1 Samuel Lesson 32
David humbled in human viewpoint – 21:1-9
We have two questions from the feedback cards that have to do with the 1
Samuel series. One is: please explain
about lying, the lying of Jonathan to his father Saul sounds like situation
ethics. Was Rahab the harlot right when
she lied about spies or when David acted crazy; how do you judge? When I went through Rahab I held that she was
wrong, but since going through more of these Old Testament books I think that
lying on occasion is justified. And I
also think from the study of Proverbs that bribery on certain occasions is
justified. Both these are allowed, and
in fact in some situations almost seem to be commanded on the part of a
believer; this does sound like situation ethics until you realize that in every
one of these they have a common thread, and the common thread is that the
believer is faced with an unjust government.
Example: Eglon [Judges
So we do have isolated cases in Scripture where lying and bribery are
justified but they are justified only under very extreme conditions and those
extreme conditions seem to be when an unjust government is there. In fact, even parts of the Sermon on the
Mount imply an abrogation of usual moral practices, and this is usually held by
most people to be the most moral portion of Scripture. And yet when Jesus says, agree with thine
adversary, quickly, while thou art in the way with him, if you read it in the
context, he’s saying agree to any charge whatever, just hurry up and get
through the process so you can go on.
Normally this would not be tolerated, it certainly is not tolerated in
the millennial kingdom, why is it tolerated during these other time periods of
history? Because under the present
dispensations it appears that when unjust government reigns it is not God’s
will to remove that unjust government at this time, therefore since God is not
going to remove the unjust government the believer is free to deceive the
unjust government. Therefore, we would
commend the believers behind the iron curtain to deceive and to bribe their way
for survival in a communist land; this would be perfectly legitimate. The Christians in
Second question: In hearing you
teach the 1 Samuel series you have pointed out a fact which is hard for me to
understand completely. How do you know
that major and minor men and women in the Old Testament who were Jews were
believers in Jesus Christ as Savior, especially such men as David, Moses and
Abraham. How can you be sure that they
did not believe, as many Jews do today, just in the God of the Old Testament? Also, how many or percent of people in
This goes back to how people are saved in various dispensations. Now I
realize that the word “dispensation” is a curse word in some circles. And the reason is because dispensationalists
have not been careful to point out that people, regardless of the age, or the
dispensation in history, are saved exactly the same way; there are no five or
six or seven different ways in which people are saved from age to age, it’s
always the same one. Dr. Ryrie at Dallas
Seminary once did a chart which explains it very well. If you diagram how people were saved in the
Old Testament versus how they are saved in the New Testament, and you break it
down into four elements.
The basis of salvation both in the Old Testament and New Testament is
the cross of Christ, “without the shedding of blood there is no remissions of
sins,” and the book of Hebrews tells us that the Old Testament blood didn’t
remove sins. Therefore, the completed
work of Christ on the cross is the only basis for salvation whatever, for any
man or woman who has ever lived or who ever will live. No one ever attains the presence of God
without referring to the finished work of Jesus Christ. So that’s the basis of salvation.
Then the agent of salvation in both Old Testament and New Testament is
the Second Personality of the Trinity.
In the Old Testament it is the angel of Jehovah, or the angel of the
covenant, the malak berith, the angel
of the covenant, who is none other than Jesus Christ, as we can determine by
comparing Malachi with the New Testament Gospels. So the agent is the same.
The means of appropriation for salvation is always the same, it’s by
faith, because Abraham believed and we believe; in fact, New Testament
salvation is patterned after Old Testament salvation. From where did Paul get his argument that you
are justified by faith? Did he make it
up? Or did he get it out of the Old
Testament? He got it out of the Old
Testament. What part of the Old
Testament? Abraham. So therefore New
Testament salvation is patterned after Old Testament salvation and saved the
same way.
Now there is one difference and that is in the content of what you
believe: in the content yes, there was a difference between the Old Testament
and the New Testament. In the Old
Testament all they knew was that God was going to do something, and they
trusted that God would remove their sins.
So in the Old Testament it was very, very much partial, it’s dubious
that any Old Testament saint knew all the details of the cross of Jesus
Christ. David came close but if David
was sitting there in front of the cross when Christ died he would still have
had to learn things. So it was just a
partial knowledge in the Old Testament.
And of course, we have a whole knowledge because it’s past history. So the only thing that has changed from age
to age is the content of what we believe; not that it has changed in a
contradictory sense, not that the New Testament contradicts the Old Testament,
it’s just that the New gives us more than the Old. And there were people who were saved by
believing on Christ as Savior, though not with the content of knowledge that we
have.
Let’s turn to 1 Samuel 21.
Tonight we start a new section of Samuel and because we are going to
start a new section of Samuel, I want to go back and look at the big picture so
we don’t lose the forest for the
trees. The large section we are studying
runs from chapter 16 on through 2 Samuel 1.
That’s the large section and we characterize or summarize the thought of
this section, as: Saul decreases and David increased. That’s the overall theme of this section of
Samuel. Understand this overall theme
and it will help you understand and weave together the parts of Samuel as we
encounter the details. This section can
be divided into four parts and these four parts amazingly parallel the life of
the One of whom David is a type, Jesus Christ.
If you want another title for 1 Samuel 16-2 Samuel 1 it is the parousia of David, or the coming of
David, just like the coming of Christ has various phases to it, so the coming
of David to his throne has various phases to that. The first phase was his anointing, chapters
16-17; that was God choosing David as the first incumbent. God did the choosing, God did the anointing
through His prophet. It would parallel,
Jesus Christ in His life was chosen by God and Jesus Christ was anointed by the
prophet John. The second phase of
David’s life was his rejection, chapters 18-20 where David was acceptable to
Jonathan but he was unacceptable to Saul.
Saul rejected and tried to kill him seven times and Jonathon made a
treasonous pact with David. That would
correspond to the earthly life of Jesus Christ.
Now the third part, the next phase, the part we are on now, is the
persecution phase of David’s life, and the persecution phase lasts from
chapters 21-27. This answers to the
Church Age of Christ, we are in the time when Jesus Christ is being persecuted
and driven about in Satan’s world. The
Then the final phase is David’s glorification or when he finally attains
the throne, and that’s 28-2 Samuel 1 and that would correspond to Christ’s
Second Advent and His descent and His setting up of His kingdom. Those are the four phases to this section of
Samuel. Tonight we are going to start
the third part, the persecution part.
Now to back up for a moment, recall the major problem David is facing
spiritually and you’ll understand something about what’s going to happen. We’ve got to go inside David’s soul and
understand him, and understand why he’s thinking the way he is and why he’s
acting the way he is. David is faced,
for the first time in his life, with a clear situation of category four, five
and six type suffering. David has never
faced this before because when he comes to this it disturbs him a lot. How do we know that David is disturbed by
this kind of suffering? We know because
of the remarks that he makes to Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20; we know also the
remarks that he makes in Psalm 59 when he was having to escape from his
home.
So during these two sections we have ample evidence of what is David’s
problem; David’s problem is category four, five and six type suffering, or
undeserved suffering. And it mystifies
him. And David is not recovered from
this thing; he is used to suffering under category one, two and three but he is
not used to this kind of suffering that appears to be totally unrelated to his
personal obedience to God. He has been
obedient, he has been faithful, he has applied the Word. He has trusted the Lord, he has taken his
problems to the Lord with thanksgiving; he has done all of these things and yet
he faces some of the most terrible and awesome suffering in his life and it
deeply disturbs him. He is deeply
disturbed in 1 Samuel 20 because he comes and he asks Jonathan why, why, why,
why has this happened to me, have I done something to your father, because he
is still thinking in terms of category one, two and three type suffering. But that is not the question, it is a new
category of suffering and David is puzzled by it. So that’s how it all starts off. As a result, certain actions are going to
follow in this text tonight and you’ll not understand them if you don’t first
understand David’s soul and how he’s responding to the situation.
So the first thing you want to understand is that David is afflicted
with category four, five and six type suffering and he’s not used to it; this
is a new experience for him as a believer and he’s got to learn something
here. The second you want to understand
about this passage is that we are faced with a political revolution. And the scene that you are about to see is
one that can only be understood if you understand coup d’etats and a few other things that happened from time to time
in strongly tyrannical political where you have one strong person vying with another
for power. This happened very frequently
in the Ancient Near East and here is a passage of Scripture that must be looked
at from the standpoint of Ancient Near Eastern politics. It is a revolutionary struggle between two
dynasties. And the interesting thing
about it all is that no other king on earth has ever attained his office by
doing what David did. David’s office has
got to mirror the perfect person, Jesus Christ.
In the political power struggle, and that’s what is being faced here in
this portion of Samuel, label it for what it is; it is a political power
struggle involving revolution, nothing less than that. It is an armed insurrection where two
powerful men are competing for the political driver’s seat.
Now this went on and on and on in many cultures, it still goes on. But David is one exception and here’s the
exception. David, in his experience
under the persecution phase, is always put into a situation where he can’t
humanly struggle his way out of it; God has to deliver him. So David becomes the exceptional king in that
he attains his throne in the middle of a power struggle by doing absolutely
nothing, the Lord does everything for him.
And this is a marvelous picture of grace; this is politics by
grace. And this is why David’s life
would be a tremendous source of inspiration to a Christian politician if it was
read correctly. David offers a model of
how to do it. If God wants you in an
office of leadership you don’t have to run all the gimmicks and you don’t have
to brown-nose people with a bunch or promises and you don’t have to do this and
that and all the rest of it. David
didn’t do any of that, and times when David tried to he got his wrists slapped,
as he is going to tonight.
During this period David learns politics by grace. And in so doing David provides the most
marvelous illustration of what a true politician and political leader should
do. It’s an amazing portrait, one that
inspires not only from the standpoint of the individual believer living his
life by grace but more specifically a person attaining an office of power by
grace. So those two things must be
understood as background. Remember, he
is confused over category four, five, six type sufferings and on the other hand
the overall thing is a political power struggle.
Now we’re going to deal with two passages; we’re going to skip a
section. We’re going to deal with 21:1-9
and then we’re going to 22:6-23. We’re
going to leave out a section because these two portions of Scripture are
related. First, 21:1, this is the first
incident and here is one of David’s first error. David is going to make a
tactical error and from 21 actually through the end of chapter 22 we could
entitle this whole section, including the part that I’m going to skip, as the
fact that David is humbled before God by a human viewpoint failure in strategy;
from 21 through the end of 22 David is humbled before God by a human viewpoint
failure in strategy. Tonight we’ll take
up one error and next week we’ll take up the second error. Tonight his error is going to be in dealing
with the priesthood. David makes a
tactical blunder and he winds up with men, women and children being massacred
because of his human viewpoint. Here is
one of the most disastrous mistakes that David ever made in his life, one that
he never forgot the rest of his life, in fact, one that his son remembered for
years and years afterwards. Here he is,
a most marvelous believer, but it shows that we all can drop the ball at times
and David is going to do it real good this time.
Beginning in verse 1, “Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech,” now let’s
get the geography down and look at this for a moment. Here is the Dead Sea, the Jordan valley, here
is Jerusalem; they had not taken Jerusalem yet; Jerusalem is still part of the
Jebusites so they live in the suburbs.
Out in the northeast part of Jerusalem about a mile and a half there’s a
place called Nob; Nob is where the tabernacle is. Nob is where the tabernacle was brought from
where it was stored after the Philistine situation and at least the tabernacle,
though the ark may still have been here, the tabernacle itself separated from
the ark was brought up to Nob. It is
also important to remember the struggle between the Philistines and the Jews
for what’s going to happen in this story.
Bethlehem here, just south of Jerusalem about four or five miles, is
David’s hometown. David has been at
Ramah; Ramah is the place, the seminary; that’s where Saul was rolling on the
floor naked. And while David is in
trouble, God the Holy Spirit, makes Saul take all his clothes off and lie down
naked in the seminary so that Saul can’t harm David. The Holy Spirit has a wonderful sense of
humor, probably got a good laugh out of it all.
Saul didn’t laugh at it, however, he never forgot that either.
So Saul is still up in Ramah, David has come down from Ramah to some
place around Jerusalem, we don’t know exactly where, but some place, wherever
the camp was, he went to Jonathan and last time we saw him in chapter 20 making
a league with Jonathan. Now he moves
from wherever he was with Jonathan over to Nob.
It’s right in the locale, right in the area, so he goes to Nob to meet
Ahimelech. Now Ahimelech is an
interesting person and fits into the background of this book. Turn to 1 Samuel 2:31, there was a curse upon
the priesthood. The priesthood had
become corrupt under Eli; Eli had a son called Phinehas, and this prophecy in 1
Samuel 2:31, “Behold, the days come, I will cut off thine arm and the arm of
thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in your house. [32] And
thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall
give Israel, and there shall not be an old man in thine house forever.” Then in 3:12 God through Samuel reconfirms
that prophecy. “In that day I will
perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house; when I
began, I will also make an end.”
So we have Eli, we know that Eli was killed, he died after he learned
that Phinehas had died, but Phinehas had a son before he died called Ahitub;
Ahitub had a son which is the one that we’re studying here, Ahimelech. “melech”
is king, “ahi” is brother, my brother
is king. We don’t know exactly why he
was called that because his brother wasn’t king but that was his name in the
Hebrew. This is the fourth generation;
this priesthood from Eli, or the house of Eli that you see prophesied against,
is going to cut, right here in the next generation, with a man by the name of
Abiathar, that’s the last man in the line and the prophecy given to 1 Samuel
will be verified. But Ahimelech is going
to survive; he is still part of the house of Eli, he still cares for the
tabernacle.
That is the man that you are meeting here now if you turn back to 1
Samuel 21:1. So David, the chosen, the
anointed king, the true crown prince comes to Ahimelech. Ahimelech was afraid; we don’t know exactly
why he was afraid except in the off again on again politics of the period it
was dangerous to be associated with those people who are unpopular with the king. It may be that Ahimelech smelled a rat here,
we don’t know. But whatever he did he
was very disturbed.
Now David was a very sensitive man and here is where David has one of
his weaknesses. David was extremely
sensitive to people, very sensitive to people.
And this was his downfall here, because remember what I said, he was
obsessed with the problem of category four, five and six type suffering; it was
bothering him. What did David do after
he was evacuated from his house successfully?
Where did he go? He went to
Ramah. What was at Ramah? Samuel’s seminary. So it shows you that David wanted to deal
with category four, five and six type suffering and he needed some
illumination, you can see he’s drifting here, and he’s kind of without his moorings. He’s got to get the Word, so he goes to
Ramah, but at Ramah, apparently he doesn’t have enough time to get into the
Word, because who pursues him to Ramah?
Saul. The Holy Spirit works it
out so Saul doesn’t capture him, but nevertheless at Ramah he is unable… he is
minus the Word, he doesn’t get in the Word.
He doesn’t spend time in the Word; so therefore at Ramah he fails to get
oriented to this new area in his life.
That was his first failure.
Now he comes to Ahimelech; now Ahimelech is the second place in the
nation that’s left where you can get the Word.
And here he has something called… we get the word from the ephod, which
is the priest’s garment, it doesn’t give you new doctrine but at least it gives
you yes or no in God’s will for your life.
You can petition through the ephod to get approval or disapproval from
God for various courses of action. And
at least having fled Ramah where the prophets were David comes to the priests
to see if he can get the Word here.
David is a man, in other words, who is baffled by a problem in his life
and he goes to the place where he can get the Word of God. Now you say I don’t see where he’s searching
for the Word of God here. I’ll show you
that he was and I’ll also show you that he did before verse 2. He went first, somewhere between verses 1 and
2, and he went to get an oracle from the ephod, a yes-no answer on his
plans.
What are David’s plans. David’s
plans at this point are to officially inaugurate a revolutionary regime against
the unjust government. At this point
David is taking up arms against an unjust government; he is officially a
revolutionary at this point. Not in the
modern sense of the word “revolutionary,” he’s not trying to overthrow the
system; he is protecting himself from this man who is going to try to kill
him. David knew that, he’s already made
a treasonous league with Jonathan. So
all sorts of political maneuvering has been done to date, political maneuvering
which would get both Jonathan and David capitally punished if it was brought to
Saul’s attention, or if Saul could get his hands on either one of them in a
clear-cut law according to Saul.
So at this point David, bothered with his spiritual problem, and
deprived of the Word of God, you have to catch the two things, he has a problem
and he has allowed circumstances to deprive him from taking in the Word of
God. Now here’s where it spells disaster
for believers. And I’m as familiar with
the excuses as you are, well I can’t get in the Word because of this, or that;
well, you can make up all the excuses you want to make up but you’ll wind up
exactly the place David is in 1 Samuel 21; make your excuses to God and
whatever they may be He’s heard them before, but if you can’t get in the Word
of God when you have a problem, you are asking for more problems.
And David is asking for trouble; he has avoided the Word of God, and so
in verse 2 he makes his first mistake:
“And David said unto Ahimelech, the priest, The king has commanded me a
business,” now why does he say that?
Because in verse 1 David notices that the priest is shook up. He notices that the priest is afraid of
him. Now what’s afraid of? At this point David is afraid. David is afraid that the priest will not give
him what he needs. He’s afraid that God
will not provide what is needed; David has no doubt that he’s the anointed one;
his doubt, however, has to do with whether God will provide for his needs at
this point. And he sees that the priest
is acting very suspiciously; and therefore David is saying hmm, I’ve got to do
something to lower this man’s suspicion or I’m not going to get what I
need. David thinks he’s being very wise
and very skillful. I’ll show you at this
point he is out of fellowship; as the story goes on it becomes obvious, he’s
gone on negative volition at this point because that was not what God’s will
was.
Apparently when he went to the oracle the oracle said yes as to his
revolution, as to his taking up arms against the government, God gave him an
okay. Fine, as far as it went, but the
okay didn’t extend to some of the means that David is going to use to attain
the goal. The goal got a yes, the goal
was alright with the Lord and the oracle apparently approved it, but in
considering the means David now is out of fellowship because he makes up a big
story. Now the lie itself isn’t the
problem so much as the fact that he is deceiving the priest into thinking that
he is aligned with Saul when there has been an official rupture. So David is masquerading as Saul’s
representative; not only is he masquerading as Saul’s representative, but he’s
masquerading as a very high envoy of Saul.
So he is allowing the priesthood to be deceived and as a result he will
destroy the priesthood. It’s a very
serious thing, and he makes up a big long story that I’m on a hush-hush mission
for Saul, and in verse 3 he begins to ask for his needs. Please notice that this is legitimate
rebellion and this is legitimate failure to comply with the authority of the
fourth divine institution, there does come a time when the believer can
legitimately, filled with the Holy Spirit, rebel against existing authority,
and here is one illustration of it.
David is rebelling against existing authority and he was filled with the
Spirit as he did it.
However, the means that he used are out of line. Why do you suppose God was pleased to say yes
to his rebellion but not pleased to say yes to the means for his
rebellion. It goes back to the theme:
what is the theme? Politics by grace;
David is to rely upon God’s grace, his orientation is all right, his general
goal is okay, but the means to that goal are wrong and here he is using
deception out of feat that oh gosh, is this priest catching on to what’s
happening, is this priest going to report me, this priest won’t give me food,
this priest won’t give me arms, this priest will be trouble for me.
So verse 3, he asks for his need, “Now, therefore, what is in thine
hand? Give me five loaves of bread in mine hand, or what there is
present.” Now the bread that is given here
he thought would be the bread that the priests would have. See, there’s a colony of priests at Nob,
there’s a whole bunch of them here, this is a city of priests; actually there
were 85 men in this village. And their
job was to continually take care of the tabernacle and so on, and so they
thought that well look, there must be some food around here. David needed two things, he needed food and
he needed weapons. He had to flee, he’s
been fleeing ever since his wife dropped him out the window. He ran to the seminary, and just barely got to seminary and then the Holy
Spirit pulled off the thing, he ran down to Jonathan and he had to stay out in
the woods for three days while he heard the spy report back through Jonathan,
so David hasn’t even had time to go back to get his weapons.
Now in verse 3, “the bread in mine hand,” what is the bread? David thinks it is going to be the bread of
the common priests, in other words, their daily bread. But there isn’t any; he asked five loaves,
apparently he had four men with him. A
loaf of bread wasn’t the kind that you buy at the supermarket or something, the
bread here was a long big thing; in fact, the bread in the Holy of Holies …
each piece was unleavened, so it wasn’t very tasty but it was five by ten hands
length, Edersheim says, so you figure how much five hands are one way and ten
hands the other way, and that is the flat of leaven that was used to make these
pieces of showbread. So actually it was
quite a meal, it would take you through one or two meals; if you’ve eaten
unleavened bread enough to know what it tastes like I don’t think you’d want it
all for one meal. So David was taking
five loaves which would get him out of the Nob area and move out to some other
safe place.
And so the priest in verse 4 answers him, “And the priest answered
David, and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is
hallowed bread,” now what is the hallowed bread? It goes back to the tabernacle. The tabernacle had a lot of furniture in it;
there were many pieces of furniture and on the left side there was the
candlestick, on the right there was the showbread. This was in the holy place, and here was the
Holy of Holies, in the Holy of Holies no man could go there except the priest
once a year and it was here where the Shekinah glory dwelt. This was absolutely holy and here was the
literal holy presence of the Triune God.
Now in the holy place outside of this it shows how men get to the holy
place or communion with God. So there
are two pieces of furniture, the candlesticks and the table of showbread. The candlesticks picture Jesus Christ as the
light of the world. The showbread
pictures Jesus Christ as the bread of life.
And it is that bread, the showbread that is being discussed here in
verse 4.
The showbread was changed every Sabbath day; you’d have the bread
sitting there and then they would hot new bread on on the Sabbath. Jesus had a joke about it in fact, He said
you know the Pharisees, they are so fussy about what’s done on the Sabbath, he
says why don’t you just take a look at what the priests are doing, they don’t
work any of the other six days, on the Sabbath day they’re trotting in with the
hot bread. Now how do you figure that
with all your legalism of the Sabbath.
So Jesus made a lot of fun about this thing and had a good time with the
Pharisees, although the Pharisees unfortunately didn’t appreciate it. The showbread was a picture of Jesus Christ
as the bread of life; that which is consumed for our nourishment.
Now isn’t this interesting; David didn’t work this out, he just happened
to arrive in the city of Nob with 85 families all without bread at this moment,
except the only bread in town was the showbread. Do you see why it is that every act that
David does to get to his throne is going to illustrate how Jesus Christ
operates and the plan of salvation by grace because what is it that sustains
David? The bread of life. How is David going to make it to the
throne? By consuming what only grace has
provided. So ironically it turns out
this was what we would call in modern lingo perhaps an accident, or a
coincidence, it just happens there’s no bread except the showbread.
Now in verse 4 the priest says well, there’s a condition about this
thing. Now to understand the condition
you have to understand parts of the Law and we might as well go back to the
Law. Turn to Leviticus 24:6-9, the first
thing to understand about the showbread, talking about the showbread and who
can eat it. “Thou shalt set them in two
rows, six on a row, on the pure table before the LORD.” “Before the LORD,” that phrase, gave us the
Hebrew word for showbread; the Hebrew doesn’t mean showbread, it means the
bread of faces, or the bread that faces God.
[7] “And thou shalt put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be
with the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire unto the LORD. [8]
Every Sabbath he” the priest “shall set it in order before the LORD
continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting
covenant. [9] And it shall be Aaron’s and his sons’; and they shall eat it in
the holy place; for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made
by fire by a perpetual statute.” That
part of the Law says that the bread could only have been eaten by the Levites,
by the sons of Aaron. So normally when
the bread was taken out, the old bread was taken out every Sabbath or every
Saturday, it was eaten by the Levitical priests. That’s one point of the Law.
The next point of the Law to understand what’s about to happen is found
in Leviticus 15:16. Now this is one of those explicit passages so don’t get
shocked, the Holy Spirit put it in the Word of God and as you know, if it’s
there we go through it. “If any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then
he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the evening. [17]
And every garment, and every skin,” now notice the garments and skin in verse
17 because that is what’s going to come up and that’s what’s translated
“vessels” in 1 Samuel 21, “every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed
of copulation, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the evening.
[18] The woman also wit whom man shall lie with seed of copulation, they shall
both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening.” Now this is the way it worked out in the Law
for various reasons which we won’t go into.
But that was the Law.
Now come back to 1 Samuel 21 and see what the priest says. He’s got to improvise, he knows that the
letter of the Law says only the priest can do what is going to happen
here. But what he says is all right,
look, David is on a mission of the king; now here’s where it really gets
complicated so we’re just having to go through this and catch the details. Let’s look at it this way. First, David says he’s on a mission of the
king. This is a lie, the king here is
Saul and the mission is high enough to warrant the adjustment of the Law in
this case. They’re going with the
spirit of the Law rather than the letter of the Law, and so the priest says okay,
you guys are not Aaron’s sons so I can’t give it to you on that basis; but
Aaron’s sons are qualified to eat the showbread because Aaron’s sons are
clean. So I say that you can eat it if
you are ceremonially clean. And so this
is why he says, verse 4, “if the young men have kept themselves at least from
women.” Now he doesn’t tell us whether
married or unmarried, so we can presume it’s married, and so he says that if
you are clean ceremonially on the basis of Leviticus 15 I can give you the
bread.
Then David answers him, and here’s where it gets really
complicated. “And David answered the
priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these
three days,” in other words, David is saying look, I’m not leading a group of
pious saints around here, it’s just that we have been kept from women, and it’s
not so much of a joke as claiming that his mission is so important that it
warrants this kind of activity on behalf of his band. In other words, he is on a real hot, hot
mission. And then he says, “since I came
out,” now the “three days” is an expression, see where it says in the King
James “these three days,” well that’s a literal translation, it’s an idiom in
the Hebrew and it means really as we have done before; as we have done before,
in other words, David has been on these hush-hush missions before and they
would follow the same practice. Why
would the soldiers remain ceremonially clean?
You may puzzle why is sexual intercourse declared to be ceremonially
unclean. One of the reasons for that has
nothing to do with sex, it has to do with the distortion of sex by the
Canaanites. The Canaanites used this as
a fertility cult and everywhere you notice in the Mosaic Law where sex is dealt
with, it’s jabbing at the Canaanites because the Canaanites would consecrate
their soldiers by intercourse with prostitutes.
This was one of their sacred [can’t understand word] before the men went
out to war. Of course they really got
them in good shape and they liked it, and the men liked it and everything else
and it was a real popular thing. But it
was all tied in theologically with a fertility cult that was part of the
worship of Baal. Therefore when God had His armies go out they had to avoid partaking
of anything like that, even if it was a legitimate thing with their own
life. So this was actually an attack on
the Baalite fertility cult.
But David said look, this mission is a high caliber mission, it’s
authorized direct from the king and it’s so hush-hush as we previously whenever
we have these kind of missions my soldiers always remain ceremonially
clean. Since I came out, “the vessels of
the young men are holy,” the word “vessels” refer to their clothing as per
Leviticus 15:18, “the vessels of the young men are holy” and now it’s not “the
bread is in a manner common,” here’s where everything breaks loose so hold
on. This is the lie that he is told; now
the literal translation is “yea, how much more will word be holy in his
garment.” See how I got that out of that
verse; never guess will you? Really,
it’s a very difficult verse in the Hebrew, a very difficult verse. But I’ve spent a lot of time on this because
this verse, when you get it right, fits the whole picture real well. Now look what he’s saying: look, women have
been kept from us, this is a high caliber mission, my soldiers meet the
Levitical standard of ceremonial cleanliness, but David says, “how much more
will one be holy in the garment.” In
other words, even if my boys weren’t ceremonially clean in their clothing, the
mission is so high they would be anyway.
In other words, the mission is of such great importance that it
sanctifies these men. David is actually
claiming he’s on a mission, which he is, isn’t he. He is on a mission from God, the King, and
this mission is holy. How do we know
that?
Turn to Matthew 12 because Jesus explains the passage. Jesus has trouble in His day with the same
thing. Verse 1, “At that time Jesus went
on the Sabbath day through the corn [grainfields],” that’s wheat, Englishmen
call wheat corn, “and His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck the
ears of grain, and to eat.” This is on
the Sabbath day. [2] “But when the
Pharisees saw it, they said unto Him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is
not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. [3] But He said unto them, Have ye not
read what David did, when he was hungry, and they that were with him, [4] How
he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not
lawful for him to eat, neither for them who were with him, but only for the
priests?” In other words Jesus said by
the letter of the Law David was not qualified nor his men because they didn’t
fit Leviticus 15:18. But, what is Jesus
arguing? That the nature of the mission
sanctifies it; David was all right, Jesus is citing this as precedence for His
actions. He says David was on a holy
sacred mission and that mission made it legal.
Now what’s the implication of Matthew?
This is just a footnote by way of understanding the New Testament. What Jesus is saying here and what gets the
Pharisees frosted is the fact that this claim is I am so important that My
disciples can break the Levitical Law.
That’s what He’s claiming here; now you can understand why the Pharisees
got frosted. It wasn’t just that they
were breaking the Sabbath Law, the way Jesus is arguing from this David
incident, He’s saying look, I am so important that My disciples have the right
to do what they want in those wheat fields.
That’s Christ’s claim. It’s like
the very audacious claims that we see throughout the Gospels, Jesus makes the
kind of audacious claims that either He’s a nut or He’s the One whom He claimed
to be; there’s no good teacher option available.
Let’s turn back to 1 Samuel, Jesus isn’t condemning David so we know from
that point of view that it was legitimate, David was hungry. But, David deceived the priest, that was
David’s sin, in misrepresenting him.
Conceivably if he had told the truth the priest still would have given
him the bread. That was the first thing,
the first tactical error that David made.
And so verse 6, “So the priest gave him hallowed bread; for there was no
bread there but the showbread, that was taken from before the LORD, to put hot
bread in the day when it was taken away.”
Verse 7, now this is a footnote or a parenthesis; remember I’ve told you
in the Hebrew often times you’ll be reading along in the narrative form and the
writer will put in a parenthesis; Verse 7 is a parenthesis, it’s an explanatory
note, “Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained
before the LORD; and his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chiefest of the
herdsmen that belonged to Saul.” Now
this man we’re going to meet later on, in fact later on in this passage and
next week we’ll see him in a Psalm. But
Doeg was an Edomite; he was not a Jew to begin with; this immediately makes him
suspicious. He is an Edomite, related,
he’s Semitic but he’s not a Jew, and he probably is an unbeliever, but he’s a
religious unbeliever because he’s a bureaucrat in Saul’s administration. He apparently is the secretary of agriculture
under Saul, because he’s in charge the herds and so on.
So he’s part of Saul’s cabinet or part of Saul’s administration, but
he’s an Edomite and you notice this. He is “detained before the LORD,” and that
shows you that he’s done something wrong.
“Detaining before the Lord” means that he was unclean, and he had to
stay in the presence of the Lord until he could become ceremonially clean. So Doeg, there’s something going on funny
with that situation, but the narrator goes through verses 1-6 and then he puts
a break at verse 7 and he says now I want you to notice there’s something else
wrong. Not only does David lie to the
priest, but while he’s getting the bread and he looks around and he sees this
guy Doeg over there. Now don’t you
remember what David has had as a privilege?
What was David’s great privilege under Saul? It was to go in and out of the house. Do you suppose that David recognized who that
was that was standing over there? Sure
did; later on he’s going to tell us he knew exactly, and so while he’s busy
taking his five loaves of bread from the priest he’s looking over there at
Doeg, and if you were going to make a movie out of this you’d have this sleep
character sitting over there by the wall and David kind of looking over there
with a cocked glance.
Now nothing is made of Doeg except verse 7 occurs at a most interesting
portion; what happened after verse 7?
Verse 8, and what happens in verse 8, the point is, why wasn’t verse 7
placed at verse 1; why does the narrator wait to put in this parenthesis here?
Because of the next action that David is going to take. “And David said unto Ahimelech,” are there
any weapons around, do you have a gun around here some place? Who’s listening? One of Saul’s cabinet; what is David doing
when he’s doing this? Here is where
David officially takes up arms against Saul.
At this point it becomes an official revolution. At this point David takes up the sword
against the government; at this point it becomes armed rebellion, and who is
there to watch it? Doeg. And he asks for a spear.
And in verse 9, the sword that’s brought to him was Goliath’s. “And the priest said, The sword of Goliath,
the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here
wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If thou wilt take that, take it; for there
is no other except that here. And David
said, There is none like that; give it to me.”
Now David thinks it’s pretty good because it almost sounds like at the
end of verse 9 it’s kind of a magic weapon, and of course he should have
realized that that sword didn’t do Goliath any good, did it? You see David is not thinking here. He’s done two screwy things, he’s lied to the
priest because he’s afraid that the priest is going to react and he isn’t going
to get his food. Now he comes, he’s so
desperate he takes the sword of Goliath; he could have waited for a
weapon. Slingshots were still
available. And he knew from his fight
with Goliath what it could do. So why
does he panic about the sword right now, especially when he knows Doeg is
sitting over there.
So all during this, and here he takes the sword, and this is another
human viewpoint thing, it’s haste; David is getting in trouble because he has
not had time to recover from his spiritual experience of category four, five,
six type suffering, he has not had time to get into the Word of God, and now he
is spiritually off balance and he makes screwy decisions. He’s responding in a way which we haven’t
seen David before. David hasn’t acted
this way before, why is he acting this way?
He’s unbalanced spiritually, he is not prepared to handle himself in
this kind of a thing.
Now to see the tragic results of a believer in this situation does,
verse 6 of the next chapter. Skip to
22:6, and you will now see the horrible results that happened as a result of
David’s carnality. “When Saul heard that
David was discovered, and the men that were with him, (now Saul abode in Gibeah
under a tree in Ramah,” now the “under a tree” is an idiom means that’s where
he had his command post, this is actually up near Ramah, and Saul had his
command post there. That means under a
tree, if you want to check it out Judges 4:5 uses the same expression in a very
clear way. So “under a tree” means
command post, “having spear in his hand,” now what does that mean. Every time that we have seen Saul what has he
had in his hand? The javelin. What did he do with it the last three times
that we saw Saul with a javelin in his hand?
He tried to kill David with it.
Now this shows you how mentally Saul has deteriorated. If we were using psychological language at
this point we would say that Saul has deteriorated to a very intense form of
paranoia. He walks around always with a
javelin in his hand, everywhere he goes he’s got that javelin. He’s tried to spear David with it three times
and he’s walking around his command post with a javelin.
He’s always afraid that someone’s
going to get him. He’s constantly
walking. If you ever have encountered a
person, maybe in your own family, or maybe somebody outside your family who is
suffering from paranoia, you know how they are, always going, going, because
somebody is out to get them, the phone line is always tapped, or somebody is
going to put a bomb in the mailbox or something like that. Paranoia manifests itself this way. Saul is paranoid at this point and in doing
so the Spirit of God in writing the text tells us that he was also paranoid
about is army, not just about David, but he says in verse 7, “Then Saul said
unto his servants who stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites;” now Saul is of
the tribe of Benjamin and this immediately tells us that Saul’s administration
was top heavy from one tribe. He brought
in a lot of Benjamites; David is not one, he’s of the tribe of Judah. “Hear ye now, ye Benjamites, will the son of Jesse
give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of
thousands, and captains of hundreds, [8] That all of you have conspired against
me,” in other words now he’s paranoid about his whole army, he’s saying you
people are in league against me, I suspect every one of you of treason.
This might have been a very interesting scene, can’t you just see him
twirling his little javelin, walking by and saying you are suspicious, and
particularly after watching him spear David three times, after watching him
throw the javelin in the middle of a great courtly occasion at Jonathan, his
own son, and then he walks and points this javelin right under your nose and
says to you where are you, are you with me or against me? Now this is what Saul is doing here. Use your creative imagination. “…and there is none that shows me that my son
has made a treaty [league] with the son of Jesse,” in other words, where is my
G-2, I don’t have any spy information.
Now evidently by this time he’s found out that Jonathan has made a
treasonous league against him. This
probably explains why you never see Jonathan again except in very [can’t
understand word] roles in God’s Word; his father canned him when he found out
that his son had done this. “…and there
is none of you that is sorry for me,” and that shows you the other sign of a
carnal believer.
Here’s chaos in the soul, negative volition, spiritual darkness, he
sucks in human viewpoint which enables him never to use the faith technique, he
begins to hate and now he’s perpetually frustrated and one of the signs of
frustration is self pity and he is worried that not only has his army not
reported to him but he expects people to feel sorry for him. And that is always the mark of carnality,
when you expect people to feel sorry for you.
Feeling sorry for you will not help your problem. And if you feel sorry for another believer
it’s not going to help their problem; you can empathize but never sympathize;
there’s a difference in the two words.
So he expects people to be sorry for him.
“…and show unto me,” now look at the screwed up interpretation of the
events; we have the true interpretation because we have the Scripture that the
Holy Spirit has given and we have personally followed the events leading up to
this point. But Saul’s interpretation of the events are as follows: “my son has
stirred up my servant,” now “my son” is Jonathan, he says the crown prince,
“has stirred up my servant,” that’s David, “against me to lie in wait.” Now the Hebrew is much more picturesque in
the way it says this: “my son has turned my servant” David “into an
assassin.” In other words, David was all
right until he got around Jonathan, and here it’s very interesting; you have
this father blaming everything on Jonathan.
It’s very interesting how he does this, and this why I’ve tried to
prepare you all this Samuel series, I made comment every time we got to a
passage like this, watch the father-son relationship that’s happening, and you
noticed it deteriorate, deteriorate, deteriorate until now Saul actually is
blaming the whole thing on Jonathan. And
actually whose fault is it? His, he was
out of fellowship and the Lord doomed, Jonathan is the one that’s going to
suffer, not Saul really, Jonathan is the one that suffers unjustly. But he blames it on his son. And so he says, why aren’t you doing
something, why aren’t you reporting something to me, that’s the gist of it.
Verse 9, “Then answered Doeg, the Edomite, who was set over the servants
of Saul,” see, he’s in high office, “and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to
Nob, to Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub. [10] And he inquired of the LORD for him,
and gave him victuals [provisions], and gave him the sword of Goliath, the
Philistine.” So verse 10 tells us the
three things that David did there. The
first one, “inquired of the LORD” is not recorded in chapter 21 but evidently
it was there. David did consult the
Lord. “…and gave him food,” and being an
Edomite he was so stupid he didn’t realize what the food was he gave him, he just
saw him giving out bread and the Edomite was not instructed in the things of
the Law and he didn’t recognize what the bread was. Imagine what Saul would have done then, if he
realized that he’d taken the showbread right out of the tabernacle. “…and he gave him the sword of Goliath. [11]
Then the king sent to call Ahimelech, the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all
his father’s house, the priests who were in Nob; and they came all of them to
the king. [12] And Saul said, Hear now, thou son of Ahitub. And he answered, Here I am, my lord. [13] And
Saul said unto him, Why have ye plotted treason against me, thou and the son of
Jesse,” you see, it’s always against Saul.
Now who precipitated the event in the first place. It was Saul, not David; David is just taking
up arms in self defense. But “you have
conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him
bread, and a sword, and you have inquired unto God for him,” now get a load of
that one. That really is something; he’s
complaining that the high priest is giving out the Word of God. That shows you how far off he is; he is so
wrapped up in compound carnality he is even blaming the priest for teaching the
Word. He says you have no right to give
the Word of God to David. Now why didn’t
he have any right, Saul never obeyed it.
But anyway he complains of these three things.
Verse 14, “Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said,” in verse 14 he
gives his defense, and his defense consists of two points, both true, and one
of these tells us a lot about David, in verse 14 Ahimelech proposed innocence,
he says “And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, who is the
king’s son-in-law, and goes at thy bidding, and is honorable in thine
house?” Now this is God actually warning
Saul; Saul, you are persecuting innocent blood; this is a testimony to David’s innocence. Ahimelech is saying look, hasn’t David been
faithful to you Saul? He isn’t plotting
against you; you yourself have let him come into your house at will.
And then in verse 15 he makes a second point in his defense, “Did I then
begin to inquire of God for him?” And
the gist of verse 15 is he’s saying look, do you think this is the first time I
ever inquired of God for David? What
does that tell you about David’s past life?
Where did David usually go? He
went to the tabernacle a lot of times; he went to the prophets in 1 Samuel 20,
he went to the priests regularly. Do you
see that David is a man of the Word, always going where the Word was taught, to
the prophets and to the priests. And so
he’s saying that’s nothing unusual, David always does this, he dropped by and
wanted to know the Lord’s will for his life.
That’s not the first time it’s happened.
“…Be it far from me; let not the king impute anything unto his servant,
nor to all the house of my father; for thy servant knew nothing of all this,
less or more. [16] And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou,
and all thy father’s house.”
Now at this point this is the result of David’s goof, Saul is going to
condemn himself in the process, and as a result we’re going to see a most
marvelous illustration of Romans 8:28.
Let’s look at the last section.
The king first speaks to his infantry or to his house guards, and here
you have a case of a military disobeying an unjust order. These soldiers disobey, they do not adhere to
the authority of Saul because they refuse, and here’s a legitimate case where
soldiers do not participate in unjust wars.
And this was an unjust war against the priests of the city of Nob and
the regular army would have nothing to do with it. [Verse 17, “And the king said unto the
footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the LORD, because
their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not
show it to me. But the servants of the
king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord.”]
But, verse 18, “And the king said to Doeg,” you go, “Turn thou, and fall
upon the priests.” And so Doeg does; now
this is very similar to a situation in World War II when many of the regular
army units of the German army refused to participate in certain maneuvers. So, when Hitler couldn’t rely upon his
regular army, on whom did he rely? The
SS troops, they were his elite guard, they’d do anything for the Fuhrer, and
here you have Doeg the same kind of
individual, without a conscience and he is going to do whatever the man who
feeds him is going to order. “And Doeg,
the Edomite turned,” notice how the Holy Spirit points out, the foreigner,
unregenerate slob, that’s the way of properly translating it, “and he fell upon
the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons who did wear a
linen ephod.” Notice what the Holy
Spirit does at the end of the verse, that “wore the linen ephod.” That makes it an offense against Yahweh
because when they destroy that ephod they are declaring their war on Jehovah
who designed the ephod. They have no
right to touch the Lord’s anointed.
Verse 19, “And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of
the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and
sheep, with the edge of the sword.”
Sucklings were babies that were nursing on their mother’s breast. And Doeg went through there and just
slaughtered them, absolutely slaughtered them.
And verses 18-19 actually is the principle of holy war, now look at how
screwed up things are; holy war was when you eliminate every living thing by
order of Jehovah. Here holy war has
turned 180 degrees around and is being used to eliminate what Jehovah God has
given to the nation, the priesthood.
It’s very symptomatic the whole story, it’s amazing the things you get
out of here. What does the priesthood do
for the nation? Maintain its liaison
with God. Where does the nation go to
confess its sin? The priesthood. Don’t you see, you’ve heard the expression,
burning your bridges behind you; this is what Saul has done, he has severed the
priesthood out of his kingly [can’t understand word]. Now something very interesting is going to
happen.
Verse 20, And one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named
Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David. [21] And Abiathar showed David that
Saul had slain the LORD’s priests, [22] And David said unto Abiathar,” and
here’s where you see David recover from his toulies trip here, he is a man who
is out of fellowship but yet when he sees his sin he responds to the Word. This is what makes David such a great man in
Scripture. David goofs and here’s an
illustration of a bad goof, but he’s not so proud that he can’t go back and use
1 John 1:9 and move on; he doesn’t let his sin get him down. And so in verse 22 he said, “I knew it that
day, when Doeg, the Edomite, was there, that he would surely tell Saul;” that’s
an admission that David had goofed, “I knew it,”
In other words, David, as he was taking the bread out of the hands of
the priest and looking over in the corner and seeing Doeg standing there, the
thought occurred to it, don’t do it David, get out of here, if you want to come
back and get the sword another time, come on back but don’t do it with that guy
looking on. But he was in such a hurry,
because remember he was pushed and shoved because he hadn’t spent time in the
Word to deal with the spiritual problem, he panicked, just a moment, it just
took a split second for David to make that decision, should I stay here and get
that sword in front of that guy or should I just take off, get out of here,
maybe I can come back and get it later.
And David in a split second of time made the wrong decision. And he recognizes it here and he says “I have
occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father’s house.” And he confesses that he was in the wrong,
this word means that I am responsible, I accept responsibility for that.
See, here’s what a real man is like, he confesses and he assumes the
responsibility; he doesn’t whine about it, oh I can’t go on for the Lord, I
goofed. David doesn’t do that, he says
all right, I accept responsibility, we move from here. And so the next move, verse 23, “Abide thou
with me, fear not; for he that seeks my life seeks your life. But with me thou shalt be in safeguard.” Now why does David say this? David has recovered at this point and the
word “safeguard” means that David recognizes a neat little thing that’s
happened. Now as I relate this to you,
see if you’ve figured it out. Something
in all the time David’s been out of it, all the time that he’s had this godly
goal by an ungodly means, screwed up, the whole village of 85 families
destroyed in the process, something very neat has happened, and how this works
is Romans 8:28, and I want to finish tonight by showing you the neat little
thing that’s happened here.
Now David didn’t deserve what’s happened, David didn’t earn what’s
happened; in no way did David merit what’s happened; on a normal basis David
goofed and would merit the results of his folly; this would be discrediting in
the eyes of the nation. That’s what
David would merit. That’s what we’d
merit when we are carnal, when we are out of fellowship; we merit the results
of our folly. But it’s great to know
that from the Word of God, God doesn’t deal that way; God is gracious, and in
spite of the fact that David was out of it, in spite of the fact that he had
men, women and children slaughtered, a very new thing is happening, and to
catch this you have to appreciate Old Testament history. The only priest in the nation in authority is
now with which regime? Saul or
David? The priesthood has come over to
David, and now in the course of persecution you’re going to see the shift in
power begins to shift; first the priesthood comes, next week we’re going to see
how the prophets come over.
And what is happening is that the anointed man of Jehovah, in spite of
the fact that all the time he’s slugging his way around, but with an open mind
to the Word, and where he’s confronted with a sin he confesses and moves on, it
doesn’t bother God, God blesses him anyway.
And here God has blessed him with the priesthood. That adds further authentication as to which
of the kings is the right king, doesn’t it?
Because the king in Israel has to have the support of whom? The priests and the prophets. The prophets are the king-makers and the
priests guide the nation. So if you can get the support of those two groups,
that is an empirical evidence that he was the Lord’s anointed.
Now how look at how this has happened so neatly and cleverly. Was David’s sheer skill, his diplomacy, his
great tact, his brilliant genius that got the priesthood on his side? No, it was his goof that got the priesthood
on his side by God’s grace. Do you see
something of what David’s life is beginning to show us now in 1 Samuel; he is
going to get his throne after event after event after event like this. He didn’t earn the priesthood, but God gave
it to him. Why? Because David kept short accounts with God,
he trusted the Lord in the area in which He had control and God blessed him, in
spite of his sin, God blessed him. Now
that’s the true nature of the Lord.
Now another thing that David had here that tells him now that he’s going
to be safe, and it’s the expression, “fear not; for he that seeks my life seeks
your life.” When he says that he is
knowing that Saul now has committed the great sin and we would say it this way:
with enemies like you can’t help but win, because he that is my enemy, “he that
seeks my life” has become your enemy, in other words, Saul has now officially
become the enemy of the entire Levitical priesthood, and that’s what gives
David the assurance he’s on to victory, because now the priesthood has been
forced to come to him and Saul has been condemned. Saul is a condemned king; Saul is now cut off
from the Word of God and all sustenance.
Later on the prophet is going to come and Saul is going to initiate a
most desperate maneuver in history and then he’s going to try to contact the
dead because he’s been cut off from the priests, he’s been cut off from the
prophets, and this is when he involves himself with direct demonic agency. Next week we’ll deal with the prophets, how
David goofs again and is blessed in the middle of his goof. This should provide encouragement for all of
us to varying degrees; God is a gracious God.