40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 26:13-27:7 (Episode 253)

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

David and Saul speak for the last time. Grace is found in some unlikely words from David's lips. God isn't in all places in the same way. And David decides to relocate. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Northwest Arkansas 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to 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 1517 produces. And while you're over at 1517.org, make sure you go and click on the events page and register for that. Here we still stay in regional event in northwest Arkansas. Registrations are rolling in, Chad. People are signing up.

Seems like they got that bug to get around some other people, maybe hear the gospel, which I guarantee you will hear because the theme of the conference is, check it out, a gospel conference. My buddy, Scott Davis, who is a pastor and a magician, so just the two greatest things that you could possibly be, he is going to be doing the devotions because Chad's doing some actual speaking. So a lot of times I know people love the early bird devotions, but Chad can't do devotions and give plenary talks. So Scott Davis is coming, and he's going to be doing the devotions.

And I was talking with him, and he texted me and said, Hey, I was just thinking about this devotion for the conference. is there anything you want me to cover, you know, theme-wise? I said, well, it's going to be a little bit difficult for you, because the theme is the gospel. And he said, oh, okay, I think I can come up with something. Yeah, he's like, I think I can come up with something then. So, you know, when we were theming it out, I just felt like this year, after 2020, it's time for some good news, and I don't know of any better news, Chad, than the gospel. Let's just talk about Jesus at a conference. That's a good idea.

Yeah, let's just talk about who he is, what he did, who he did it for. That's you. Am I supposed to be talking about the gospel in the Old Testament? Something like that, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. I guess I should probably read a few books just to brush up on that. Yeah, read a couple of your own books. Get all

brushed up. But yeah, guys, register for that. It's only $65 for a two-day event. It's going to be a good time, cool area. It's the area that I choose to live in, so you know that it must be great because why would I make that decision if it wasn't? It's not as though I haven't had people trying to coax me to move to different areas of the country and i and i don't do it

because i like where i live so you should come hang out come hang out with chad and me and eric and loso and jared c wilson and scott davis and gretchen ronovic uh andy gullihorn is going to be doing a concert there if you don't know who that is you're really missing out he is fantastic uh there's a link in the show notes as well you can click on that get registered no matter you know we got a great little airport here too you can fly in here from anywhere so uh even if you're not in the tri-state area as it were but you want to come anyway come on and come hang out all right chad we left david uh stealing a spear from the side of right that was stuck in the ground next to saul's head and saying i'm gonna take your water jug too and everyone's asleep and he has

him and his guy have escaped with these things and that's just where we left it he's got some of Saul's belongings in his possession. Yeah, we kind of left everybody hanging there wondering what was going to happen next. It's been quite the scene so far. I mean, it's like in some ways the account we covered a few episodes ago where Saul was in the cave relieving himself, but this is different. As I pointed out last time, David is going on the initiative at this point. He sends out his own spies. He finds out where Saul's at. He waits until he has the cover of darkness. And he and one of his closest buddies, who's a nephew of his, they have snuck down into the camp. And so we'll see what happens at this point. I don't remember if I pointed this out last time,

but when it says that, it doesn't just say they were asleep, but it says a sound sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them, or a deep sleep as the ESV translates it. Interestingly, and forgive me if I'm repeating myself from last time, this is the same Hebrew word that is used in Genesis chapter 2 and then in Genesis 15 to describe the deep sleep that God put Adam in and the deep sleep that Abraham fell into right before he had that vision. So God puts those two guys and then he puts all the camp of Saul into this tardemah, the Hebrew word for that deep or sound sleep. So as you read through these stories, sometimes it could seem as if this is just kind of one action described after another action, these series of actions in this narrative.

And sometimes it's almost as if God isn't there, or if he is there, he's just being spoken of as objectively described, like, you know, God is with us or God is going to reward me or something like that. This is one of these few occasions in this narrative where we have a description of how God is actively helping out David in this particular situation by putting a deep sleep on the camp of Saul. So picking it up with verse 13, 1 Samuel 26, 13, it says that David crossed over to the other side and he stood on top of a hill with a great space between them. So he's put a little distance between himself and the camp before he starts to call out to the camp and wake everyone up and deliver this speech that he has prepared on the spot, as it were. So David called to the people and it says specifically to Abner, the son of Nair, who, of course, is Saul's uncle and his top man in the military. So he begins by addressing Abner.

He says, will you not answer Abner? And then Abner, I'm assuming just kind of waking up and not really knowing what's going on, says, who are you who calls to the king? And David then answers him, are you not a man? And who is like you in Israel? So he starts out kind of like, as it were, complimenting Abner. Like, you're, you know, you're, nobody's like you in Israel. You're a soldier like no other. but then he he switches as soon as he gives him a compliment as it were he goes on the attack he

says why then have you not guarded your lord the king for one of the people came to destroy the king your lord this thing that you have done is not good as the lord lives all of you must surely die because you did not guard your lord the your master the lord's anointed and now see where the king's spear is and the jug of water that was at his head so this is david uh i guess you could say trash talking abner he's pointing out to him that he he might be a good soldier but he failed miserably at his duty in fact he he failed so miserably that yeah saul is out here looking for me but truth be told if there's anybody who needs to be put to death it's actually you because you fell asleep when you should have been on duty taking care of taking care of the king

yeah this this is almost like he calls out you know who are who are you that calls the king and david david's response is like well you're a big strong guy aren't you look at you you're just a man among men too bad you're gonna have to be put to death for being so sleepy yeah yeah he's really rubbing at abner's face uh we're typical david i mean david is never lacking for words he uh as we've seen before he's he can deliver a speech when he what he wants to so at this point in the in this back and forth saul takes over so saul recognizes david's voice as he did earlier in the case of the cave and he says is this your voice my son david again that's the same kind of language we saw last time he doesn't refer to david as the son of jesse

and he only so he not only refers to him by name but he calls him my son so repeat there from the two stories and david affirms yes it is my voice my lord the king it's interesting always to note in these exchanges too how david even though david is the lord's anointed even though david knows good or well that he's going to be the next king saul's replacement he never does not call Saul the king. So he acknowledges that he is, in fact, the Lord, the king, the anointed one of God. And that's, of course, the reason why he will not do anything to harm him. So even though David is king, is the Lord's chosen, he also is acknowledging that the Lord at an earlier point chose Saul. So he is not going to do him any harm.

It's interesting how Saul's language changes every time that his life has been in jeopardy. It's almost like he realizes that he easily could have just been dead, and all of a sudden the way that he speaks is, David, my son, my dearest son-in-law, is that you? It's a quick transformation. Yeah, it is. Amazing how when you realize you could have been dead, that changes your perspective quite rapidly. even though as we've seen with Saul

he'll change his perspective and then you flip the page in the Bible and he's out there pursuing David again so he is he waffles back and forth on his commitment to do David no harm then David continues after

saying yes it's me he said why then is my Lord pursuing his servant what have I done what evil is in my hand so he's claiming innocence, just like he's done before. Now, therefore, please let my Lord, the King, listen to the words of his servant. If the Lord has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering. But if it is men, cursed are they before the Lord, for they have driven me out today that I

should have no attachment with the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go serve other gods. Now, then, do not let my blood fall to the ground away from the presence of the Lord. For the King of Israel has come out to search for a single flea, just as one hunts for a partridge in the mountains. So this is pretty fascinating, actually. The assumption that David seems to be putting forward here is that by men turning Saul against him, that's kind of the way that David is framing this. They are forcing David away from the Holy Land, so that if he's away from the Holy Land, he's going to be forced to serve other gods. Yeah, or even, it makes it seem like people have maybe told him, maybe you should go serve another god, because it doesn't seem like serving this god

is going to happen for you, and you're overly devoted. We saw when David went to the Philistines of stuff now obviously david has a reputation with the philistines and they might not love him but the philistines uh are a different kind of people and it it would not be surprising if david came in and said look the king is person is after me he's betrayed me uh i'm converting uh that the philistines probably wouldn't mind having a david uh they they seem like fairly pragmatic right that they would be okay uh you can come fight for us yeah yeah in fact we'll see that uh in in the next chapter that that is the route that david takes yeah so i mean you got to always keep in mind when you're basically when you're in any part of the old testament that the view of the view of

israel at least from the perspective of all the peoples around them would have been extremely narrow because if you went to live with the philistines if you went to live with the amalekites or with the egyptians or whoever i mean back then every all of the religions were pretty open they were fine with you adding other deities to their pantheon we saw that in the case of the the exile of the ark in the early chapters of first samuel where the philistines were just basically going to take the ark of yahweh and they were going to put it in the temple of their god dagon not really in any sense in which they were rejecting it but they were trying to add it more or less hey look you know we can we can add to the number of deities that that we worship

We'll just tack on Yahweh right alongside of Dagon. And this was not unusual at all. This happened not only in this particular time period, but much later with the Greeks and the Romans. The Greeks would go in and they would, you know, they'd be fine with adding the gods of those that they conquered to the ones that they worship. They were pretty open about all this. Then you go to the Israelites and you find the exact opposite extreme. one God, and not only one God to be worshipped, but one God, period. So it wasn't just what's called monolatry. Monolatry is when you worship one God, that's the mono part, but you don't deny

the existence of others. Now, this is monolatry and monotheism in Israel. So belief in one God and worship of one God to the purposeful exclusion of all other deities. Yeah, it's one thing to have a God that you worship. It's another thing to have a God that you worship while simultaneously saying that everyone around you, their gods aren't gods. Yeah, yeah. That's a little more insulting. It's very insulting. And to add even more insult to that, we find, we certainly find this in the New Testament. We've already seen it in Deuteronomy as well. Not only do the Israelites believe that these non-Israelite deities are not deities, but that they are the mask of demonic forces. So it's like, we're not only going to insult you, but we're going to double down on

that insult. We're going to say, not only is your God, we'll say Dagon, not only is Dagon not a real deity actually he's nothing more than the mask of a dark demonic force so that puts a very different spin on our understanding of idolatry in the old testament and of course when you get to the books of like first corinthians paul says the same thing right those who offer their sacrifices to the pagan gods offer them to demons so i mean and it when you kind of step back and think about it it makes perfect sense what better what better uh disguise for dark and sinister forces in the world than religion we'll see this when elijah goes against you know the prophets of baal and this kind of thing where uh there is one one group uh or one man elijah who does not believe the pop the the

baal has any power whatsoever right uh this is not the same for the prophets of baal that they're in a god showdown uh they're not they're not there to say that elijah's god isn't real they're just they're just there's there's the competition is which god is more powerful uh elijah says well there's a there's just not a competition because there's only one god showing up to the fight because your god is not a god and we see and we see what kind of insult this is yeah and so yeah i mean the philistines are much like that in the sense that when they captured the ark they had fought with the israelites they knew what they knew what was up with the ark they they absolutely believe that the god of israel is a god this is not up for debate this is not up for debate for

them at all they're like of course of course yahweh is they just reject the idea that he's the only god right right yeah and another kind of twist getting back to the specifics of this verse is just how rooted the presence of the lord is to the soil of israel so in verse 20 he says don't let my this is david speaking don't let my blood fall to the ground away from the presence of the lord so there is this definitely this sense in the old testament to where of course god is the god of heaven and earth but he has specifically chosen to anchor his presence to the holy land that's why it's called the holy land all of the the soil as it were outside of the land of israel is not holy because that is not where god has chosen to be now we could you know we could go

to the Psalms, for instance, to talk about God being present with people in the midst of their exiles. And that is certainly true. But what David seemed to be accenting here is that, listen, the covenant land of Israel, that real estate is what God has chosen to be the inheritance of his people. And now if you're driving me away from that, you're really driving me away from the presence of the Lord himself. And that's why exile is always considered to be not just kind of a vacation from the Holy Land. We're going to go travel and experience the world. Exile is death, basically. I mean, it can be followed by resurrection, but exile is in itself a kind of death, and so you're always wanting to return to the land. Yeah, this is sort of

David acknowledging what a lot of Christians need to acknowledge, which is that God is everywhere. he is not everywhere in the same way yes david knows this david knows that god is everywhere i mean he says like no matter where i go you are he does not believe that god is everywhere in the same way doing the same thing for the same reason right so christians today will would say something like well you know don't need the church to be a christian i mean god is everywhere you can pray in your house or in your yard, and that's true, right? Certainly God is in those places, but he is not in those places, he is not promised to be in those places doing a particular thing, and this is the difference. I think it's Ambrose who says, I think I've said this before, that

God is everywhere, like water is everywhere, so it's in the very air that we breathe. There's water everywhere, but if I need a drink, I go to a well, and so water is not everywhere in the same way. Yeah, I do think that's probably, if not the most, at least one of the top three misconceptions that I encounter quite a bit in the church today. There is this idea that, well let me rephrase it is the omni-presence of god reassuring yeah i mean it's good to know that wherever i am like psalm 139 says yeah if i ascend to heaven you are there if i make my bed and chill you are there if you get imprisoned you don't you know that you're not alone this is good right yeah it's always it's always good to know that wherever we are there god is with us however

you have to add to that the fact that when you want to directly receive the gifts of god in christ then he has given those in very specific places very specific sorts of sorts of things and that's why we go to his table that's why we go to his word that's why we go to baptism to these very specific kinds of places where god has promised not just to kind of be in an omnipresent sort of way but in a very specific gift giving sort of sort of way yeah when jesus says where two or more are gathered uh this this does push back against the wherever you go there i am uh which is true but he what he is saying that even within the fellowship of two believers even just two uh the assembly of two saints that he is he is in the midst of them in a different way

mm-hmm yeah and we know i think we know this like i mean if i'm it is not the same for me to if i'm just sitting around my house by myself reading my bible that's great and uh and certainly the spirit is there and that's that's wonderful it's not the same as if you and i chad or you and i and a couple other people get together and start talking about the scriptures this is different It's very different, yeah. You see that all over the Old Testament with the admonition to talk about the Scriptures when you're with others, and of course you see it just basically built into the whole communal life of Israel, as well as the Church.

That's why we do this podcast with two people. We didn't start it with one guy, because we wanted to make sure the Lord was present with us. if it was just me or just Chad we have no promise that the Lord is among us but because it's a two man operation we know that it's actually a three person operation it's me, Chad

and God that's right okay I think that's all we have on that speech I'll add this kind of as a little Hebrew tidbit when

verse 14 when abner says who are you who calls to the king so the verb there is kara and then you jump down to the very end of this very end of this back and forth and david says that he is being hunted as one hunt say partridge in the mountains kind of a strange metaphor to use but the word for partridge is a pun off of call. So to call is kara, and a partridge is a kore. So it seems as if David is making a pun on Abner's

response to him. It also seems like this is a double thing going on here. One where he says like a flea, a partridge. Yes, he's saying these are insignificant things, right? So why would you be hunting these things? But also, difficult to find things.

So you could tell someone like hey why are you searching for a for a flea amongst the land one that's ridiculous because a flea is insignificant two you will never find him right yeah i think i think david may be doing both of these things like you're not gonna find me you're not gonna get me also why are you why are you so obsessed with getting what am i who am i yeah why are you wasting your time yeah he did improve the metaphor last time he called himself a dead dog so this time he calls himself a partridge So it's a little bit better way of referring to yourself. Maybe he's realized that dead dogs can't escape.

So he's like, you know what? I do a lot of escaping. So I'm like a bird. Better change my metaphor. Okay, so David is finished with his speech. What's Saul going to say? Saul starts out with a confession. The very first words out of his mouth are, I have sinned,

which is very much like a couple of other confessions. It's very much, first of all, like Pharaoh says. And later on in the plagues, in Exodus chapter 9, verse 27, Pharaoh is driven to the point where he himself confesses that he has sinned. And it's not only like that, but when you get to 2 Samuel chapter 12, this is after the prophet confronts David with his own sin of concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. Then David also says, I have sinned. It's a pretty common confession that you have in the scriptures. Return, my son David, he says, for I will not harm you again, because my life was precious in your sight this day. Behold, I have played the fool and have committed a serious error.

That's quite a confession on Saul's part. Especially if he's saying this in front of all his men, which you assume he is. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's in the middle of the camp. He's shouting at you, I assume. Right. He's surrounded by all these men who have followed him to search for this flea in the mountains. Yeah, so for him to humble himself, almost humiliate himself in the presence of his men

by this kind of confession, you can imagine how they're just kind of glancing back and forth to each other like, who are we following that would do something like this? Then David is not quite finished because he needs to point out something. He says, look, the spear of the king. Now let one of the young men come over and take it. So he points out that he could have killed Saul, but he chose not to. And then he says, the Lord will repay each man for his righteousness and for his faithfulness. For the Lord has delivered you into my hand today, but I refuse to stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed.

Now look, as your life was, literally, as your life was great in my eyes. Other translations will say precious or highly valued, but it's literally, as your life was great in my eyes, so may my life be great in the sight of the Lord, and may he deliver me from all distress. So basically, Saul, I mean, David is saying that I have acted with righteousness, I've acted with faithfulness, which is true. With regard to Saul, he certainly has on multiple occasions, and he's testifying that in the end, the Lord will not only deliver him from all of these dangers that he faces, but also will give him that which he's already promised him. Yeah, I kind of like this, too, that David says, just as I have viewed your life as precious, great, valuable—which, by the way, David has

little reason to view like saul's life that way what is it in in and of saul that would cause david to say this life is is precious this life is great but nothing like saul's been horrible uh to david he's uh he's a madman uh he's sinned against david terribly and david so david says just as i your life has looked like that in my eyes i hope that my life looks like that in the lord's eyes yeah he doesn't say in your eye in saul's eyes right no no no in the lord's eyes which this is nice because what you would like is that god would look at he's asking that he's hoping that god looks at him the way that he looks at saul and the way that he looks at saul is like this horrific sinner horrible person who he will not destroy though and he said that'd be nice if

God looked at me that way, too. Let's hope that this is the case. It'd be nice if God looked at all of us the way that David looked at Saul, knowing what a wretched person this is, but restraining himself from destroying you. This is a good thing to ask God to do.

That's some gospel in the Old Testament right there. There it is. Yeah, and to add to that, specifically because why does David look at him this way? Because he's the Lord's anointed. Well, yeah, he looks at him this way because of what God has said about him,

like, declared about him, right? So, yeah, this is a little gospel nugget here where David says, hey, it's not that I'm going to ask you to look at me that way. I hope that God looks at me that way because David knows he's a sinner too, right? And so if God could look at me the way that I just looked at you, I'll be okay.

Yeah, yeah. That's some of that grace just pouring out of unexpected places like that. okay verse 25 that's the last verse in the chapter and this is not only the last word in the uh last verse in the chapter this is the last thing that Saul will ever say to David so these are his his concluding words and it's quite a it's quite a way in which to end their strange relationship that they've had all the way from when he was Saul's musician to when he fought Goliath and now leading through all these twists and turns up to this point. This is the last words that Saul will say to David. And don't you feel like these words are just more of, is Saul among the

prophets? This almost sounds like a prophetic statement. Saul says something that actually will come to pass. And Saul is an unlikely mouthpiece. I don't know if Saul has ever shaken whatever prophetic thing he had going on. Yeah, I fully agree. I mean, it's pretty undeniable that it is prophetic because this is exactly what will come to pass. So he begins with a word of blessing. So Saul says to David, blessed be you, Baruch, blessed be you, my son david so he repeats not only his name which of course for a long time he wouldn't do he'd just call him jesse's son and he calls him once more his ben his son blessed be you my son david now here's the english translation this is esv you will do many things and will succeed in them

that's esv let me read you the new american standard you will both accomplish much and surely prevail now what's going on the hebrew here is something that we encounter on a fairly regular basis so when hebrew really wants to emphasize something what it will do is it will repeat the verb in a little bit different grammatical form each time it's what's called the infinitive absolute so it'll take the verb and basically double the verb so here what we To translate it somewhat literally, it'd be something like, you will doingly do, and you will succeedingly succeed, something along those lines. So you won't just do things and be successful.

You will, as it says, you will do great things or many things, and you won't just succeed, but you won't just be able to do them, but you will do them extremely successfully. now i just realized this i love it when i when i when i learned something completely new and i did this morning getting ready for this so i knew these were the last words that saul speaks to david so i went back and went through chapter 16 and 17 read through that whole narrative again and i found the very first recorded words very first recorded words that saul spoke to david to compare these two well it turns out that there's a a parallel between these two so let me read you the this is first samuel 17 33 this is the first recorded words that saul says to david

and this is after david volunteers to fight goliath saul says to him you are not able to go against this philistine now the verb that he uses there is the exact same verb that he uses here in chapter 26, verse 25, when he says that you will do many things and will succeed in them. So yakal is the verb. And this is Saul basically beginning his relationship with David saying, you can't do that. You're not going to be successful. And then now you get to the very end. He not only says you're going to be successful, but you are actually going to do remarkably well in what you set out to do. And that's his closing words. Chapter ends with David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place.

Yeah, so Saul's first words to David are, you can't win. His last words to David is, you're going to do a lot of winning. Yes, that's precisely right. Yeah, but I love the way that those bookends start out with this skepticism. There's no way you're going to be able to fight against this giant and win. Well, David does that almost without breaking a sweat. And then after all this, finally, Saul is, it's as he were, he understands David. He's like, yeah, yeah, you're not able.

You're going to do, you're going to do extremely, extremely well. And that's the last, last time that Saul and David will have any conversation. Okay. So we have a few minutes left. Let's jump into the next chapter, which is pretty short. Actually, it's only 12. It's only 12 verses. One of the shorter chapters in first Samuel, but it's a really weird chapter.

It's really weird only because this is a highly, highly risky move on the part of David. What he's going to do is he is basically going to say, you know what? I can't get anything done in the borders of the land of Israel. In fact, it's extremely dangerous for me because even though Saul just said this to me, we all know that Saul goes back on his word. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go and live with the Philistines. yeah there it is which i mean we could think we could think of a lot of modern examples where a parallel would would be established uh i mean think of a future leader of the modern state of israel besides that you know the best thing to him for him to do would be to go and

live with in one of the the arab nations that are the enemies of israel and then come back later uh it's a it's kind of an odd it's it's an odd move on david's part highly risky but he does it and no surprise it works for david here's what he here's what he says to himself literally in his heart this is the first recorded inner monologue that david that david has so he's thinking in in his heart in his head he says now i will perish one day by the hand of saul there's nothing better for me to do than to escape into the land of the philistines saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of israel and i will escape from his hand so he's just complained about men driving him away from the land of yahweh and here he

voluntarily decides he's going to exile himself instead of being instead of being driven away quite literally by the forces of Saul, he's going to remove himself from the danger. Now, if you're going to do this, Chad, there is one thing that you definitely have to do, and that's you have to make it appear that you're defecting, that you are down for fighting against the enemies of the Philistines. Of course, David will do that. He will say that this is what he is down for doing yeah i mean he's got a of course a very sizable group of soldiers he's got the 600 soldiers but i'm assuming that with these soldiers well not only assuming we know from from later chapters these guys a lot of these guys have their families with them so we're not just talking about

600 men we're talking about in the thousands when you count up wives potentially multiple wives and and kids so david gets up he crosses over his 600 soldiers and he goes to our old friend akish the son of maok the king of gath so this is the same guy when david went when david had to flee there at one point and then he had to pretend he was a madman scratching the walls saliva on his beard in order to escape this is the same guy and this by the way is the same hometown of goliath which just makes him a stranger. Do you have to assume that David—well, I'm sure the Philistines hate David. David is as much of a celebrity as someone can be at that point, I would think.

I would think so, too. So they might hate him, but he's got to be Israel famous, but he's got to be Philistine famous. Oh, sure. Yeah, probably from the moment he killed Goliath, than david was a household name in all the cities of the philistines and he's i mean he's he's not only well known but uh he's probably respected yeah that's kind of what i mean like i'm sure they don't like him but there probably is this there's a respect there and and a respect that's enough that if you come in and say look my my home country's turned his back on me how about i how about i join up with you when you have like the level of fame that i assume he does this is like

an intriguing thing too i mean like you've lost a lot of battles to this guy it's be maybe like all right why don't you uh let's see let's see if we can work something out right yeah and the philistine leader uh if he's a wise leader he's gonna realize that the politically wise move here would be to say oh yeah yeah we'll we'll take you i mean you you fought against us but we know that you're a great warrior so if you're willing to fight on our side yeah yeah 600 guys come on over you got yeah you got 600 guys with you uh we know what you can do so sure we'd rather you be fighting with us than against us so that's what happens david moves in with all his men with akish and they have their household and he has his at least two wives so far right now they're

listed there uh i know him and abigail that we met a couple chapters ago and then it works verse four says that that saul finds out and so he no longer searched for david so what david wanted to happen did happen he was finally not forced to basically live the life of a uh of a man on the run out in the wilderness so he's living there in the city of city of gath but he doesn't really want to stay there for more than one reason he wants a little freedom he wants some independence so so he says to the king one day that if i found favor in your eyes then give me my own place let me have a one of your cities out in the country so i can live there yeah this is a bold move he's not just asking for hey can i get a house like he's giving him like a sit like a town right

now i assume david's gonna take all his men and they can mean my men are gonna live in this town still it's a bold move i mean just to say i mean he couches it in this i mean why should your servant dwell in royalty you know like i shouldn't be living in the royal city with you just you know give me a town outside and i'll just live out there and uh and he does yeah he's like sure In fact, I got just the place for you. It's a place called Ziklag, and you can basically have it. And we have a little editorial note here that says, Ziklag has thus belonged to the kings of Judah to this day.

So it didn't before, and from that point on, it did. So David takes all his men, they move there, and David is going to be in the country of the Philistines, living in Ziklag for 16 months, a year and four months, which is how how verse seven ends now we'll find out in the next episode that david is not just kind of kicking back and drinking wine under his under his fig tree and enjoying his uh the companionship of his two wives and making more children he's actually got a plan he's got a master plan in mind that involves raiding parties and increasing his wealth and making sure that uh

dead men tell no tales so making sure that he leaves everybody uh dead yeah this might inform on him as we as we talked earlier like going into the land of the philistines and saying hey uh i've been driven out maybe i could live here be with you guys join up that's kind of risky but as we talked about it before it seems like that was that's something you could do um that there weren't they weren't uh david's fame and notoriety might afford him the opportunity to do that the super risky thing is the plan uh which which you need which you need your own spot and you need to be kind of like have uh have your guys around you and what what he's going to do in this 16 months is incredibly dangerous yeah one one mistake one person gets away and it's all over

yeah for for david yeah so highly highly risky move which we will uh we'll get to next time yeah So next week we will find out what the master plan of David is amongst the Philistines and how it works out. Chad, I'll see you next week. All right. See you then. Thank you.