Saul’s pursuit of David makes no sense, really. David spared his life in the cave. David has been exiled and so he isn’t out there heroically leading the army of Israel and gathering more fame and favor. He is not a threat to Saul (and hasn’t been for quite some time), so it makes no sense for Saul to expend so much time and effort to keep chasing him. It feels like Saul is obsessed and perhaps even bored with nothing more pressing to do.
The Ziphites betray David…
David is getting quite a bit of experience in betrayal. This has been and will continue to be reflected in many of his psalms. And sometimes they are prophetic of the betrayal that Jesus faced.
David spares Saul’s life. Again.
There is a powerful life lesson here about waiting on God’s timing ⏳ for advancement and fulfilling one’s purpose. David knows that only Yahweh gets to decide when Saul’s days are over. He knows that he does not need to “help things along” or speed up his ascent to the throne. God will remove Saul when it is time. In the meantime, David is going through the humbling part of being prepared by the LORD for service.
Before God uses someone greatly, there is typically a season of great breaking and bringing low. Jesus said that whoever humbled himself would be exalted. And that is the typical pattern; low first, then exaltation. So be careful about asking God to use you. Just know, that it’s probably going to hurt and the cost may be very high.
The preacher Charles Spurgeon once said,
“Whenever God means to make a man great, he always breaks him in pieces first.”
There is a poem I heard back in Bible college. It captures what God is doing in David’s life to prepare him to be one of Israel’s greatest kings. The author is unknown and it’s actually a Christianized parody of a poem by American poet Angela Morgan (1875-1957). Angela’s poem “When Nature Wants A Man” was published in 1918.
WHEN GOD WANTS TO DRILL A MAN
When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendour out–
God knows what He’s about!
(Author Unknown)
“So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul’s head, and they went away. No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them.” 1 Samuel 26:12 ESV
The LORD can put a whole army to sleep! 😴 🤯 That is wild! It was like Sleeping Beauty in real life. No one asked the Lord to do this. I guess He just did.
This is the second time Saul’s life has been basically handed to David on a platter. He could’ve justified himself in killing Saul…
- God has already said that Saul will not retain the throne because of his disobedience.
- David has already been anointed to be king.
- Saul is not a good or godly king. He is demonized, unstable, and ordered the massacre of all the Lord’s priests and their families in cold blood.
- Saul has attempted to kill David several times. If not for God’s help, Saul would’ve murdered David by now.
- Saul has mistreated a man who never did him any wrong. He has destroyed David’s marriage and made it unsafe for his parents and other family to live normal lives.
David sets an example of letting God fight his battles and remove people as He sees fit.
After David and Abishai take Saul’s spear and water jug as proof and get away by a safe distance, David wakes the whole camp by shouting to Abner and telling him what a lousy body guard he is.
After identifying himself to Saul, David says something that we might not understand on first glance:
“Now therefore let my Lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering, but if it is men, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’ Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the Lord, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.” 1 Samuel 26:19-20 ESV
We must ALWAYS bear in mind that relationship to Yahweh in the OT is based on 3 things:
- Location
- Location
- Location
It’s ALL about the real estate. The land of Israel is Yahweh’s land. The people of Israel are Yahweh’s people. He made them “from scratch” when he gave a miracle child to a 100-year-old man with a 90-year-old wife. All of the other nations and their peoples abandoned the Most High at Babel. They rebelled when they KNEW what had happened with the Flood and those who rebelled before. Remember this?
“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.”
Deuteronomy 32:8-9 ESV
To be outside of the land of Israel is to be in the territory of other nations that had been allotted to the Sons of God (some of whom at least went rogue). If we understand this, then David’s complaint to Saul makes sense. It’s not just that Saul is chasing him and trying to kill him. It’s that David has had to run to other nations (Moab, Gath, Wilderness of Paran) just to stay alive. He has had to leave Yahweh’s land and people. He has been denied his share of being part of Yahweh’s “heritage.” He is basically being told to go join some other nation which would be tantamount to spiritual treason and adultery. And David will not and cannot do it. He even expresses concern that he will die (his blood will fall to the earth) outside of Yahweh’s land.
There seems to have been some uncertainty about what happened to one’s soul if they died on “another god’s turf.” Like Moses, for example. Moses died outside of the Promised Land and for some reason, Satan felt he had rights over Moses’ body.
“But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”
Jude 1:9 ESV
We also know that Yahweh Himself buried the body of Moses in an unknown grave. 🪦
“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.”
Deuteronomy 34:5-6 ESV
It’s possible that the Devil believed he had some kind of authority over the body of Moses (at least enough that he would “dispute” about it with Michael) because Moses had been buried in the land allotted to Moab and they worshiped Chemosh.
Now – just because the Lord Himself set up this situation of the Sons of God over the nations, doesn’t mean that He is not Sovereign. The EARTH 🌎 is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He made it. He owns it. But He did commit its stewardship His human children. He didn’t swoop in and snatch that back the moment they fell. Humanity is still stewarding the planet – albeit very poorly, and most generally according to the sway of the kingdom of darkness.
I’m trying to pick this apart here so that we don’t zoom past it. Some times we read things and we don’t understand them so we shrug and say, 🤷♀️ “Well, I don’t know what on earth that means, I guess it’s just a mystery or one of those things that makes the Bible hard to understand.”
No.
Nope.
I refuse to do that.
Holes in Bible knowledge have a nasty tendency to get filled with assumptions and made up ideas. There is good scholarship out there. I’ll admit, reading historical and cultural backgrounds to ancient Biblical texts is hardly thrilling. In fact, if you’re having trouble falling asleep… 😏
All that to say, David’s concern about dying “away from the presence of the Lord” was VERY real to him. It’s a foreign concept to us because of this:
“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 4:20-24 NASB2020
Jesus did something unheard of before that point in history. He decoupled relationship with the Father from a geographical location. The NEW “location” for worship is in Spirit and Truth.
But David didn’t have that yet. That’s why it’s SO important to him to be in Yahweh’s land, among Yahweh’s people, and to again have access to the Tabernacle to worship.
After a brief, moonlit chat, Saul and David part ways. And in a move that seems to counter everything he just said, David and his men are about to pack up and move to the territory of the Philistines. David is going to go back to Goliath’s hometown of Gath.
🤔
To The Reader 