Big Healing Book - 1 Samuel 16:14-23

1 Samuel 16:14-23:

But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.
Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.
And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me.
Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him.
Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me now David thy son, which is with the sheep.
And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul.
And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer.
And Saul said to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favor in my sight.
And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

Notes on 1 Samuel 16:14-23:

Here’s a problematic passage for you! “An evil spirit from God” afflicted Saul! Huh? Is God now in the business of sending evil spirits to people? Well, in this case He clearly did! The best rule for interpreting Scripture is to take everything literally unless there is a clear reason not to. (Different good men will disagree on certain Scriptures because we are still in an age where we only see through a mirror dimly. For example, until everything plays out, there will always be speculation on how much of the book of Revelation is literal as opposed to allegorical.) So if Scripture says that an evil spirit from God tormented Saul, we have to believe it.

However, you can make a case that God actually did send a spirit that was on His team, not the devil’s, to afflict Saul in an evil manner. At first that might almost seem like heresy to people who have been taught that God and His heavenly hosts don’t do anything “bad” to people. However, Acts 12:21-23 clearly disproves this, as it was an angel of the Lord who struck Herod with a sudden fatal illness.

Then consider these accounts of a “bad” thing that was attributed to “an angel of the Lord:”

2 Kings 19:35:
And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

2 Chronicles 32:31:
And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword.

Isaiah 37:36:
Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

You could also argue that the spirit was called an evil spirit and thus would have to be one of Satan’s minions. However, that would still leave you with the problem that GOD sent that evil spirit. I see little question that Saul’s affliction at the hand of an evil spirit was part of God’s judgment for disobedience.

I side with the spirit from God doing evil as judgment on Saul as opposed to God borrowing one of Satan’s evil spirits to do it. But whichever way you see it, the important thing is that this was a judgment sent from God rather than just Satan doing his thing to afflict someone. To that extent, it is interesting, but not necessarily important, to determine the origin of the spirit that afflicted Saul. The important thing to note is that anointed music drives out affliction.

The musical side of this passage is discussed under Healing and Music.