1 Samuel 20:35-21:9.
Jonathan, as he had promised, went with a young lad into the field where David was hiding. Then he shot three arrows as though he shot at a mark, and told the lad to run and find them. He had planned this beforand with David. If the arrows went beyond him, David would know that evil was determined from the hand of Saul. After this Jonathan sent the young lad away while he went to where David was. Then they kissed each other and wept until David eeeded. David then went his way to be hunted “as a partridge upon the mountains” by Saul, while Jonathan made his sad decision. He chose the easy path in the court of his father, king Saul, where he knew David was hated, rather than the path of trial and hardship with David, God’s rightful king.
What is going to be your choice, dear young believer? What you may think is an easy path may not be the one the Lord has marked out for you in His Word. May God grant that you will be led to follow a rejected Christ here, for one thing we know, as some one has said, “There are joys in the path of faith known only to those who walk in it.” Jonathan missed all this, for he never lived to see David crowned as king, nor was he among David’s mighty men. It was those who shared the hardships of the cave of Adullam, where David was forced to hide, who were reckoned among David’s mighty men in his day of power. And so God has said, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” 2 Timothy 2:12.
David then fled to Ahimelech the priest at Nob and asked bread from him. The priest told David and his men that he had nothing there but the show-bread, so David took this, for they were hungry and faint. David, as we have noticed, was God’s rightful king, but he was rejected, and so all God’s ordances lost their value because the one whom God had chosen was in exile. The same thing was true when the Lord Jesus was here. His disciples could pluck the ears of corn and eat them on the sabbath, when the nation was rejecting Him, the One who was Lord of the sabbath. (Mark 2:23-28.)
Doeg, the Edomite, was there in the house of the Lord with Ahimelech, and he was the servant of Saul. How this shows the condition of things in Israel, for the Edomites were enemies of God’s people, and were not to be received into the congregation of the Lord until the third generation (Deut. 23:8). Everything was in disorder.
After eating of the showbread with his followers, David then asked Ahimech for a sword and he gave him the sword of the slain giant Goliath. How beautifully all this typifies our association with the blessed Lord Jesus in His victory. Satan’s power through death has been defeated, like David’s triumph over Goliath, and now we trmph in Christ’s victory. Death may overtake us, but its sting is gone. It is now ours, like David with Goliath’s sword, for should we be called upon to pass through it, it only takes us out of this sad world to be “with Christ which is far better.” If we should be alive when the Lord Jesus comes, we will not have to pass through death at all. Goliath’s sword (Satan’s power through death) is now in the hands of our David—the Lord Jesus Christ.
His be “the Victor’s name,”
Who fought the fight alone;
Triumphant saints no honor claim,
His conquest was their own.
ML 11/14/1954