(2) In time past.--Yesterday, or three days since. A very indefinite phrase, used in Genesis 31:2 of a time fourteen years since, and 2Kings 13:5 of more than forty years ago.

Leddest out.--To battle.

Broughtest in.--Of the homeward march. David had thus already discharged kingly functions. (Comp. 1Samuel 8:20; 1Samuel 18:6; 1Samuel 18:13; 1Samuel 18:27; 2Samuel 3:18.)

The Lord thy God said unto thee.--1Samuel 16:13.

Thou shalt feed my people.--Literally, shepherd or tend them. The same term is used of the Lord Himself (Isaiah 40:11; Psalm 80:1). The king then is God's representative, and as such his right is really Divine (Romans 13:1). The cuneiform documents reveal the interesting fact that the term "shepherd," as applied to sovereigns, is as old as the pre-Semitic stage of Babylonian civilisation (the second millennium B.C. ).

Verse 2. - Thou shalt feed my people Israel (so 2 Samuel 5:2; 2 Samuel 7:7; Psalm 78:71). Thus to the servant is condescendingly vouchsafed the same description as the Master takes through the Spirit for himself - to the under-shepherd the same as the Chief Shepherd acknowledges; note same psalm, ver. 72; Psalm 23:1-4; Psalm 100:3; 1 Peter 5:4.

11:1-9 David was brought to possess the throne of Israel after he had reigned seven years in Hebron, over Judah only. God's counsels will be fulfilled at last, whatever difficulties lie in the way. The way to be truly great, is to be really useful, to devote all our talents to the Lord.And inquired not of the Lord,.... For though he did inquire in some sense in an external, careless, and hypocritical manner, yet not done seriously, sincerely, and heartily, nor with constancy; it was accounted as if he inquired not at all, 1 Samuel 28:6 the Targum adds another reason of his death, because he killed the priests of Nob; but that is not in the text:

therefore he slew him; or suffered him to be slain:

and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse; translated the kingdom of Israel out of Saul's family, upon his death, into Jesse's, even unto David; for the sake of which observation this short account is given of the last end of Saul.