1 Samuel 23 - Introduction

SECTION 4 B. David Occupies His Men, Acts As A Deliverer In Israel, And Avoids Saul (1 Samuel 23:1).

David and his men were now outlaws and every man's hand was at least theoretically against them. They lived in constant fear of being hunted down and trapped by Saul's army. We are given little detail of how they survived day to day, for although the forests would be full of game, four hundred hungry men would take a lot of feeding. But it would seem clear that David prevented his men from wreaking havoc on the people of Israel and Judah as they might so easily have done. He did not want to be seen as a bandit chief, and he knew that these were YHWH's people. Thus amidst all his trials David kept true to God, and was being prepared for what lay ahead.

On the other hand you cannot be in charge of four fighting units (‘hundreds') and do nothing. They had to be kept satisfied. So David apparently kept his eyes open for ways of using them and keeping them in trim, without causing offence to their own people. Some of the ways in which he did this will now be described. They could probably be multiplied, but these particular examples were selected out because they aroused the attention of Saul.

For at the same time we will see how Saul continued mercilessly to hunt them down, even though they did only good and made no attempts against him, and this would continue until at length they had to flee the country. In this way Saul forfeited some of Israel's best fighting men. And he not only did that but he drove out of Israel the saviour of Israel, the one on whom was the Spirit (1 Samuel 16:13). If only Saul had been willing to trust David what a different ending he might have had. But his obsession with kingship thrust all other thoughts from his mind.

Some of us similarly need to ask ourselves what the obsession is that drives our Saviour from our lives so that He cannot operate through us as He would. The question is do we live to please God as David did, or do we live solely to our own advantage?

Analysis of Subsection 4B.