40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 21:1-15 (Episode 247)

Episode Date: December 27, 2020

David flees and makes a stop at a priest's house and through some clever and not so clever storytelling receives food and a notorious weapon from him. This is the very event Jesus will use later when accused of law-breaking by the Pharisees. Chad and Daniel discuss these things in this episode. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conferences 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, check out the events page. We've got events coming up in 2021. We've got one in Bentonville, Arkansas, April 16th and 17th. We want you to come check that thing out.

And then also the General Conference out there in San Diego, hopefully, in October. So you can register for both those events right now. Just go to the events page. You'll see them both there. Register for one or both of those events. Chad, Christmas has gone By the time this releases But not by the time we're recording it

Christmas has not yet arrived But we just want to say Because it will have come and gone At least the day of Christmas Not the season You know how some of these people are, Chad There are 12 days in Christmas And they don't start

Until Christmas Don't get it wrong And technically it's not Christmas We're in Advent when we're recording this I mean, so just make sure you keep everything straight. There's some calendar Nazis out there that will correct you. But they have to understand that we live in this world where we record things and then we release things. And so we have to just say, I hope everyone, including you, Chad, had a very Merry Christmas Day.

Yeah. We're always going back to the future. That's right. It's the way we live in the podcast world. That's right. That's right. Also, if you didn't check out, since you will be still on the Christmas season, if you didn't check out the Christmas special, which we did drop,

that did release, where Chad and I and Eric Sorensen were joined up by the guys from Theocast, and we talked a little bit about the Incarnation. Make sure you check that out, even if it's after Christmas. It's still relevant. The Incarnation is one of those things that is kind of always relevant. Yeah, that was a fun conversation. Those guys are great. Yeah, it's good times.

So, anyway, back to it. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Chad, we are in 1 Samuel chapter 21. Yeah, not a very Christmassy text or Advent text, but it's pretty interesting. We got some New Testament, clear, very clear, explicit New Testament connections here. In fact, in three of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all bring this particular scenario up. so we we left off with that very long chapter chapter 20 where we have the the final break i guess you could say like no possible chance of any kind of reconciliation between david and saul

there's a breakdown between saul and his son jonathan as well they exchange some pretty heated words saul lobs some really nasty insults at his son and then it all finishes up that chapter all finishes up with David and Jonathan meeting, and Jonathan goes back to the city, back to kind of the abysmal situation that he finds himself with his dad. And then David, we will find out in this next chapter, is on the run. So he's going to first head to a place that's not very far away. It's called Nob, or Nov in Hebrew. It says that David came to this place to Ahimelech, the priest. so this is this is evidently uh we're never kind of told this directly but kind of patching things together from we know from both first samuel as well as jeremiah evidently what happened was where

the tabernacle had been located was was destroyed in some of the wars between the philistines and the israelites the tabernacle was then moved to this particular place not just the tabernacle The Ark of the Covenant is not there. The Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle that was built to house it have been separated for some time and will continue to be separated for quite a while. So it's kind of a strange period in Israel's history where you have tabernacle one place, Ark of the Covenant someplace else. But anyway, this is where this is the new site of the sanctuary of God. And Ahimelech is the priest. He comes trembling to meet David.

kind of interesting tie in here that verb for trembling that hebrew verb for trembling is also used back in chapter 16 that is the story of when samuel went to bethlehem to anoint david as the replacement king and it says that when samuel arrived in the city the men of the city came out trembling to meet him same verb that's used here so it's it's uh there's some parallels between these two these two particular situations of course the trembling itself of course indicates fear now the people of bethlehem were afraid because there was this you know bad blood between samuel and saul and samuel the prophet showing up was probably not a good omen for them at least that's what they surmised now when ahimelech sees david showing up he probably

he's thinking the same thing you know he's maybe heard about the problems between david and saul and now david shows up he's all alone he's unarmed he's him like i'm assuming i'm thinking is probably saying in his head this doesn't look good because it looks like david is now a refugee from saul yeah i mean it seems to me like this would be if say you're a man of the cloth and uh here comes this guy that the most powerful guy in your land uh is after and you know this um because i am assuming that he knows this right yeah i'm sure word got around and and then he shows up uh at your place well this is a tough situation because i you probably are going to feel like you are duty bound to help this person if they need it since you haven't probably

heard of any legitimate accusations of you know of crimes or sins or anything and so yeah this is a little bit of a of a situation you didn't want you're like oh here's this guy he's all by himself i'm gonna about his guy's gonna ask me to help him and then i'm gonna be then i'm like how is saul gonna feel about that when he finds that out probably not great yeah as we'll find out the next chapter yeah yeah not great at all yeah very bad i mean we will find out this trembling is sort of uh warranted yeah yeah he uh it was like his emotions knew more than his facts would allow at that point uh the trembling was yeah it was very warranted we'll we'll discover that once saul finds out about uh this exchange between david and ahimelech now the good thing is well

Well, first of all, he asked him a question. So he comes trembling and he says two questions. Number one, why are you alone? And then he kind of repeats it. And no one with you. So why are you alone? Why is no one with you? So that is really what is causing his greatest concern.

Or that, in other words, is what he sees that makes him think to himself, uh-oh, this isn't good. Why is David all by himself? it's the thing that makes him think this guy's on the run because apparently david's not the kind of guy that is by himself that much i mean he is after all uh the the commander of armies and so it's probably rare for him to show up somewhere far away from where he should be this is not a place that he probably frequents uh all by himself so this is this is has the look as a look of someone on the run right yeah so uh the good thing is david is a david is is a is quick on his feet he's a smart guy it's very obvious and he's also as it were looking out for

him like because he gives him a plausible deniability in this particular situation so he he tells him this he says well here's what here's what's happened the king has commissioned me with this thing, this matter. He said to me, don't let anyone know about this matter that I'm sending you on and with which I have commissioned you. And then David adds, I've also directed the young man to a certain place. In other words, I look like I'm alone, but there's other guys with me. They're in such and such a place. So I'm going to meet up with them later. So in other words, the reason I'm here by myself is because I sent the other guys, I'm meeting up with them elsewhere. and secondly i'm i have this urgent matter that the king has sent me on and i have to attend to

it and i can't i can't tell you anything about it so the good thing is what with the hamilek he's like whether he fully believes this or not he does have plausible deniability you know if something happens he can always say well all i know is what david told me so i assume that it had no reason to not believe that what he said was true and then david says what do you have on hand what kind of food do you have on hand he said give me five loaves of bread or whatever whatever can be found so i need i'm on this urgent mission and i need some provisions to to take with me now this is this is why uh right here is where i think that i don't think i don't think he believes david but he's happy to not push it any further so that he has this deniable plausibility because if someone's

like i'm on this top secret mission uh from the president uh do you have any food this i mean this is a like a little bit of a giveaway that like okay uh that's weird man that you would be like you're totally meeting up with these other guys uh can't tell you about this matter at hand but i'm meeting up with them also do you have any canned goods or anything lying around it's a little bit of a giveaway that like really like so you you're on this top secret mission and you have zero preparations like the king didn't like send you with like bread really yeah yeah not not david's best acting it'll get better the next next part of the chapter well it's i mean he it is what it is i think david is is fairly dependent on like hey i'm gonna give you this out yeah and you could

just and you could just like take it just take that out man just take just just believe just choose to believe me and that way if you if you don't ask any more questions it will it you could just be like well i don't know this is what he told me just trying to help out your servant david yeah that's it now this this is also kind of strange too okay so we're at the we're at the sanctuary i'm assuming that the priest at least some of the priests actually live at this place right i mean it's it there's people there all the time so if you live in some place you know i gotta i got a kitchen right behind me it's full of food because i live it's my house so but the priest doesn't say sure you know come over to my tent or come to my house uh we'll get you what you need

he makes it sound like the only thing they have the only food that they have is the bread of the presence yeah it's like someone's show someone's you go to your pastor's house and you're like get any food uh i'm on a mission he's like all i've got is like communion bread and wine that's all i've got and you're like what that's weird man yeah that's all you have do you eat out all the time or what yeah but that's what he that's what he says he's like uh no uh the priest tells david well i don't have any like ordinary bread here but i do have the consecrated bread i've got the holy bread if only the young men have kept themselves from women so we know from deuteronomy we know from Exodus, we know from Leviticus, a lot of different texts, that when you have a

military camp, when you have God's military camp, that there are certain kind of requirements with regard to cleanliness, ritual cleanliness, and one of those is to refrain from sexual intercourse. So it's not only in that military camp, but in other instances as well, when people are to prepare themselves for a holy occasion, one of the things they do is they refrain from sex. so the priest is not just going to make this up he's like yeah i mean i we've got the bread of the presence we have this this holy bread actually most holy bread because it's a rank above in sanctity we have that and the implication is i can give this to you but your men that you've told me are waiting for you they have to have kept themselves from women so they have to be

in other words ritually pure now listen if you have an imaginary friend uh this imaginary friend can be as sanctified as you want them to be. This is a benefit to David. David's like, David will be able to say, oh these young men that are with me, oh yeah they've definitely not been with any women because they don't exist.

true enough definitely, there's no one this is one of those things where you can say, oh there's no one with me that has been fooling around with any women. True enough. Yep, yep. And not lie one bit. yeah so uh david is a little over the top when he answers he's like oh yes i mean they uh women

have been kept from us uh this time just as previously you know when i set out the vessels of the young men were holy and that was like in the past that was just an ordinary journey but today then yes they are they are very holy everything is sacred about us everything that you need not worry one bit about any ritual uncleanness being found among the men who are waiting for me. So I mean, it's, I guess, you know, on the surface, that's true. So the priest agrees. The priest gave him consecrated bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the presence, which was removed from before the Lord in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away so if you uh if you don't remember just a quick

quick reviews inside the holy place of the tabernacle and then later inside the holy place of the temple on the right hand side when you entered was the table of the bread of the presence and what they would do is they would take 12 loaves of unleavened bread and put those on the table and then since they were in the presence of the lord literally in the face of the lord because he was right in the next room in the holy of holies it was called the bread of literally the bread of the face uh the bread of the the presence it's usually translated the old king james had show bread bread of the presence bread of the face and it was considered not just holy but it was considered most holy and things that were most holy would communicate holiness so there

were of course levels of sanctity in the tabernacle and most holy was the holiest something could be and because the bread was most holy when the priest would consume it every sabbath and then replace it with 12 more loaves this bread of god's presence communicated sanctity or holiness to the priest so it was wasn't just holy in and of itself it was most holy meaning it conveyed holiness to those who consumed it which um and but all that's talked about back in back in exodus so that's what is kind of in the background here when he talks about taking the loaves out putting more loaves in so i'm assuming that what happened here was they had the loaves of bread on the table maybe it was a sabbath maybe it's the time to change them out so they took those out ordinarily that

bread would be consumed by the priest in this case it's given to david for david to consume and for his friends uh and then it was replaced by by 12 more now we'll kind of wrap up this and we'll we need to talk about the new testament connection there now verse seven seems like this is one of those just thrown in there right just thrown in there yeah like oh it's like oh and oh by the way or something in parentheses oh yeah by the way uh what are the servants of saul was there that day yeah it's sort of this sort of this comment thrown in there that i think immediately you know probably why this is thrown in there it does seem like a weird spot to throw it in there but you're like this seems to be going all right and then there's verse seven pops in

there and you're like oh no that's yeah and the fact that he's called a servant of saul not not a good sign in a way this guy's name is i always like to think of him as dog his name is doe egg but you know d-o-e-g because he really is he's just like he's one of the worst one of the worst characters in Scripture, and there are a lot of bad characters in the Bible. But this guy, at least in my personal ranking, is just about top guy, top dog for just being just almost as bad as it gets. And we'll find out why in the next chapter. But his name is Doeg, and he is an Edomite. Now, Edom, you'll remember, is the nation that's named after Esau, So they didn't call them Esauites, they called them Edomites.

And there is a long, centuries-long antagonism between Israel and Edom. They're really brothers. I mean, they're related just about as close as two nations can be related. But there's this long antagonism between the Israelites and the Edomites. It begins way back when Israel was trying to move from Egypt to the Promised Land, and the Edomites refused them entry through their land. And then there's antagonism later on in Israel's history, and you finally get the prophets, the minor prophets, especially just lambast Edom. You have psalms that are written against the Edomites. So there is a lot of bad blood between Israelites and Edomites.

Now, this guy, I'm wondering if he might possibly be one of these kind of foreign mercenaries that's been hired, because that did happen in Israel. And so maybe Saul is employing people like Doeg. He's the chief of Saul's shepherds, it says. So maybe he hired him because he was the kind of guy that you hire to oversee other people and possibly a mercenary on top of it. We find out in the next chapter, he certainly had mercenary experience. tendencies, a willingness to engage in those kind of acts. Anyway, wrap up this section, then we'll go to the New Testament. David says to Ahimelech,

Is there a spear or sword on hand? Because I didn't bring my sword or my weapons with me, because the king's matter was urgent. Yeah, so again, I'm on top. A guy shows up at your house. i'm on a urgent matter from the president uh i have no food and do you have any guns like i mean come on man yeah yeah my my credulity here is being stretched to its limits do you have any weapons around here uh i mean i had to leave like really in a hurry

yeah i'm thinking david shows up he's like out of breath he's been sweating he's been running and then yeah no wallet no keys no phone no money no food no weapons just the clothes on his back the priest he's still playing along with this game he's like oh yeah you want a gun yeah i got like a i got a 50 caliber in here i don't i've got i've got i've got a cannon uh in the back yeah Don't you like the canon? Also known as the sword of Goliath, the Philistine. And then as if he needs reminding, you know, the guy you killed? The guy you killed in the Valley of Elah?

It goes into this long description. It's not just a sword, it's the sword of Goliath, you know, the Philistine. You know, the guy that you killed in the Valley of Elah. Look, it's wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would like to take it for yourself, well, take it. for there is no other excepted here. And it's four words in Hebrew. David's real brief.

He's real succinct. He's like, oh, there's none like that. Give it to me. Now, this is odd on so many different levels. What in the world is the sword of Goliath doing inside the tabernacle wrapped up behind the ephod? That's some strange stuff there.

I don't know when it got there, but it did. anyway that's the uh yeah that's a weapon that is that he uh that he takes yeah that's it's very strange that just oh yeah sort of goliath just hanging out here like that's that's super weird well and the fact that this is you know this is not going i can't see this really doing david much good i mean really to take the the canon example that you gave oh yeah yeah you need a need a gun oh i got this cannon well this sword has got to be immense we remember how how large the the weaponry of goliath was so i can't imagine that his sword was going to be something you could

easily use in in combat no i mean yeah it's literally probably the like that david's saying hey you gotta you know do you have you gotta you got a handgun he's like i got this mortar you know and you're like well i mean i guess i guess that's all you got it's gonna be kind of a pain to tote around but i guess i guess i'll take it i'll take yeah so anyway uh david shows up with nothing empty-handed and he leaves with 12 loaves of consecrated bread and the sword of goliath so he is ready to go now this story shows up as i mentioned earlier in all three of the synoptics it's in matthew 12 it's in mark 2 and it's in luke chapter chapter 6 so uh what happens i'll let you take it from there dan you know it's new testament oh yeah yeah do you even know this

story um well i've heard i've heard rumors yeah rumors of it yeah yeah no this is that this happens when uh when jesus and the disciples are wandering around as they are want to do and they're plucking heads of grain and grinding them up in their hands and then eating them and harvesting yeah which by the way sounds horrible oh this is not not not something that doesn't you got to be actually pretty hungry to pull this move because i've chewed on like heads of wheat yeah man it's not a pleasant it's not a pleasant experience i realize that you can make bread out of that but it's not good and it's raw in its raw form but uh jesus and his disciples they're doing this and uh and and the the pharisees well they think that they've got jesus dead to rights uh for

for breaking the law because we're doing this on the Sabbath and this is just forbidden. And when they try to peg Jesus for this saying, ah, we got you sinner. There it is. This is the story that Jesus brings up. He says, oh yeah, well, let me, let me ask you a question. When David went in there, started lying to the priest and then got the bread of the presence, which is not meant for him. They took that. Where's the sin? Was it wrong for him to do it? Now, the priests or the Pharisees, as usual, don't have an answer for this because they're not exactly sure. Because in a Pharisee mind, the letter of the law is really all that matters. What the law is trying to do or accomplish or even say is sort of irrelevant. It's just a matter of have you

kept the letter of it? Have you looked at it word for word? And have you not done or done whatever it's telling you not to do or commanding you to do? That's all that matters. What it's actually trying to get you to do or to keep you from doing is sort of irrelevant. And so you see in the life of Jesus, Jesus do things that—now, some people won't like this, Chad—but Jesus does things that, by the letter of the law, are unlawful. But as the one who wrote the law, he knows have nothing to do with what the law is trying to communicate. So this one, people will try to oh well technically you can do this because of this or that or the other thing but by the letter of the law like the way that they had it he's not really supposed to be doing this he's

walking probably further than he's supposed to walk he's he's you know he's making food i guess by grinding up these heads technically he's making food not supposed to do that there's other instances though i mean one of the ones that you just can't wrestle out of in any way shape or form is Jesus all the time makes himself unclean. I mean, he touches lepers like it's no big deal. That's what I was going to say, yeah. He literally touches that which is unclean on purpose. And you do that, and if you do that,

there's a whole process that you have to go through. Jesus never goes through this process. And the reason he doesn't is because Jesus is like, yo, just check it out, I don't get leprosy. I just don't. Like, because I choose not to get leprosy, so therefore I don't get it. I'm going to go absorb leprosy later on,

but I'm not going to get leprosy by touching these guys. In fact, I'm going to heal them. And so this is a story that Jesus uses to show, and what you have to take from it is that even though David is sewing, what they used to call it, I don't know if you've heard this before, Chad, this is kind of a Southern thing, sewing a yarn here. this is a this is a big i have heard that yeah yes yeah this is this is a big this is what they call a whopper all right this is quite the quite the story uh like this fish is a little bit bigger

than what david actually caught even though he's doing that even though technically he's not supposed to have this bread jesus does seem to imply that when the when the pharisees interrogate him, that David isn't actually breaking any laws here, that he's not breaking anything that the law was given to prevent you from doing. He's not actually engaged in any of that. Yeah. And I wonder, too, just kind of looking at that particular narrative from 1 Samuel in the broader context of David's story, too, if maybe part of what's going on here is it's almost an elevation of David to a higher level still, too. I mean, we've talked about Saul offering sacrifices, which, again, was technically not supposed to happen. Now, David is getting

something from the priest that he technically is not supposed to have. And then later, of course, he will be highly involved in all sorts of priestly kind of matters, everything from gathering all sorts of materials to be used for the construction of the temple. He moves the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, all these kind of priestly type things. And if almost subtly in this story is an indication of, I wouldn't say that David's a priest, but that David is priestly to an extent. Yeah, well, it's almost like Jesus is using this and saying, you know, David, he's a little bit different than other guys he's not he's not he's not exactly like everybody else

and and you know this well you understand this well guess what i'm not exactly like everyone else right uh like david uh but even more so like i'm a little bit different than everyone else right it so happens that you know in this case i'm god i don't need i don't need instruction in the law uh i i know what it means and yeah that's kind of what i was thinking maybe it's uh So it's subtle both in the Old and New Testament, but the indication is there's something very priestly about David, and by implication, there's something very priestly about Christ as well. You know, it's one of those stories in the Gospels where—you don't see this often, but it's one of those stories in the Gospels where the priestly character of Jesus is strongly hinted at. Yeah, well, I think, too, I think that people kind of assume that the Pharisees and the religious leaders don't actually believe that Jesus is a sinner. They're trying to figure out a way to make him appear like a sinner.

I don't think that's exactly right. I think that they very much think he's a sinner. They think he's a heretic, first of all, and that they do actually believe that these things are the things that they can say, aha. Now, they think he's clever. They think he's pretty smart. They think he can wiggle his way out of stuff. They know that, man, if you get in a dialogue with this guy, you better be ready to go. Like, he's quick, right?

But I don't think that they believe, like, oh, this guy is actually sinless walking around, so we're going to have to manufacture some sin. Of course, they do eventually bring people out to give false testimony. But even that is they're bringing out these people to give false testimony because I do believe that they actually believe that this person is not just a sinner, but incredibly dangerous, a lawbreaker extraordinaire. I mean, they don't think that Jesus has any regard for the law. Yeah, I think they're sincere in that respect.

They sincerely believe that he is, as you say, a heretic, that he is a sinner, that he's extremely dangerous to basically everything that they stand for. I mean, so yeah, they do engage in some very disingenuous acts, such as bringing false witnesses and those sorts of things. But at the same time, there is a sincerity in their belief that he is in fact a sinner and is dangerous to the people of Israel. So anyway, that's the New Testament connection there, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Kind of a, it's an interesting story that Jesus chose to bring up. I mean, it was fitting, of course. I think the fact that he chose that particular example was also strongly suggestive of the fact that he is the new son of David.

That he, as he says in Matthew, that he is Lord of the Sabbath. So someone definitely greater than David was there. David did this. well, I'm going to do something even more extraordinary in my ministry. Yeah. Okay. So we go from the, well, I don't know what we're going. I was going to say from the sublime to the strange, the awkward, the weird.

But that's what we're moving into next. This is another David scenario. This is verses 10 through 15. Yeah, he chooses an interesting place to go to with Goliath's sword. Yeah, I was thinking that this morning when I was going through here. I mean, he marches into the Philistine city of Gath. That's Goliath's hometown, carrying Goliath's sword. I mean, that's, you certainly can never say of David, he's a coward.

No. He's quite the opposite of that. But yeah, he leaves there, and he goes, he fled that day from Saul, and he goes to Achish, or Achish, however you want to say his name. I guess in English we'd say Achish, king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, isn't this David, the king of the land? Now that's fascinating. So they referred to David as the king of the land. so this is a case where the gentiles have it actually more correct than most of the israelites

do they they know about david's prowess in battle they know about his all of his his fame or from their perspective infamy and so they say well this this guy's you know he's the king i know we talk about saul but hey you know saul has slain his thousands but david has tens of thousands which is exactly what they quote next yeah this is what i'm gonna say like this is uh they're they sort of ascribe this this kingness uh to david uh and it seems that it's partially based on this this like song that they've heard being sung which is saw has struck down his thousands and david is tens of thousands they're like well obviously david's gotta be king that's that's the guy yeah and who are they and who are they always engaging with i mean it is not saw

that's going out there and kicking their butt on the week-to-week basis. No, it's David. I mean, so they're like, they're not that worried about Saul. But David is, I mean, you've got to remember, David has killed a lot of Philistines at this point, not just Goliath. I mean, he got killed 200 of them and took their foreskins off. I mean, they know who this guy is, which adds to the craziness of David just marching there all by himself.

Yeah, I do not get this. I guess he thought that he could somehow slip in and no one would know who he was. Well, it didn't work. So they quote the song. David hears about this. This is he took these words to heart and greatly feared the king. Well, yeah, he should. So what does he do?

Well, he didn't just run away. He didn't try and hide. He didn't stand up and resent some sort of eloquent defense of himself or come up with some other yarn like he did earlier. He engages in what I think is one of the most crazy and humorous acts of deceit that we have in the entirety of the scriptures. He acts like he's insane. He disguised his sanity before them, acted insanely in their hands,

and here's how he did it. He said he was scribbling on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down into into his beard so david doesn't mean quite the actor here i mean he's good he's he's going all out this guy was you know should have been in theater uh well there's two there's two things about this this tells me two things one that as as much as david is going to be afraid of this king apparently he's less afraid of this king than he is a saw like so he's He's like, maybe I have a shot at not being killed by this guy. I have no shot at not being killed by Saul, so Saul's going to kill me.

So that really tells you how horrible Saul's behavior is. Two, all these pictures of David with no beard are just wrong. I mean, every picture you see of David, every drawing, every painting, every statue, this dude's got no beard. But apparently, he's got a beard that spit can run down. Yeah, apparently he does. yeah like basically every israelite back yeah so i'm just saying like let's just remove the beardless date maybe maybe when he went out there against goliath when he was younger maybe he didn't have a beard going on but by by the time by this time apparently he's got a beard he does yeah

good point so he's uh he's acting the part he's doing he's doing good in fact uh david did so well that he actually made the philistines believe so it says he said to the servants or the king said to his servants look this guy is acting like a madman why did you bring him to me i love the last verse he's like do i lack madmen that you have brought one more this brought this man and madman into my presence shall this one come into my house so the king is like look look guys we got enough madmen around here already i don't i don't know why you're bringing me one more we were like we have like surpassed our quota so i don't need another madman get this guy out of here this is this is like a great response right i mean do i am i do i have a deficiency of crazy

people in my life is that was is that why you brought this guy no i do not let's get this guy out of here just get out of here yeah it gives you a little glimpse into this king's personality right it does it does yeah he's kind of a funny guy anyway well the bruise works david uh david gets out of there he's fine and then uh what what i find this this whole account even though it's just a few verses i just find fascinating uh there's there are two psalms psalm 34 and psalm 56 that arose out of this incident. So evidently, it made such an impression on David that he decided that he would not just write one song, he would write two songs about this. So if you look at the heading of Psalm 34 and the heading of Psalm 56, both of them indicate that this particular

incident was that which prompted David to write the words of those psalms. By the way, if you look, you'll notice that the king referred to at the heading of those psalms is Abimelech and not Achish that we have here. Abimelech is a title. We have Abimelech as the title of Philistine kings all the way back in Genesis 20 and 26. So evidently it just was like a throne name, if you will. Abimelech means my father is king. So don't think there's a contradiction there. Abimelech, just a throw a name for akish but anyway check out those psalms 34 and 56 and see how david responds to this this particular situation i like to say psalm 34 is an acrostic so an abc an alphabet psalm so extremely organized you know everything is laid out with great concern for for precision for

organization and so i like to say that you know to contrast those two so the one out of a situation where David pretends to be mad and insane comes a highly organized, highly structured psalm. So a madman teaches us how to pray. He teaches us that, you know, there's a benefit to having psalms like Psalm 34. We have an organized, very clearly laid out psalm that gives some structure in an otherwise kind of crazy, crazy world. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, all right. Well, that is uh that is chapter 21 so uh we'll be back next week for chapter 22 chad i'll see you then all right we'll see you then