THE APOSTLE JOHN WARNS US that the Antichrist – the final antichrist before Christ’s second coming (2 Thess 2:1-12) – is coming, and that even now many antichrists have already come (1 Jn 2:18). John smelled these antichrists through their false teaching (1 Jn 2:22-23). Saul is “seen for the antichrist figure he really is as he has Yahweh’s priests summarily butchered [vv.18-19]. Even now, in 1 Samuel 22, many antichrists have come”
26. Saul knew that these priests were “the priests
of the LORD” (v.17). And when Saul ordered his guards to kill them, they were “not willing to put forth their hands to attack” them because they were “the priests
of the LORD” (v.17). This refusal of Saul’s servants is “intended as a deliberate contrast”
27 to Saul’s godless callousness. Saul stands among the ranks of antichrists
28 like Pharaoh who sought to kill every Hebrew baby boy (Exo 1:22), Jezebel who “destroyed the prophets of the LORD” (1 Kin 18:4), Athaliah who wiped out almost the whole Davidic seed (2 Kin 11:1), Haman who “sought to destroy all the Jews” (Esth 3:5-6, 13) and Antiochus Epiphanes who “destroyed” God’s people “to an extraordinary degree” (Dan 8:9-14; 23-25; cf. 1 Maccabees 1). “In the course of history there are antichrist figures who prefigure the full embodiment of evil to come.”
29 When such times come, we should not be surprised (cf. 1 Pet 4:12), but “stand firm and hold on to” the Word of God (2 Thess 2:15) and “be faithful until death” (Rev 2:10).
26 Dale Ralph Davis, 225
27 Dale Ralph Davis, 229
28 Dale Ralph Davis, 229
29 Dale Ralph Davis, 225
