Saul's Spear and the Pierced Son of David: the Lance That Missed and the Lance That Opened
Old Testament: 1 Kings 19:10
And Saul endeavoured to nail David to the wall with his spear. And David slipt away out of the presence of Saul: and the spear missed him, and was fastened in the wall, and David fled and escaped that night.
Old Testament, also: Zacharias 12:10
And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn.
New Testament: John 19:34, 37; 1 Corinthians 2:8
But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. ... And again another scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced. ... Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.
The connection
Twice King Saul, seized by an evil spirit while David played before him, took up his spear: he "threw it, thinking to nail David to the wall: and David stept aside out of his presence twice" (1 Kings 18:11). Again "Saul endeavoured to nail David to the wall with his spear ... and the spear missed him, and was fastened in the wall, and David fled and escaped that night" (19:10). The anointed king escaped the spear. His Son did not. Jesus Christ is "the son of David" (Matthew 1:1), "made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3), and on the Cross, already dead, "one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water" (John 19:34). In the Latin the weapon is the same, lancea, for Saul's spear and the soldier's. And the prophet had joined David's house to that wound: "I will pour out upon the house of David ... the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced" (Zacharias 12:10), which St John quotes at the foot of the Cross (John 19:37). St Augustine reads David's flight from Saul so: "If all things which then were being done, were figures of things future, we find there Christ, and by far in the greatest degree." Christ hid His Godhead in flesh as David hid in the cave, for "if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8), and Saul's hatred followed Him to the end: "Even when dead, and, on the Cross hanging, with lance they wounded Him." The Catechism teaches that conversion begins when we look upon Him whom our sins have pierced (CCC 1432).
Moral sense
David answered the spear with mercy. Finding Saul asleep, he would not let his men strike: "The Lord be merciful unto me, that I extend not my hand upon the Lord's anointed. But now take the spear, which is at his head" (1 Kings 26:11). St John Chrysostom praises him because he "did not thrust the spear into him." The Son of David went further, praying for those who pierced Him: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). What men mean for evil God turns to good: "You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good ... and might save many people" (Genesis 50:20). The lance meant to make sure of His death opened the fountain of the sacraments.
Anagogical sense
The prophecy has a last fulfilment: "Behold, he cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him" (Apocalypse 1:7). Some who looked on Him at the Cross already believed: the centurion and those with him, "having seen the earthquake, and the things that were done ... saying: Indeed this was the Son of God" (Matthew 27:54). To look on the Pierced One is either conversion now or mourning at His coming, and the spirit of grace and of prayers is poured out so that it may be the first.
The Fathers
St Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 57 (Douay 56): "If all things which then were being done, were figures of things future, we find there Christ, and by far in the greatest degree." And: "the flesh’s weakness to their eyes He presented, but the Majesty of the Godhead in the body’s clothing, as though in a hiding-place of the earth, He hid." And: "Even when dead, and, on the Cross hanging, with lance they wounded Him."
Warrant
Patristic. St Augustine, expounding the psalm titled when he fled from Saul into the cave (Psalm 56 in the Douay, 57 in Schaff's numbering), reads David hunted by Saul as Christ, cites 1 Corinthians 2:8, and follows the persecution to the lance and the tomb; the Psalm 58 title, when Saul sent and watched his house to kill him, is 1 Kings 19:11, the night after the spear. St John Chrysostom praises David for sparing Saul with the spear at his head. Zacharias 12:10, quoted at John 19:37, joins the house of David to the one who is pierced. Checked in the languages: the Hebrew spear of Saul is chanit at 1 Kings 18:11 and 19:10; the Vulgate has lancea there and at John 19:34, and the Douay's to nail is configere. The Septuagint of Swete lacks 1 Kings 18:10-11 and has dory at 19:10, where St John has lonche, so the link is not in the Greek. The lead was Dunk's, from Saul's spear read beside Judith 11:2, Joel 3:10 and John 19:34, with 1 Corinthians 2:8 and Genesis 50:20.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1432.
The verses
1 Kings 19:10 · Zacharias 12:10 · John 19:34 · John 19:37 · 1 Corinthians 2:8
