2 Samuel 23:15 And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! The incident belongs to that period in David's life when he was an outlaw, when Saul was hunting trim and he was hiding with ills ragged followers in various mountains and eaves. I. THERE ARE TIMES IN EVERY LIFE WHEN WE ARE REMINDED OF THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM, and wish in vain that we could drink of that well again. A children's anniversary always brings one of these times to grown-up people. I mean times when our thoughts are carried back to early days, and we almost sigh as David did because we cannot cross over to them again, We have visions of happy wells of which we drank in the dear young days, and from which we are now separated by a barrier of years and other things. And there are other things which we should like to return to if it were in any way possible — the leisure, the golden opportunities, the school days, and the wells of knowledge, the hours which we thought so little of and for the most part wasted when we had them, the books we might have read, the things we might, have learned, the fitness for life's work we might have gained. Most of us would be glad to have those chances repeated. And we have all longings and regrets sadder than these. All of us, I say, though some have reason to feel them more than others. Certain other things have left us which the child had — a certain stock of happy innocence and purity and simple faith. There were days when we knew little of evil; when we had no thought which we wished to hide, when our feet had not been in any crooked ways; when our minds were not defiled; when no chains of habit held us bound, and no fierce passions within drove us to wrongdoing. It was our Garden of Eden, and the angel with the flaming sword stops our return. This is what we mean by the wells of Bethlehem. Or, as Tennyson expresses it — "The tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me." II. We are reminded by this story that THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN LIFE THAN THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. David here was crying for his vanished childhood, and in a moment certain things happened which proved to him that he was richer as a man than he had ever been as a child. For one thing, he had won friendships that were faithful to him even unto death. There are better things than the glory of childhood, just as the gnarled, strong, winter-worn oak is nobler than the slender sapling with its first shoots of green. God did not send us into the world to be always children, but to be strong, long-suffering, serviceable men and women; to make friends and deserve their friendship; to learn patience through sorrow and courage, by facing difficulties, and take a real soldier's part m the great battle of life. And if we are doing that in a measure there is no need to sigh for our Bethlehem days. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! |
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