David, Gun for Hire (A Blog Exclusive)

In the next few weeks, there will be a few Blog Exclusive pieces in our Early Jewish Monarchy series, which will tell parts of the story that we won't have time to focus on during Sunday worship. While the end of 1 Samuel tells the repetitive story of Saul's descent into overwhelming paranoia, it also tells how David cagily survives Saul's death-wish against him, through ever-more unbelievable means. While parts of 1 Samuel 21-30 are included what follows, 1 Samuel 27-30 is the focus.

As Saul becomes more persistent in his desire to have David killed, and even starts dispatching the Israelite army hither and yon for that expressed purpose, David goes to greater lengths to survive, fleeing from place to place, sometimes into lands beyond Israelite control. And Saul becomes ever more determined to track David down, to the extent that he even lashes out at David's perceived allies. In one particularly gruesome tale, Saul orders the deaths of all the priests of Nob, who are known to have hosted David for a time.

And Saul's own family is not spared. We learn that Michal, David's wife and the king's daughter, is given to another husband by her father -- obviously as a punishment against David. Jonathan appears very little in the story, which suggests that Saul is keeping his son on a very tight leash. It is fairly certain that Jonathan is not allowed to lead, or even accompany, the expeditions mounted to track down the fugitive David, even though we know that Jonathan himself was an honored general who had success in battling the Philistines.

Throughout this ordeal, David keeps one step ahead of Saul and his warriors and performs a delicate balancing act. He refuses to act out against Saul or any part of his army. Twice, quite dramatically, David will have the opportunity to kill Saul and he refuses to lay a hand on the king. This is again part of David's loyalty to the kingdom, even though the power of Israel has turned against him. As he becomes more of a fugitive, however, David is forced to ally with Israel's enemies, the Philistines.

This is the final resort of David. Saul's army has followed David into the wildernesses, so that these lands cannot provide a safe refuge. David evidently has approached certain wealthy Israelites, hoping that they might use their power to shelter him and his small army, but he is rejected. One story, an interaction between David and a wealthy Calebite named Nabal, dramatizes this rejection. Sensing the threat that David poses, Nabal rebuffs David's requests for assistance; the denial is so harsh that Nabal's wife Abigail intercedes with a peace offering, fearing that David and his men will take retribution on the household. Ironically, when Nabal learns of his wife's actions, he suffers a heart attack and dies. And David, man of honor and hopeless romantic that he is, marries the widow Abigail. (As we will see, David seems to have an eye for other men's wives.)

Seeing no other choice, David flees the land of Israel, settling near the city of Gath, hometown of Goliath and prominent Philistine city. When David first tried to approach the King of Gath, King Achish, he evidently got cold feet and pretended to have lost his mind while he was in Gath. The second time, David has no such qualms. He makes his presence known to King Achish and demands to live autonomously; the king grants his request and gives David control of the city of Ziklag (formerly an Israelite city that had been captured by the Philistines).

David's reputation as a great military leader is obvious in this negotiation. The Philistines are under no obligation to help David, who has led armies successfully against them time and again. In fact, one would expect them to try to capture and punish David. Evidently, David's personal army is powerful enough to prevent this and to demand that the Philistine king treat David respectfully. This implies that David had sufficient military power to take on Saul directly if he had desired; David refuses to act militarily against either the Israelite king or any other Israelites. This self-imposed restraint, along with the undeniable cunning that preserves David, are David's most notable traits in this part of the story. [Preachers and Biblical commentators usually take this to stress that David is showing great faith in God's promise to him given during his anointing by Samuel; while David is faithful, I think his actions show his own determination to prevent any claim that he is unfit for the Israelite throne. Lacking any contrary data (prophecies telling David which course he should take), it seems to me that David's faith would have justified his attacking Saul directly and taking the Israelite throne by force. But I digress.]

David has no reticence about attacking non-Israelites, and he uses Ziklag as a bandit refuge from which to launch raids against unsuspecting non-Israelite and non-Philistine tribes. Ruthlessly, David and his men attack, take everything that isn't nailed down, and kill everyone so there are no witnesses to reveal his identity. Ostensibly, David does this so that he can lie about his actions to both King Achish and, in the future, the Israelites. Even though he continues to attack only the enemies of Israel, David reports to the Philistine king that he is attacking Israelite settlements.

David is able to maintain this double-life until King Achish decides to launch another Philistine campaign against the Israelites and he demands Davids participation as a loyal Philistine subject. David has no choice but to accept the king's call; the king gives David and his men the prominent responsibility of being the king's bodyguard during the battle. This would remove David's men from the front lines, minimizing the chance for actual contact with the Israelites during the battle.

But of course, there is still the chance that David and his men would be forced to actually fight the Israelites. Unbelievably, David's overwhelming good luck holds and eliminates even this chance. Other Philistines learn of David's presence in the camp, and they demand that he be sent home as untrustworthy in the upcoming battle. Though King Achish vouches for David's loyalty three times -- the last swearing it by God, even -- David and his men are released from obligation and sent home.

The story would seem to have a happy ending, except that David finds that the Amalekites have raided Ziklag in his absence, captured much loot, and taken his wives and children prisoner. This leads to an attack instead by David and his grumbling men on the Amalekites. It is likely no coincidence that David must again face the group that Saul failed to annihilate, which led to him losing God's favor. David is successful and defeats the Amalekites.

In the aftermath of this victory, David makes overtures to attempt to reenter the land of Israel. He takes all that he captures from the Amalekites and sends it to the cities in the Southwestern part of the Israelite kingdom. This part of David's plan is nullified by a dramatic change brought on in the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines -- Saul and his sons are killed, which opens the way for David to claim the throne.

This then is the man after God's own heart. In his steadfast faith that he is called to be king, David preserves his claim to the throne. He becomes a fugitive to escape the king's wrath. He becomes a thief and an ancient bandit to support himself and his army; he lies over and over to his patron, King Achish the Philistine. He attempts to bribe his way back into the good graces of the Israelites. And, nostalgically, he becomes the symbol of all that once was good and right and hopeful in the land of Israel.