1 Samuel 21
Butler21 1 THEN came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest : and Ahimelech came to meet 2 David trembling, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee? And David said unto Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know anything of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have com- 3 manded thee : and I have appointed the young men to such and such a place. Now therefore what is under thine hand? give me five loaves of bread in mine hand, or whatsoever there is present.
Verses 4, 5. Ahimelech’s inquiry as to ritual cleanliness.
6. So the priest gave him holy bread : for there was no bread there but the shew-bread, that was 7 taken from before the LORD, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away. Now a cer- tain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD ; and his name 8 was Doeg the Edomite, the chiefest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul. And David said unto Ahimelech, And is there not here under thine hand spear or sword? for I have neither 9 brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste. And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the vale of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod : if thou wilt take that, take it : for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that ; give it me. 10 And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying,
Saul hath slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands?
12. And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and 14 scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad : wherefore then have ye brought him 15 to me? Do I lack mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?
22 1 David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave of Adullam : and when his 2 brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gath- ered themselves unto him ; and he became captain over them : and there were with him about four hundred men.
David’s outlaw life began by his flying to Nob. The site of Nob is unknown, but it must have been near Gibeah, probably between it and Je- rusalem, where the high priest and the taber- nacle had been located after the destruction of Shiloh. From Nob he fled westward to Gath, one of the cities of the Philistines. Thereafter, years were spent in the wilderness of Judah, a wild desert tract of bare ravines, rocks, and caves. W. G. B.—He had yet another school to go through before his education for the lead- ership of God’s people was complete—the school of adversity. The faithful shepherd had become the prudent courtier : he must now become the vigilant, active, enduring outlaw. This phase of life helps still further to ripen his character, specially in two directions—chivalrous generos- ity and reliance upon God. His harp accom- panies him here also, and no doubt shared many a sad hour in the caves of Adullam and Engedi. Plummer.
1. Samuel the prophet could not protect him, Jonathan the prince could not ; he therefore has recourse next to Ahimelech the priest. He foresees he must now be an exile, and therefore comes to the tabernacle, to inquire of the Lord there, and to beg direction from him in the way both of duty and safety; his case being difficult and dangerous. That this was his business, appears ch. 22 : 10, where it is said that Ahimelech inquired of the Lord for him as he had done formerly. H.
2. This pretence of a private commission from the king was a mere invention, but his “appointing his servants to meet him at such and such a place” was probably the exact truth. In Mk. 2 : 26 our Lord speaks of those “who were with David,” and the “young men” are mentioned in verses 4, 5. R. P. S.—Here was a statement the very opposite of the truth; spoken too to God’s anointed high-priest, and in the very place consecrated to God’s most solemn service; everything about the speaker fitted to bring God to his mind, and to recall God’s protection of him in time past; yet the first thing he did on entering the sacred place was to utter a falsehood, prompted by distrust, prompted by the feeling that the pledged protection of the God of truth, before whose shrine he now stood, was not sufficient. W. G. B.—Hitherto hath David gone upright, now he begins to halt with the priest of God; and, under pretence of Saul’s employment, draws that favor from Ahimelech which shall afterward cost him his head. Ep. II.—It was needless for him thus to dissemble with the priest, for if he had told him the truth, he would have sheltered and relieved him as readily as Samuel did, and would have known the better how to advise him, and inquire of God for him. David fell thus foully through fear and cowardice, and both owing to the weakness of his faith. Had he trusted God aright, he would not have used such a sorry, sinful shift as this for his own preservation. It is written not for our imitation, but for our admonition. H.
Much is told in the Bible, even in connection with Old Testament saints, on which no comment is made, save that of the retribution which, in the course of God’s providence, surely follows all wrong-doing. And here we challenge any instance of sin which is not followed by failure, sorrow, and punishment. It had been so in the case of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; and it was so in that of David, whose every attempt to screen himself by untruthfulness ended in failure and sorrow. Holy Scripture never conceals wrong-doing—least of all seeks to palliate it. But we go a step further. He who fails to recognize the gradual development of God’s teaching, and regards the earlier periods in the history of God’s kingdom as on exactly the same level as the New Testament, not only most seriously mistakes fundamental facts and principles, but misses the entire meaning of the preparatory dispensation. The Old Testament never places truth, right, or duty on any lower basis than the New. But while it does not lower, it does not unfold in all their fulness the principles which it lays down. Rather does it adapt the application of truths, the exposition of rights, and the unfolding of duties, to the varying capacities of each age and stage. And this from the necessity of the case, in highest wisdom, in greatest mercy, and in the interest of the truth itself. The principle: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child,” applies to the relation between the Old and the New Testament standpoint, as well as to all spiritual and even intellectual progress. A. E.
6. There is no difficulty in supplying bread as the shewbread was the subject of the conversation. David’s argument, therefore, is that both his attendants and their wallets were free from legal defilement, and that though their expedition was on some secular business, yet that at all events the bread would be secure from pollution. R. P. S.
9. None like that.** David is low enough now, a fugitive with manifold straits and dangers in store. This sword reminds him how the Lord delivered him in his encounter with the giant. It calls up his old faith; rebukes his unbelieving thoughts, and bids his fears be gone. He is assured the Lord will carry him through. Johnstone.
10. The next step which David took on leaving Nob, seems to us equally objectionable with his conduct there, and was equally the result of the unworthy fears which now oppressed his spirits. He went over to the Philistines. It could not be of God that this step was taken; and it was thus a further manifestation of that distrust of the sufficiency of the Lord’s protection, a confidence in which had been hitherto, and was to be hereafter, the crowning glory of his great career. By the good providence of God, David was spared—through what seemed at first a trial and a danger—from the tremendous perils of this position. Kit.
12-15. The depth of David’s alarm and his ready resource are shown by his degrading trick of assumed madness—certainly the least heroic action of his life. What a picture of a furious madman is the description of his conduct when Achish’s servants came to arrest him. Israelitish quickness gets the better of Philistine stupidity, as it had been used to do from Samson’s time onward, and the dull-witted king falls into the trap, and laughs away the suspicions with a clumsy joke at his servants’ expense about more madmen being the last thing he was short of. A hasty flight from Philistine territory ended this episode. A. M.—We do not palliate anything in David’s conduct at Nob or at Gath that was unbecoming a servant of God. But the Psalms come in well to prevent our doing David any injustice. All through this painful passage of his life—in his flight, his grief, his mortal peril—his heart was crying out for God. Not that God sanctioned any shift or subterfuge; but God heard him, and saved him out of all his distresses. D. F.
22 : 1. And now David was once more a fugitive—the twofold lesson which he might have learned being, that it needed no subterfuges to insure his safety, and that his calling for the present was within, not outside the land of Israel. A comparatively short distance—about ten miles—from Gath runs “the valley of the terebinth,” the scene of David’s great combat with Goliath. The low hills south of this valley are literally burrowed by caves, some of them of very large dimensions. Here lay the ancient city of Adullam. In the largest of the caves close by David sought a hiding-place. A. E.—Recent research has very strongly confirmed the conjecture, previously founded on historical grounds alone, that here must be placed the Cave of Adullam. H. B. T.—Caverns, characteristic of all limestone districts, here exist in astonishing numbers. Machpelah, Makkedah, Adullam, Engedi, names inseparably connected with the lives, adventures, and deaths of Abraham, Joshua, David, and other Old Testament worthies, are all within the small circle of the territory of Judea. P. S.
He soon contrived to make his retreat known to his own family, the principal members of which came to him there. Here also a number of daring men of various characters flocked to him. Many went out of regard to his person; others because they expected to advance their eventual interests, or because their circumstances could be bettered under so successful and valiant a leader; or because they were immersed in debt, or dissatisfied with the state of affairs under Saul. By the adhesion of four hundred such men, David could stand on the defensive, and assume such a position as would engage the interest of the people in his person and movements, and prevent his claims, his services, and his wrongs from passing out of mind. Kit.
They were wild, rough soldiers, according to the picturesque description, “whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains.” They were not free-booters, but seem to have acted as a kind of frontier-guard against southern Bedouins and western Philistines for the sheep-farmers of the border, whom Saul’s government was too weak to protect. In this desultory warfare, and including the pursuit of Saul, against whom it is to be observed David never employed any weapon but flight, several years were passed. The effect of such life on his spiritual nature was to deepen his unconditional dependence on God; by the alternations of heat and cold, fear and hope, danger and safety, to temper his soul and make it flexible, tough and bright as steel. It evolved the qualities of a leader of men; teaching him command and forbearance, promptitude and patience, valor and gentleness. It won for him a name as the defender of the nation, as Nabal’s servant said of him and his men, “They were a wall unto us, both by night and by day” (1 S. 25 : 16). And it gathered round him a force of men devoted to him by the enthusiastic attachment bred from long years of common dangers, and the hearty friendships of many a march by day, and nightly encampment round the glimmering watchfires, beneath the lucid stars. A. M.
David never opposed or disturbed the government of Saul; never endeavored to excite a spirit of discontent, or entered into a conspiracy to dethrone him, or forcibly levied contributions on his subjects, or joined the enemies of his country to invade it; or even availed himself of opportunities offered, to seize his person, or destroy him; but, during his whole life, behaved with all the submission that became him, as a dutiful son-in-law to his father, and a good subject to his prince. Chandler.
—This very period of his deepest sufferings becomes the decisive turning-point of his whole history, at which it enters upon a true upward course, thence to rise ever higher and higher; while his real destiny—viz., to rule, is now for the first time not only foreshadowed, but already begun, though only on the smallest scale; and the clearest proof that this actually is his destiny is found in the fact that he begins to work it out without consciously exerting himself to do so. Ewald.
Some of his heart-experiences during these days of exile and isolation appear in Ps. 57, the heading of which refers to his fleeing from Saul and finding his home in the cave. A lofty tone of exultation in God is the key-note of this Psalm—in striking contrast with the gloom and desolation of his external surroundings. Would it not have been at once strange and inspiring to hear this fugitive exile praising God with the sweet tones of psaltery and harp in those deep glens and among the dark, damp caverns of Judah’s mountains? But there is no place on this earth where the presence and consolations of God cannot waken joy in the souls that love and trust him. Verily this is the grandest moral sublimity—to rise above the depressing influence of the darkest surroundings and triumph in God only! It reminds us of Habakkuk, amid prospective scenes of famine and dire captivity, singing, “Though the fig-tree do not blossom . . . yet will I rejoice in the Lord;” and of Paul and Silas—their flesh still raw from the scourge—with probable death before them in the morning, yet singing praises to God from the depths of their dungeon. So the story of David in the cave of Adullam and among the fastnesses of Judah’s mountains is only half told without the help of his Ps. 57. To see the whole of a man, we need to see both his external surroundings and the uprising of his heart to God above all their depression and gloom. In this period of David’s history we may locate also Psalms 55 and 58—the former opening to view the great deep of his heart-trials, yet not less, his perpetual resort to God in prayer for help, and his placid trust, evinced in sweetly casting his burden on the Lord. In the latter, his soul is keenly sensitive to the sharp injustice under which he suffers from men in power, whom he warns solemnly of their responsibility to the righteous Judge of all. These Psalms give us yet more of that inside view of character which so finely supplements and interprets the external facts of David’s history. H. C.
DAVID’S PARENTS TAKEN TO MOAB. HE GOES TO THE FOREST OF HARETH, DOEG, AT SAUL’S COMMAND, SLAYS AHIMELECH, EIGHTY-FOUR PRIESTS, AND THE PEOPLE OF NOB. ABIATHAR ESCAPES TO DAVID, WHO SAVES KEILAH, AND DEPARTS TO ESCAPE SAUL’S PURSUITS.