Sunday School | David - 1 Samuel 23

If you haven't been coming to this class regularly, what we've been doing is studying the life of David. What books of the Bible would be chiefly about the life of David? Samuel. So first and second Samuel. Where else could we go? Get a little Chronicles maybe. And one more. Psalms. All right, very good.

So we're looking at the life of David. We're working our way through First Samuel to kind of get the basic framework. Do you remember that, I don't know, a month ago, a couple months ago, I gave you a sheet of about a dozen or so, maybe 14 Psalms that we know exactly where they fit into the narrative? Do you remember that? DFPs, get it out. Today is one of those passages. First Samuel 23 has a Psalm parallel. Does anybody happen to know what that is? Dan, do you know where we're at? Psalm 54.

So we're going to be in First Samuel 23 with a little excursion to Psalm 54. And it's just helpful maybe to you to make some of those connections in your mind between this part of the Bible and the other part of the Bible so that you might see the coherence in the whole. Or that someday when you're reading Psalm 54 and you read the superscript—kind of the zero verse that gives us a little intro—those zero verses are not added by the NIV Study Bible people. Those are Bible. They're part of the answer. They're actually part of the text. And that's how we know that it comes back here to First Samuel 23.

So we're in First Samuel 23, and honestly, there's some weird stuff that's going to go down. There's a lot of weird stuff in the Bible, but I think this is odd. I'm going to have some blank spaces when we're done here in my understanding of what exactly how this all works. But let's pick it up and we'll see what's going on.

Reading the Text

First Samuel 23, I'll just read it to you and we'll talk about it:

When David was told, "Look, the Philistines were fighting against Keilah and are looting the threshing floors," he inquired of the Lord, saying, "Shall I go and attack these Philistines?" And the Lord answered him, "Go, attack the Philistines and save Keilah." But David's men said to him, "Well, here in Judah we're afraid. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the Philistine forces?" So once again David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered him, "Go down to Keilah, for I am going to give the Philistines into your hand." So David and his men went to Keilah, and they fought the Philistines and carried off their livestock. He inflicted heavy losses on the Philistines and saved the people of Keilah. Now, Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had brought the ephod down with him when he fled to David at Keilah. — 1 Samuel 23

Inquiring of the Lord

Okay, first question. What do you think it means? What is going on with this "inquired of the Lord"? What do you think he's doing there?

Praying. Okay, so he's praying, "God, should I go attack this?" Okay, maybe just straight talking. We're already in the space that I don't know the answer. Okay, so your answer is as good as anybody's. What do you think this means? Anybody have a sense how he's inquiring of the Lord?

Well, I think you've got to consider the ephod that the priest was ringing. That's a lot of how they did it. He asked the priests to inquire of the Lord.

Yes. Okay. So now what Anne is referring to—some things that I'll get to—and that hasn't happened quite yet. It's about to happen, right? So these first couple of inquiries are by some means that aren't prescribed, aren't described. But then what's about to happen is that when Abiathar the priest—when this guy—I mean, is that his name? Ahimelech. When Abiathar shows up with the ephod, we'll talk about what that is. He's going to bring with him the Urim and Thummim, and we'll talk about what those are. Now we're going to fall into something that we know a little bit more about, but not much more, of some weird means of communicating with the Lord.

So yes, but first, he doesn't have it. These first two inquiries are pre-ephod. So what do you think that he does something and then God speaks?

I think it's comparable to what a person would do in modern day. Like, if you want an answer from the Lord or in other instances when people came and they were just desperate for an answer, they gathered together sometimes. They consecrated a fast, and they essentially just humbled themselves before the Lord and listened until he spoke. And David was considered a prophet. It makes sense that he's hearing directly from the Lord.

That's a great summary of it. So it seems like we don't know what's the technical method that he's employing, but in some ways, like, "God, I need to know what I should do in this situation." Have you ever said that out loud? Like, "Lord, what's going to happen here?" And then he gets an answer. Lord's like, "Yeah, do it." And then he's like, "Let's do this one more time because I don't know if that was really you."

Have you ever done that? There's this sense of the maybe. David asks the Lord, "Lord, should we do this?" And by some means God speaks. Then David tells his men, "We're going to go do it." And his men are like, "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Look at verse three:

But David's men said to him, "Here in Judah we're afraid. How much more? We're already in a bad place. If we go there, it's going to be even worse."

So David's like, "All right, I'll ask him again." They asked him again, "Do you really want me to do it?" The Lord says, "Yes." So they're like, "All right, let's go." And then they win. It's all David's faith, David's ability to speak to the Lord and hear from the Lord. It's completely validated in their victory. That's great. It's still weird, but it works.

Then it gets even weirder, because look at this. There's a hint here when it says in verse six:

Now Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had brought the ephod down with him when he fled to David at Achillah.

That's a very subtle little tip. Do you know what the ephod is? It's like a vest, a breastplate or vest thing, and they've got a bunch of jewels sewn into it. Back in the Pentateuch—if you're going through your Pentateuch with the Bible Project guys—you'll come across this: they made these garments for the priests with 12 jewels. And as far as we can tell, there's very little biblical information about this, but there was probably a pocket, and in it are two things. They call them the Urim and the Thummim. And nobody knows what they are. Probably rocks, maybe jewels, maybe sticks. And then they do something with these rocks or jewels or sticks, and thereby they discern God's answer to a question.

There are different theories—maybe they would glow in some answer, maybe it was like throwing dice, and if you rolled doubles then it's going to—we really don't know. If you want to see it, go to Numbers 27. Here's one place. Look at Numbers 27, verse 21:

He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the Lord. At his command, he and the entire community of the Israelites will go out, and at his command, they will come in.

So when the priest shows up with the ephod, they're like, "All right, great. We've got the decision rocks. Now we can really be confident." And then it works. This is a major phenomenon that's going to happen throughout the rest of this chapter. I want you to contrast David and Saul. Watch how often David and Saul both believe that the Lord is on their side. One of them is right and the other one is wrong. One of them is going to use the Lord's prescribed method for the priest to get discernment, to get answers, and the other one is basically just making stuff up. Both of these phenomena you're going to watch them happen as it plays out. This idea of seeking the Lord and wanting answers from Him is all over the chapter. Saul and David are both doing the same thing, but Saul gets it wrong.

David and Saul's Different Approaches

Let's see verse seven:

Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah, and he said, "God has handed him over to me, for David has imprisoned himself by entering a town with gates and bars."

Do you hear it? The Lord is on Saul's side, and the Lord has delivered David over. He's discerning data. He's pulling a message out of the event. Is he right? As far as you can be from the truth. But he thinks he's right.

In verse eight:

Saul calls up all of his forces for battle to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.

And in verse nine, watch what happens:

When David learned that Saul was plotting against him, he said to Abiathar the priest, "Bring the ephod."

How's that different from Saul? Saul is speaking to God and has his own mind about what God is doing. He never asks the question, "I wonder what the Lord is doing here." He already knows. Game on. Because God's on my side, He's going to kill David. It's a setup, and we're good. Do you see that? Whereas David is like, "I wonder."

What does the Lord want here? What would He say here? What should I do here? Do you see the difference? The presumption of an answer who happens to be wrong versus the humility of one who is curious and dependent and needy and willing to surrender. You're meant to see this contrast that Saul's got it all in his pocket, and David is like, I don't know. We're advocating for the humility of not knowing but seeking to learn over the arrogance of presuming that you've already got this in your pocket. Make sense?

Yeah, Kelly Sue? It's just really obvious when Saul calls the men, calls the tribes, and David calls the kid. That's right. Calmness, strength, or confidence. That's exactly right, Kelly. And that contrast very, very good. So you're learning as you read narrative, you see like, okay, when you see these parallels, you're seeing a comparison and contrast. Both men realize, oh, there's a potential battle up ahead. What do I do? And one yields to the Lord, and one relies on his strength or the strength of men. We want to learn to see those things.

Catherine? That's right. That's excellent, Catherine. Catherine is saying, seems like David is always doing this. He's always in a dialogue with the Lord. He's always leaning on the Lord. This is like "lean not on your own understanding." Saul is leaning on his own understanding. David is like, Man, I might get this wrong. Lord, what should I do? We perpetually see that. And Catherine, what Kelly had said was half of that, right, was that there's this contrast that David is doing that and Saul is doing something altogether different. That's kind of what we're watching to see.

David Seeks the Lord at Keilah

Alright, so check it out. So verse nine, bring the ephod, and then David says here's what he says when he goes and he gets that ephod.

O Lord, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord God of Israel, tell your servant.

And the Lord said, "He will." But David had asked two questions, not just one, and the Lord only answered one, so he repeats the former.

And David asked again, will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul? And the Lord said, they will.

So David and his men, about 600 in number, left Keilah, kept moving from place to place. And when Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he did not go there.

Alright, first question, think context, go back a chapter or two. Why would the men of Keilah surrender David to Saul?

To their own lives. To save their own lives, yes. Ellen? Well, they probably had heard about what Saul had done to the priests of God. Exactly right. That is okay, very good, Ellen. So when you read this, you've got to think, they just read in the paper that Saul showed up. He didn't just slaughter that one priest, but all the priests. And not just all the priests, but the whole town. So they're thinking, this could go very, very badly. It's a reasonable response that they make.

Notice, who else is thinking about the well-being of town, of Keilah? Do you know that, Robin? Well, because he wanted to he asked the Lord if they were going to hand him over. Thank you, Lord. No, you're right. And look at what he says. Look at verse 10.

David said, O Lord God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me.

Do you think that Nob is weighing on David? Like, he's already—do you remember what he said? He's like, That's on me. He's already got the blood of, I don't know, is it 80 priests? How many people in that town? Like, lots and lots and lots of people are dead because of David. And so David, who's fleeing for his life, he's not just thinking like, Man, are they going to hand me over and therefore I've got to flee for myself? That's a legitimate thing to think about. But he's also thinking, the city's going to die. It can't be the second time that an entire city gets wiped out because of me, and he's trying to figure out what to do. Can you imagine what it's like if you had 100 people or 300 people or 500 people are dead because somebody was chasing you? It weighs on him. And so he's like, We've got to get out of here. And the Lord tells him, They're going to give you over.

Right? And I think that you're exactly right, Ellen. They had heard about Nob. They knew what was going on, and David just didn't want to do it. So what does he do? What did he do in verse nine? Remember, is the driving theme of this chapter. What does he look at verse nine. What does David do? Ask the Lord. Say it again, Lynn. He asked the Lord. He does this whole thing—he casts the die, whatever the mechanism is, he does it. We don't know how it works, but he seeks the Lord. He's endlessly going to seek the Lord, and God gives him information to rescue him.

Meanwhile, what is silly, simple Saul thinking? Go back to verse seven. What is he thinking this whole time? He thinks God's with him. He's just like, "Oh, baby, right?" He's like, "It's good. He's in a trap. He's hooked up." And so you got David going through this wrestling with the Lord and seeking Him, and then you got Saul just like, "Game on." We're gonna watch this phenomena, this contrast, happen over and over and over again throughout this great big long hunt.

Saul, in his arrogance, thought he really—bless his heart—he thought this was a divinely engineered solution to turn David over to him, and nothing could be further from the truth. You have two men, both believing that God is on their side. One is assuming it wrongly, and the other is using the divinely prescribed method to seek his will.

Assuming God Is On Our Side

It's a little bit—have you guys ever gone to the Lincoln Memorial and read the second inaugural address? Lincoln's second inaugural address talks about how each side seeks the Lord's aid against the other. The prayers of both could not be answered. The prayers of neither had been answered fully. Right? That's our thing. It's so funny how we always assume—not that we are on the side of the Lord, but that the Lord is on our side. Sometimes we are on the wrong side of the thing. Right? It takes a bit of humility maybe to see that.

I'm thinking a lot lately about the difference that God's presence makes in terms of us being able to see the truth. I mean, over all these things, you have this beginning where the spirit of the Lord brushed upon him and then God took away his spirit from David. And I wonder if this is a part of what underlies whether they walk in blindness or walk seeking the Lord. I was thinking too about when Moses led people in the wilderness—God wanted the people to come to his presence, but Moses and Joshua essentially were the only ones who actually sought the Lord's presence, and they were the only ones who didn't actually—roughly—have that stubbornness and that blindness to their idols. And it's just interesting to me that you see the distinction in the leaders of God's people over and over again regarding who his presence rests upon and who seeks his presence, who's actually willing to pursue the Lord.

This is a great observation. There's a distinction. You see different characters that are really yielded to the Lord, that are seeking the Lord. His spirit rests on them, and then those that don't. And David and Saul—there's an idea of progressive revelation. God shows something up. There's something that you could have known if you were living in February C. But then today, if you're living in February D, we've had four thousand more years of God letting slip how things work. They didn't know everything early on. The situation is changing and more information is being revealed.

The New Covenant and the Holy Spirit

David and Saul lived in an era prior to what we would call the New Covenant. And one of the principal phenomena, the principal event of the New Covenant is the Holy Spirit. That's it. Okay? If you read two or three of the primary texts on New Covenants:

Jeremiah 31:31 and following Ezekiel 36:24 and following

And you go back to Deuteronomy 30, but it's a little bit more obscured there. But in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, the big event is that the time is coming when the Spirit of God will live in His people. It is the game changer.

If you're not sure that's what's going on, if that's the primary thing of Ezekiel 36, just wait for Ezekiel 37, because Ezekiel 37 is a double click back to chapter 36. You get all these dead bodies and the bones—the whole rattling bones and they come together, and then you go from heaven—a bunch of dead bodies, a bunch of bones scattered—to a bunch of dead bodies. And it's like big whoop, right? They're dead bodies until the breath, the Ruach, the spirit of God comes on and enlivens them.

What's happening in the new covenant—and you, by the way, live under the new covenant, that's now. The New Covenant was inaugurated when Jesus came—is that the Spirit of God comes to live in us. Everyone who is hidden in Christ is indwelt by his Spirit. Full stop. If you don't have the Spirit of God alive in you, you are not in him. That wasn't true in David and Saul's era. They were pre-New Covenant. That was before the great transformation, before the great gift had been given.

And so Saul was given the spirit at a moment in time and taken away. David was given the spirit but allowed to keep it. Right? There's a moment where God's like, "Know what, Saul? We're out of here. We're gone." Right? And that's why there's a psalm:

Take not your Holy Spirit from me

That psalm, I always kind of cringe when we sing it because he's not taking his Holy Spirit from you.

We live in a new era. It's not the same way that it was. But in that moment, in that time, for David and for Saul, they were living prior to the way that we live in it now. All believers have his Spirit. They're all indwelt by him. It does not follow that we are all filled by Him, that we're all yielded to Him, but we all have Him, and we all can be filled if we will simply yield. So David and Saul are setting up that reality, but they haven't experienced it the way that we have. Okay? So far so good?

DFB? David is described as a man after God's own heart. This is the working out effect. Yes. This is the legs of that description. David is pursuing what God wants. Can't quite say all the time, but frequently enough to warrant that moniker. Yeah. For sure. And it is this: he's the man after God's own heart is leaning in. He wants—I mean, he's going to lust and anger are going to shipwreck David. Okay? But that notwithstanding, he really wants to know. When his nature doesn't overcome him, he is yielded and trusts him at some pretty extreme steps. He's out there. Kat? Did David keep the Holy Spirit?

Yeah. Yes. There's no mention like where Saul loses the Spirit. There's no parallel to that in David's life. Even in some really catastrophic screw-ups in his life, he continues to be yielded. He yields to the Lord a little bit more like we do, up and down in some ways, but he continues to walk with the Lord his whole life even though he blows it pretty huge. Okay? So let's keep going. Let's watch a couple of things that happened in this.

Four Things About David's Response

Number one, we've set it up a bunch. He's depending on the Lord. He is reliant on the Lord. That is the bedrock of his life. David, just think about it. He is like a super tough guy military dude. He wins all of his battles, and you might think that a normal person would be like, "Well, I know what to do," because he's David. He wins all the time. But despite his victory, he's like, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" It's easy to be dependent when you feel weak, right? It's harder when you're like David, and yet he's dependent, right? That's good.

Second thing, the success that he experiences, I think, is a validation of his relationship with the Lord. He speaks to God, but God speaks back to him. There's something there of that intimacy that I think we want to note, that God is engaging with him. God is responding to him. He's validating him and verifying him, and that is highly appealing.

Third thing, this little narrative that you see going on between David and Saul—we're going to see it happen over and over again. Saul tries to have this relationship with the Lord, but he's never doing it right. He's never doing it for the right motives. He's never doing it for the Lord's glory, always for himself, and it aborts over and over and over again. And you kind of want to say, "Saul, stop it. You keep thinking that you are the Lord's anointed, but you're not. Right?" I mean, how do you not get this clue? But he doesn't.

And finally, this is the thing that I don't understand, but it really does demonstrate the effectiveness of this ephod. However it works, I don't know what they do with him, but he gets real, meaningful information out of it. And we're going to watch it keep happening. Okay, so in verse 13, what does he do? What's David's play in verse 13? They left. They leave. And why does he do it? To save the town. To save the town. It's a good answer. He's doing it to save the town. That's the thing that's going to drive David and get him going on.

And by the way, notice how many people when he leaves the town, how many people come with him? What's the number? About 600 people, okay? This is the second time that we're going to see reference to the size of David's crowd. This would be freakish if you remember this, but what was the previous number? Okay, you're freaks, good job. It used to be 400 back in the previous chapter, right? I think it's 1 Samuel 22:2, yeah. In 22:2 there were 400, now there's 600. Narrative authors rarely tell you what things mean, they just tell you what happened. But what does that mean? His popularity. He's gaining popularity. There's more that are coming. It's Braveheart. Remember in Braveheart, right, where you got all the rabble showing up, right, and they start making spears and they do all their thing, but then as it goes on, the legend grows and then the Irish show up. That crazy Irishman, My Island, that guy? Like, that's what you want to be thinking about. As David is out here hiding in the wilderness, he's moving from place to place, he's finding fortresses and refuges, more are coming. It's 50% growth since the last time we heard him. I almost fell off the stage. 50% growth!

You're supposed to realize, oh, okay, the scales are tipping. It's moving towards David. Make sense? Those little details are meant to tell you, oh, it's growing, it's improving. It's Braveheart. Kathryn? So that's a real contract. Absolutely. So to join David's band is rough living. I mean, constantly on the move. They're living in some refuge. It's dangerous, and yet they're drawn to be on that side. Right? Because there's something appealing about that.

Have you guys ever read about Ernest Shackleton? Some of you know. What does Shackleton do? He went to the South Pole or tried to. Right? So this is like early 1900s. Ernest Shackleton was a trans-Antarctic explorer, and in the era where going to the Poles was all the deal, the next step of the super tough guy play was he was gonna go to the South Pole and then keep going. Instead of like go there and come back, which is easier because you can drop supplies on the way, they're just gonna traverse the South Pole. He goes with this ship of men, and the ship gets impacted in ice and crushed and destroyed, and they walk home from the South Pole. And it is dragging boats. It is the best book that I—so you should write this down. You should read this. Okay? It's called Endurance, which was the name of the ship, by Alfred Lansing. Endurance by Alfred Lansing. And I may or may not be able to get this exactly right, but the story is that he posted an ad in a newspaper as he's trying to recruit the crew for this, and it was like, "Men wanted." I think it said, "Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey." Have you heard this thing? Do you know this little clip? "Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey. Constant darkness, endless danger, pain and misery every day, chance of success unlikely, but honor and recognition if we succeed." And he gets like 500 men that apply to come. Right? Because who doesn't want to be the best of the best? And you kind of get the sense that David is drawing to him people that are like, All right, let's dance. Let's do this. Catherine?

I'm gonna say, though, that a lot of times people see that God is with danger and they must not see that God is not with the other side. Oh yeah. And so sometimes to them that's kind of a security. For sure. That's right. It's gonna be dangerous but they think this is the side that's gonna win. It's kinda like, would you rather win a battle for a team who's gonna ultimately lose the war? Or would you rather lose a battle for the team that's gonna ultimately win the war? Right? They might die, but there's a perception of this thing is trending. The Lord is on David's side and not on Saul's. And so it grows, okay?

Now, something really fun happens. What's gonna be next? Do you know? Look at verse 14. This is cool.

David stayed in desert strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands. — 1 Samuel 23:14

That little line, "God did not give David into his hands." Remember earlier in the chapter, what is Saul thinking? "God gave David into my hands." Like, no, He didn't. He's not going to.

When David was at Horesh in the Desert of Ziph, he learned that Saul had come out to take his life, and Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. — 1 Samuel 23:15

What happened the last time we saw Jonathan? The arrow thing, right? Remember with this very emotive scene? And these two best friends are thinking, I'm never going to see you again. Right? Maybe really never going to see you again. And Jonathan is like, Man, you're gonna be king, it's going to be amazing, but they may never—this is it. This is the final moment. Seemed like that was the last farewell. This is the last time David and Jonathan are going to be together. And look at Jonathan, who is heir to the throne. It should be his. Look at what he does. Look at what he says.

Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. — 1 Samuel 23:16

What does that suggest about David's well-being at that moment? He was hurting. It's scary. He's moving. The Lord has answered. Have you ever been there? Like, the Lord has showed up, but you're still like, that was then, this is now. Every day is a new difficulty. And so David's afraid.

It's like Paul. When Paul is in Acts 18, he goes to Corinth, and the Lord shows up and says, "Keep on speaking. Do not be afraid. Do not be silent." Because Paul's afraid, and he doesn't want to keep speaking anymore, and he's tempted to grow silent. Right? God shows up in the point of fear. And Jonathan says, "Don't be afraid, because David's afraid. My father Saul will not lay a hand on you." Well, easy for you to say. He sure is gonna try, right?

But you will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this. Sometimes you just need to hear somebody say it out loud, right? You will be king. This difficult venture with all of the barriers—it will succeed. The Lord is in this, so stay in the game. It's gonna work. And the two of them made a covenant before the Lord, and then Jonathan went home and David remained at Horesh.

It's beautiful. Now, David's got to think about this. David was worried about what happened at Nob not happening again at Keilah, and he's got 600 people that are now depending on him. Any of you guys business owners? Anybody own a company? Do you think about your employees? When the economy goes bad, you thinking merely about yourself? You thinking about, "Man, if we have to do layoffs, that's going to be terrible"? He's got 600 people who might die if he doesn't do it.

So what's David's strategy here? This is practical military strategy. What's David's three-point strategy? What does he do? You can see it in the text. You've got 600 people, you've got to keep them safe, and Saul is trying to find you and kill you. What do you do? Keep moving, right? He moves from place to place. They're going to find these places where they can spread out. They're hiding in the desert. They're going to go out to these remote places. Hide and seek with 600 people? To go find that would be difficult, right? The bigger this thing gets, the harder it is to hide it. So they're out in the desert. And then the third thing you can see here, he's always going to choose the most defensible location because there could be a really big fight.

Off they go, and they hide. But Jonathan somehow finds them. I don't know how you get a message to him, but Jonathan finds him and encourages him because he's at a low point. You have Jonathan's in your life? Are you somebody's Jonathan? Has the Lord loved you and served you and met your deepest needs by bringing a friend in at the right moment at the right time? Have you ever been used like that? When somebody you saw—you perceived it, you saw what others didn't see, and you moved toward them, and you spoke life. We need Jonathan's. We need to be Jonathan's. Life is hard, right?

So we've got these guys. Then he keeps going. Look at verse 19.

The Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah, and they said, "Is not David hiding among the strongholds of Horesh on the hill of Hachilah south of Jeshimon?" — 1 Samuel 23:19

That's uncomfortably specific intel, right? Do you hear that? It's very precise. It's like, man, it's hard to hide 600 people. Now, "O king, come down whenever it pleases you to do so, and we will be responsible for handing him over to you." One of the commentaries I looked at says that the enthusiastic support that they offered was to virtually beg Saul to come down. These are the bad guys. They were like, "Hey, here's your chance to get into favor with the king." And that, by the way, is what Psalm 54 is all about. The event and this whole drama—Jonathan is there, but the thing that David writes a song about was these losers that sold them out.

Look at it. Go to Psalm 54. Even just look at the superscript for Psalm 54. This is what stuck in David's mind.

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A maskil of David. When the Ziphites had gone to Saul and said, "Is not David hiding among us?" — Psalm 54 (superscript)

Now you get this insight into David's emotional life. What's it like to be David right there at that moment? Here's what it's like to be David.

Save me, O God, by your name. Vindicate me by your might. Hear my prayer, O God. Listen to the words in my mouth. Strangers are attacking me. Ruthless men seek my life, men without regard for God. Surely God is my help. The Lord is the one who sustains me. Let evil recoil on those who slander me, and in your faithfulness destroy them. I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you. I will praise your name, O Lord, for it is good, for he has delivered me from all my troubles, and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes. — Psalm 54:1-7

This has that uncomfortable line in there. What kind of psalm is this? How do you categorize that? What is it called?

Imprecatory. What is the nature of an imprecatory psalm? Calling God's wrath. He says it right here. He's like, "Destroy them. Let evil recoil on those who slander me."

In your faithfulness, destroy them. But what is the secret to understanding the imprecatory Psalms? We talked about this. What is the thing you've got to remember about this? Why do the imprecatory Psalms not make us into bloodthirsty people, but into peace loving people? That's it. Right? David is not going to be the destroyer. This is why Saul is constantly just going after him, and David is never going to respond and cut off Saul's head. He says, Lord, you do it.

It is mine to avenge, I will repay.

The imprecatory Psalms give us space to say, Lord, you do it. I'm too wicked. I'll do it wrong. I'll spill too much blood. Lord, you do it. I cry out to you, be just, shut down my enemies. And if we believe that the Lord will do it, then we don't have to. But if we don't believe the Lord will do it, we sharpen our swords. Do you feel the difference there?

So what's being said is that when David is doing this, it's not merely protect me and it's not merely vindicate me, although he wants to be protected. He explicitly says vindicate me. But more than that, he's like, Lord, vindicate yourself. I'm doing this at your behest. I'm following you faithfully. Vindicate the goodness of your name. And we want to do that. But Saul can't say that because he's not on the Lord's side.

I think it also is the concept of justice and mercy. And you think it's one or the other, but it's both. God is always both. Maybe smite sometimes pretty hard, but it's not one or the other. That's a great point. So we tend to think either God is being just or God is being merciful. Well, God does not have the opportunity to deny anything that he is. He is all that he is all of the time. And so how can these things coincide? How can he find a way to be both just and merciful concurrently? Because he is all that he is. And we tend to think of those things as opposite. The Bible very often will represent them as being really two sides of his basic nature. He is all of these things.

Jesus is the solution and the justice. And that's where that great tension is that Jesus allows God to be—the way that Paul puts it is, both just and the one who justifies, mercifully justifies, those who have faith in Jesus. Both these things would be true.

The word lamentation, lament came to me during this because to bring it home today to me is, sometimes I like to tell God what to do. But it's like it's okay. It's okay to be yourself. Say how you feel. Talk to me. Come. Let's reason together. And so it doesn't make me guilty because I have those thoughts, but I always come around. We offer them to the Lord, let him sort it out. That's right. We can speak to him about anything. It's far better to share with him our disappointments than to go act on them because we can get it wrong.

The Rock of Parting

Look at verse 21 because you're going to see, we'll just kind of bring it full circle.

Saul replies to the Ziphites, "The Lord bless you for your concern for me."

It's the same thing. He just doesn't know that he's on the wrong side of this whole thing. He thinks the Lord is in this, the Lord is rewarding him, and he's just got it all wrong. He's missing the whole thing.

What we're supposed to see here in this, and we'll stop right here, is now David is going to be—it's all of this tension, and we're going to finally come around and watch. We'll just read this because I want you to catch the kind of the drama of it. This battle, whose side is the Lord on? Look at this.

Verse 26: Saul was going along one side of the mountain, and David and his men were on the other side, hurrying to get away from Saul. But as Saul and his forces were closing in on David and his men to capture them, it's almost over, it's right here, and he's gone. Verse 27: A messenger came to Saul saying, "Come quickly, the Philistines are raiding the land." And Saul broke off his pursuit of David and went to meet the Philistines.

And that's why they call this place this weird Hebrew name, which basically means the Promenade of Parting. The Rock of Parting. Right? Because this is where it's supposed to happen. At the very last second, God brings through some supernatural means, providentially a distraction from Saul. And that situation where it's finally over and David's a goner and everything is dead, once again, at the last second, God swoops in and rescues him.

Not because David was clever, not because of his hiding spots or his military strategy—none of it would have served him at all. Instead, God just shows up and says, "Nope," and redirects. And you're meant to think, "Man, Saul thinks the Lord is on his side, but he's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. The Lord is on David's side."

And I think we might look into our own lives. When am I like Saul? When do I wrongly interpret the world around me because I really haven't humbled myself to make sure that my purposes are aligned with his? Be mindful of that, and we'll pick it up next week.

Okay? Alright. See you.