The Philistines fight against Keilah. David could have refrained from intervening and could have left the trouble of helping them up to Saul, but such abstention is far from the thoughts of this man of faith. Here the rejected David becomes a savior to Israel. He stands in the breach, but not without having consulted the Lord. Abiathar had not yet come down with the ephod; David was still lacking this means ordained by God for consulting Him. The outward resources may be beyond reach but access to God will never be, for this is free and wide open to all. David speaks with God as with a friend. Full of condescension, the Lord answers and—strikingly—in a manner more intimate and more detailed than when David consults Him with the ephod. He fills the heart of His beloved one with confidence and assurance. Whatever his companions may say (1 Sam. 23:3), David, acting on the word of God does not allow their fears to stop him, and he fights for the people of Israel even though they are the tool of his worst enemy. So it is with our salvation through Christ, wrought for us in our condition of enmity toward Him.
We find this truth, already perceived in the history of Jonathan, here again: that the fight of faith is waged outside of man’s religious system which can only hinder it. On the rare occasions when he inquires of the Lord Saul does not receive an answer, or receives an answer by the lot which pronounces judgment on his entire behavior (1 Sam. 14:40). David without the outward aid of divine ordinances converses directly with his God.
From this point onward we see David hounded, pursued, and betrayed, hiding in caves, in forests, endangered in cities, seeking refuge in strongholds, wandering on the mountains, on the hills, living in the wilderness of Judah, in that of Ziph, of Maon, of Paran, having no place to rest his head.
He enters Keilah. Saul in his terrible blindness can say: “God has cast him off into mine hand,” although he had heard Samuel’s solemn word: “[Jehovah] hath also rejected thee from being king!” (1 Sam. 15:23). What hardening of heart! The persecutor of the “beloved one” believes that he knows God and has Him on his side, but he does not know the God of Israel any better than he knows himself. So, just as it says in Psalm 2:4: “He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision”; so the Word answers here with well-deserved irony: “God did not give him into his hand” (1 Sam. 23:14).
When the ephod is brought (1 Sam. 23:6), God answers by the ephod and David receives adequate direction. It is lovely to see him take on the character of a servant here. He, to whom the kingdom belonged, claims only the most humble place before God. “Jehovah, God of Israel, Thy servant hath heard for certain... will Saul come down, as Thy servant hath heard? Jehovah, God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell Thy servant” (1 Sam. 23:10-11). In this, is he not a lovely type of Christ who, knowing that the Father had placed all things in His hands, came not to be served but to serve God and His own?
In the wilderness of Ziph Jonathan comes to visit David (1 Sam. 23:16-18). On many an occasion Jonathan had proved, as we have seen, how dear David was to him. He had warned him of the danger that he was risking (1 Sam. 19:2), had spoken well of him to Saul (1 Sam. 19:4), had made a covenant with him, acknowledging his rights to the kingdom (1 Sam. 20:12-17), had borne shame and had suffered for him (1 Sam. 20:34); what then still remained for him to do? A visit to David to reassure him of his affection? No. In the life of a man of faith there always comes a critical moment when he must break his ties with the old system according to the flesh which, in actual fact, is in the hands of the enemy of God. God is going to judge this political and religious system. Today the situation is the same in Christendom as it once was in Saul’s world. That which is allied to the system will fall with it and will be involved, even if only outwardly, in its loss. Well as he loved David, Jonathan was walking in this old order of things, established around the king according to the flesh, that was going to disappear. What was there to do but leave it when it was raising hateful, direct opposition to the Lord’s anointed? He needed to break off with his father’s court, take his place with David, with those bankrupt men at Adullam, a humiliating position for a king’s son; he needed to stay at Ziph with David, in his thoughts taking not the next place to him (1 Sam. 23:17), but like Abigail the place of a servant of the servants of his lord. Alas! Jonathan had a position to maintain, and whereas David returns to the wood Jonathan goes to his house! (1 Sam. 23:18).
Yet nevertheless God grants him the lovely privilege of encouraging David in his pathway. Jonathan, it says, “strengthened his hand in God” (1 Sam. 23:16). And what is more, he brings David the prophetic word: “Fear not; for the hand of Saul my father will not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel,” but he adds: “and I shall be next to thee.” When it is a matter of himself he completely loses the prophetic view, and this corresponds very well to the mixed-up condition of his soul.
Keilah would have betrayed David; Ziph positively betrays him and takes part in Saul’s evil designs. There is the same hardening on part of the king, who uses the Lord’s name to cover his own iniquity. “Blessed be ye of Jehovah; for ye have compassion upon me!” (1 Sam. 23:21). And speaking of David he says: “It is told me that he deals very subtly” (1 Sam. 23:22). Subtly! when the Lord whom he consulted was warning him against his enemy’s ambushes! This phrase “very subtly” was a direct insult against the Lord though Saul was beyond being accountable for it!
This is where Psalm 54 comes in, composed “when the Ziphites came, and said to Saul, “Is not David hiding himself with us?” In contrast to Saul who invokes the name of Jehovah, David, rejected from the midst of the people, without any apparent link to Jehovah, calls on the name of God: “O God, by Thy name save me, and by Thy strength do me justice” (Psa. 54:1). What God is as God is the resource of his soul. “Strangers,” the Ziphites, had “risen up against” him, “the violent,” Saul and his bands, “[seeking] after [his] life”; and all the while they were invoking the name of the Lord “they [had] not set God before them” (Psa. 54:3). But this God whom they did not know was David’s helper (Psa. 54:4), and when his enemies would be destroyed and he himself be delivered from every distress, he would be the one to celebrate the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel whose relationship with His people would thus be re-established.
In the wilderness of Maon David is in dire distress, but man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. He directs the events and counts the hours, the minutes, the seconds. All our times are in His hand. At the very last moment a messenger comes to inform Saul of an attack of the Philistines (1 Sam. 23:27), and the king abandons his pursuit. This is how our God shows Himself to he superior to the difficulties that seem bound to swallow us up.
Psalm 63 is a magnificent example of the intimate experiences of David’s soul “when he was in the wilderness of Judah.” He considers it a desolate place, for he remembers the sanctuary where he had contemplated God; but if there is thirst it is thirst for God, and he desires that the power and the glory of the sanctuary accompany him in the wilderness and manifest themselves in his life here upon earth. The wilderness drives him to God and makes him desire that He manifest His character in the difficult circumstances through which he is passing. God answers his request by showing him his loving-kindness. His loving-kindness is His glory. David finds it to he more precious than life, preserved by the power of God from Saul’s ambushes. And this power will continue to sustain him: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”
The result of this knowledge of God in the wilderness is that David’s soul “followeth hard after [Him].” Thus, his heart is bound more intimately, more practically to his God through the experiences of this desolate place. As for Saul, he will “be given over to the power of the sword,” whereas the king, the Lord’s anointed, anticipates rejoicing in God on the day when every mouth will he stopped, a joy which he already is tasting in the wilderness (Psa. 63:5,7) so that his soul is satisfied.