1 Samuel 19:9

[matthew1624]

“Then **an evil spirit from the Lord ** came upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand; and David was playing the lyre.”

I’m having trouble understanding how an “evil spirit” can come from the Lord. Any comments/ideas.

God Bless…

 

[MaggieOH]

I confess that I do not know an answer to this question, but I will pose that perhaps this is a case of looking at the tradition from which the story has emanated. That is was it a Yahwist or Eloist tradition? It seems strange to say that an evil spirit came from the Lord to rest upon Saul. What it does sound like is that Saul did not precisely go into a rage against David, but that he had a fit of madness due to his jealousy of David. The verse that you give needs to be read in context:

“War broke out again and David went out to fight against the Philistines; he inflicted a great defeat on them and they fled before him. An evil spirit from Yahweh came on Saul while he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand; David was playing the harp. Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear but he avoided Saul’s thrust and the spear struck the wall.” (1Samuel 19:8-10)

MaggieOH

 

[Verbum]

Hi, Matthew,

I think you will understand better if you read ch. 16, v. 14, where it says that the spirit of God went away from Saul. Not having the spirit of God, he is said to have an evil spirit, coming from God, because God abandonned him.

Verbum