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Spear & Jug - 1st Samuel 26

The whole incident with Nabal might have been widely known to the general public because we again see the people who live in Ziph going to Saul and telling him that they know where David is hiding. Even though Saul said he’s stop pursuing David because David spared his life, that was a lie and Saul is grateful to the Ziphites and take off with this 3,000 men to find David. Let’s note the size difference in parties, Saul’s 3,000 warriors against David’s 600 randoms. David hears that Saul is looking for him again and sends out spies to find out what’s going on. The spies find Saul and David takes his men and goes to where Saul is. I think it’s an interesting strategy that he went to Saul instead of retreating to somewhere safe. It makes sense if you know where your enemy is but they don’t know exactly where you are, definitely have the upper hand in that instance. They see Saul and his men laid out, it says “in the trench” and “trench” is cross-referenced to say barricade, I thought it w...
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Abigail - 1st Samuel 25

It just so happens that Abigail took the exact route to run into David before he gets to her house with his 400 men and the kill everyone, and when she gets to him, she gets off her donkey and falls on to her face on the ground and tells him that this whole misunderstanding is her fault. We all know that this is not true, this is Nabal’s fault and everyone knows this, but she says put the blame on her. This is a Christlike action because he also wasn’t guilty but took our blame. It’s interesting to consider that at some point, we are all Nabal, stubborn, mean, prideful, at least I know that I have been and still am in a lot of ways. We are Nabal, and Abigail is Christ, who takes the blame on herself to save us from ourselves. David is surprised by he actions because like we talked about yesterday, this is a wealthy, aristocratic woman who is now face down in the dirt, humiliating herself, begging him to reconsider. That’s probably why he listened, because she was addressing him, which ...
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On the Road - 1st Samuel 25

Because David feels highly disrespected, he takes 2/3 of his men, 400 men, and heads towards Nabal’s house to kill every male. David is talking to himself the whole way, essentially justifying what he’s about to do. TB comments on it, and when I heard it I was stopped because it spoke to me clearly because I do this and it’s very self-destructive to me. TB says, “David essentially muttering to himself as he is traveling, complaining about how he and his men guarded this man’s property, and did such a good job, and still this man repays their efforts with an insult! And truly that is the mental picture we need to get; a very upset David who feels that he has been cheated; a man who is roiling this over in his mind, replaying his anger again and again. A modern psychologist might say he is playing those negative tapes in his head and he won’t turn them off. And truly, just as for us in our time, this was David sort of enjoying being mad and not particularly anxious to let it go and move ...
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Nabal - 1st Samuel 25

Here we start to see the first cracks in David’s spiritual armor. First thing in chapter 25 is that Samuel dies, but David doesn’t go to the burial. TB notes that with Samuel’s death, the rift between David and Saul became permanent, saying, “Samuel was a transformational character who also bridged the divide of loyalties among the various tribal coalitions. There was no other single man since Joshua’s death who help the respect of all 12 tribes and whose authority was honored by all Israel. Even Saul feared him.” One thought I had when I heard TB say this was that Samuel was the “transformational character” that took the entirety of Hebrew society, with all their tribes and clans and divided loyalties, and united them under a single king, Saul and then started with David. Even though we read about it in hindsight 3,000 years later, that task must have been enormous, and I think about Samuel’s life and his relationship with his mother and how sad that must have been for them to not be ...
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Cutting a Coat - 1st Samuel 24

On the way back home from fighting the Philistines, Saul stops back in the caves that David was hiding in and takes 3,000 of Israel’s best warriors to find David. Maybe he thought the problem before was that his hunters weren’t good enough. While passing through some of the caves, Saul stop in one “to cover his feet” which doesn’t make any sense until the other translations say that it means he ducked in to one of the caves to go to the bathroom in privacy. Coincidentally enough, it just so happens that the cave he chooses has David and some of his men hiding in the back of it. David’s man see this happy accident the same way that I do, this has to be the hand of God, and I think that it is, however, the men think it’s God delivering Saul into David’s hands, and maybe it is, but David doesn’t see it that way. The men want David to kill Saul, and for good reason, then they could finally stop running, hopefully, go home, and David might even take the throne for himself, and they would be...
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Constant Pursuit - 1st Samuel 23:9-29

After defeating the Philistines to save Keilah, it might be assumed that David and his men would feel safe and have some time to recover before moving on, but that assumption would be wrong because Saul hears about David’s victory in Keilah and instead of celebrating his bravery and the goodness of God, Saul sets out to besiege the city and kill David. David tells Abiathar, the only surviving priest of his father Ahimelech’s line, to bring the him the ephod which has the Urim and Thummim in it, and asks God if Saul will come to the city to try to kill him, and God answers that Saul will come. David then asks if the men of Keilah would hand David over to Saul when he shows up, and again God answers that they will hand David over to Saul. The people in Keilah must find themselves in quite the predicament. They were just being attacked by the Philistines, then David comes and saves them, so that’s great, but then Saul heads over to besiege the city and presumably kill everyone inside be...
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Keilah - 1st Samuel 22:1-8

Surely by now the news that Saul had executed almost all the priests and destroyed the city of Nob had spread to the surrounding towns. This was probably the first time that the ordinary citizenry knew there was a rift between Saul and David, and now the consequences of even interacting with David was knowns to the people. That was probably terrifying to the people, because death could come to anyone for just being near David, but also the nonsensical nature of it. The people probably heard that Ahimelech did not conspire with David against Saul but Saul had him and his family executed anyway. So not only did David’s presence mean death, there was no way out of it regardless of what you did, which was a big part of the problem. This knowledge that David brings Saul’s wrath to entire cities plays into what happens next. Another concept that is introduced to this chapter by the last chapter was that Ahimelech’s son, the only remaining priest of that line that escaped and joined David’s ...
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