Prayer Challenges
Current Challenge from Doug Knox.
October
Man Builders, Part 29
1 Samuel 21:1-19
David—Forged Masterpiece, Part 11
SURRENDERING CONTROL OF THE SITUATION
Questionable Tactics
David is a heroic figure, but he is also human. Starting in 1 Samuel 21, we will witness decisions on his part that are questionable at best. Ultimately, people will die because of hasty choices. The first begins with a lie spoken for the sake of self-preservation.
Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest.
And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?”
And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.”
--1 Samuel 21:1-3
Just before this incident, Saul became so enraged that his son Jonathan has given the right to his throne to David that he hurled a spear at him (1 Samuel 20:30-34). David is right to flee to Nob. However, his lie to Ahimelech about Saul’s secret business leaves me scratching my head. Clearly, the priest knows who David is. Further, Saul’s paranoia over David would have been common knowledge as well. Had David told Ahimelech the truth about the situation, he could have accommodated him as well as being able to prepare for Saul’s entry. Ahimelech responds that they have only consecrated bread, which would be available to the men if they are sexually pure:
And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women."
And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?”
So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
--1 Samuel 21:4-6
The Issues Surrounding “Holy” Bread
The question about the right of David and his men to eat the bread of the Presence arises only briefly in this context. According to Leviticus 24:5-9, the twelve loaves of bread in the tabernacle are forbidden for ordinary use. They are reserved “for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the LORD’s food offerings, a perpetual due” (Leviticus24:9). David and his men obviously need food, a reality Ahimelech recognizes. The only restriction he asks that David and his men “have kept themselves from women.” David assures him that they are sexually clean, and Ahimelech shares the bread with them. The Bible pronounces no criticism toward Abiathar over the act. His generosity with the bread appears to affirm that the LORD welcomes kindness over rigid adherence to customs in the face of genuine need. The incident turns up in Mark’s Gospel. There, Jesus’s disciples break off heads of wheat and blow the hulls away to eat the wheat on the Sabbath. The Pharisees seek out Jesus to complain that his disciples are “doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath” (Mark 2:24), that is, Jesus counters with a summary of David and his men eating the bread of the presence. In reply, he raises the subject of Abiathar’s actions and reasons from them on the importance of caring for others over the enforcement of inflexible religious practice as it existed in his day (Mark 2:25-27). [1]
A Sinister Development on the Horizon
When David and his men eat the bread, the account interjects this brief note:
Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen.
--1 Samuel 21:7
For the present, the writer drops the comment as a foreshadowing event. As we will see in the next installment, Doeg is not only loyal to Saul but also pitiless toward anyone he considers an enemy.
Armament for David
The completion of the meal brings a chance for David to conduct necessary business:
Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither 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 you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.”
And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”
--1 Samuel 21:8-9
This passage shows the dire nature of David’s situation. “I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me.” His flight from Saul has left him defenseless. Unfortunately, the lie that he has planted at the beginning requires further shoring. He lacks weapons because “the king’s business required haste.” Thankfully, Ahimelech has Goliath’s sword and gives it to David. Yet despite David’s compromises, the LORD supplies his needs at the right time.
Deeper Descent into Chaos
With the completion of the business at Nob, David flees to Gath, about twenty-five miles to the southwest. His arrival there is awkward. After all, he shows up to seek sanctuary from the very enemy that he has routed before.
And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath.
And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,
‘Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands’?”
And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard.
Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”
--1 Samuel 21:10-15
The scene emphasizes the chaos that engulfs David. The only apparent place to flee from Saul is Gath, a Philistine city, where his reputation for striking down his enemies by the thousands precedes him. King Achish’s servants know the celebratory chant that the people sang after his victory over Goliath and the Philistine army. David’s reaction is visceral. The text reads that he “took these words to heart,” a euphemism for realizing how much potential trouble he faces. Consequently, he is terrified of King Achish. In an apparent spur-of-the-moment move, he impersonates an insane man. Achish’s response, “Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence?” appears to speak to the close cultural association between madness and prophetic insight. In a world where secret knowledge holds strategic value, madmen are considered useful but seldom worthy of respect. (Think of the undercurrent that runs through the populace when Saul pursues David only to find himself driven to prophesy naked before Samuel. The people’s reply, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” (1 Samuel 19: 24) reflects disparagement).
The David We do Not Know
Saul’s first planned attempt to assassinate David in 1 Samuel 19 signals a period of growing chaos in David’s life that will continue to pursue him until Saul dies at the close of the book. The brief and apparently unrelated episode with King Achish in chapter 21 foreshadows a second episode in 1 Samuel 27 – 30 when David returns to ally himself with the man. The final thirteen chapters will drive us to abandon our just-so concept of David as a one-dimensional “hero of the faith.” He will make tactical and moral mistakes that will cost people their lives. The events that are about to take place will twist David’s self-concept beyond its limits and present mysteries for us as readers that defy easy explanations. In many ways, David will grow into more of a mystery through his very humanness. God does not call men who are perfect. He calls broken men and reforges them.
Doug Knox
[1] The context in Mark is important. From Mark 2:1 – 3:6, Jesus brings five areas of life under his authoritative rule as the Son of Man. Each of these seizures occurs in succession. They are: 1) The authority of the Son of Man to forgive sins on the earth, demonstrated by the healing of the paralytic, (Mark 2:1-12); his authority and choice to call sinners to faith and fellowship with them (Mark 2:13-17); his authority to announce that he is the fulfillment of Old Testament promises—in his words, bringing new wine in fresh wineskins, (Mark 2:18-22); 4) his pronouncement as the Son of Man to be Lord of the Sabbath, (Mark 2:23-28); 5) his authority as Lord of the Sabbath to do good works on that day, (Mark 3:1-6).