of Shem;--then, from among them Abraham is marked out,--of his sons, Isaac,--from among his sons, Jacob,--and from among the twelve sons …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Samuel
Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.; while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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