1 Samuel 16:23

Contextual Overview

¹⁴ Now the Spirit of Yahweh departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh troubled him. ¹⁴ Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and the Lord sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear. ¹⁴ Now the spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. ¹⁴ But the Lord 's Spirit had left Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. ¹⁴ Now the Spirit of the Lord had turned away from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. ¹⁴ But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. ¹⁴ Now the Spirit of Yahweh departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh troubled him. ¹⁴Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented and terrified him. ¹⁴ Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. ¹⁴ And so the Spirit of the Lord yede awei fro Saul, and a wickid spirit of the Lord trauelide Saul.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the evil spirit: 1 Samuel 16:14, 1 Samuel 16:16

Saul: 1 Samuel 18:10, 1 Samuel 18:11, Matthew 12:43-45, Luke 11:24-26

Reciprocal: 2 Kings 3:15 - bring me 1 Chronicles 13:8 - with harps

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And it came to pass, when the [evil] spirit from God was upon Saul,.... See 1 Samuel 16:14 though the word evil is not in the text here; wherefore Abarbinel thinks that this here was the Spirit of God, which stirred up in him thoughts of divine things, put him in mind of what God had said, that he had rejected him from being king, and had rent the kingdom from him; and this filled him with grief and trouble, and he became melancholy:

that David took an harp, and played with his hands; upon it; and, as Josephus r says, at the same time sung hymns and psalms; made use both of vocal and instrumental music:

so Saul was refreshed, and was well; became cheerful, his grief was removed, his black and gloomy apprehensions of things were dispersed, and he was cured of his melancholy disorder for the present:

and the evil spirit departed from him: at least for a while; he had his fits and intervals; of the effects of music in a natural way,

1 Samuel 16:14- :, though no doubt the music of David was more than natural, being attended with the power and blessing of God, in order to raise his fame and credit at court.

r Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 6. c. 8. sect. 2.)

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Samuel 16:23. The evil spirit from God — The word evil is not in the common Hebrew text, but it is in the Vulgate, Septuagint, Targum, Syriac, and Arabic, and in eight of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., which present the text thus: רוח אלהים רעה ruach Elohim raah, spiritus Domini malus, the evil spirit of God. The Septuagint leave out Θεου, of God, and have πνευμα πονηρον, the evil spirit. The Targum says, The evil spirit from before the Lord; and the Arabic has it. The evil spirit by the permission of God; this is at least the sense.

And the evil spirit departed from him. — The Targum says, And the evil spirit descended up from off him. This considers the malady of Saul to be more than a natural disease.

THERE are several difficulties in this chapter; those of the chronology are pretty well cleared, in the opinion of some, by the observations of Bishop Warburton; but there is still something more to be done to make this point entirely satisfactory. Saul's evil spirit, and the influence of music upon it, are not easily accounted for. I have considered his malady to be of a mixed kind, natural and diabolical; there is too much of apparent nature in it to permit us to believe it was all spiritual, and there is too much of apparent supernatural influence to suffer us to believe that it was all natural.