King of Gath - 1st Samuel 27

Even though Saul said that David could come home and be safe, he didn’t believe him, plus he had an army of 600 men to take care of and if he’d shown back up at home with that army, Saul would have had a problem with that. Deciding that he can’t be safe anywhere in Israel’s territory, David takes his army and heads to Gath, which is the same place that he was at before when he went alone and had to pretend to be crazy to escape with his life, the difference this time though is that he now has an army with him. Whether or not this army was big enough to conquer the city of Gath, I’m not sure, but it was big enough to either pose a major threat or be a great asset. David is hoping that the king of Gath will see it as an asset, which he does but with some apprehension. Having a huge army in the main city would have not only been a problem for the resources of that city, but that army wasn’t loyal to that king, they were loyal to David so it probably made the king nervous to have them around him, so he made a deal with David so that David and his wives and his army could go live in an outlying city called Ziklag.

How did David provide for himself and his army? He raided the nearby cities of the Geshurites and the Amalekites. We’ve heard a lot about the Amalekites and how they were an enemy of Israel, so we’re familiar with them. What’s interesting to me is that David killed all the men and women of that city, presumably children too because if the children weren’t killed explicitly, they would have died shortly afterward without adults to feed them. I listened to TB’s lecture about this chapter before I read the IM’s take on it and they have differing views. I’ve said before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, I have trouble with David, just like I had trouble with Jacob, I don’t care for his treatment of women and the whole Uriah incident especially, even if it was socially acceptable for him to do so at the time. The IM simply sums up David’s raiding and killing of these cities, saying that he had “taken spoils from them to support his army who were with him at Ziklag. Although many commentators condemn this action by David, it should be noted that he was fulfilling God’s commandment given to Moses and Joshua to utterly destroy the Canaanites when Israel first came to the promised and.” Perhaps that’s the case perhaps David raided those cities and took what he needed to survive and only killed all the people because he alone was willing to fulfill the ancient commands of God to destroy these people out of the land promised to Israel. Perhaps. However that doesn’t really align with the reason given in verse 11 which says that David killed all those people so that no one could report back to the king of Gath to tell him what David was doing, “Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David, and so will be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines.”

The king of Gath is chillin in his kingdom, which is part of Philistia, meaning they are Philistines, then David shows up with a big army and says “hey I want to work for you.” The army is pretty big so the king is kind of forced to play ball here, but he probably has treaties and trade deals and peace agreements with the neighboring cities of the Geshurites and the Amalekites. The king just wants peace and prosperity for his people and his neighbors so when David goes around and starts robbing folk, if the king hears about it he’s going to not be pleased because for one, these are his neighbors but for two it’s going to make all the Philistines think that David is going to come do that to them, which is a fair assessment. This explains why later in the chapter when the king asks David where he got all this booty, David tells him that he got it by robbing his own people in the south of Judah, which seems like it was a lie. The lie served a separate purpose as well, the king figured that because David was robbing his own people, he would be a social outcast and couldn’t return to them if he wanted to and now was going to be forced to stay with the king forever, which worked out fine for him because David showed up with all this plunder and had to give tribute to the king. TB says, “Achish figured that David must now be seen as a pariah to his own people. And thus he has burned all bridges to his past and David is not nothing less than a naturalized Philistine.”

The reasoning for killing everyone given in verse 11 seems to go against the IM’s justification, and TB rejects that too, as it’s a common line of thinking among Biblical scholars. TB says that “verse 11 says that the reason that David killed all the Amalekites and Gehurites was so that they didn’t report the details of his activities to Achish; thus we are left with no doubt that David’s purpose for slaughtering these people had little if anything to do with God’s general command to Israel to destroy Amalek. Killing those people allowed David to operate in secret; King Achish knew only of the amount of plunder that David decided to tell him about. David could have amassed much more in the way of weapons and wealth than Achish had any idea about. Further, the Philistines were not barbarians and they may not have approved of David’s ruthlessness or tactics.”

It's interesting to contrast this to the incident with Nabal just a couple of chapters ago, where if David had gone through with it, it was speculated that David would have been disqualified from being king, what’s the difference between Nabal’s clan and the Amalekites? It’s just interesting to consider. TB gave an excellent lecture on why God used David even though he was so fatally flawed. This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately actually. I think maybe we look at todays prophets and apostles and think that they are perfect. I don’t think that they are perfect logically, but emotionally I struggle with the fact that I know they haven’t suffered the way that I have, so I have felt for a long time that it wasn’t fair that these flawed men could be in these callings but I was expected to be perfect. I’ve been seeing slowly, and honestly a lot of it has been through this Old Testament study, I don’t have to be perfect to do God’s will for me, I just have to be willing and to do my best. One part of the lecture that hit hard for me was, “For unfathomable reasons God decided to love mankind and to use imperfect beings to achieve His perfect and holy purposes. Despite the rocky road, and doubling back, and false starts, and failed attempts that are inherent to all the endeavors of humankind the Creator made a choice. It is common among Christians to say, ‘Well, God uses men because they are all He has to use.’ Not true. Yehoveh has legions of angels to do his bidding. They are more obedient and more powerful than we are. They are created more holy and even allowed into God’s presence. Yehoveh didn’t choose David because David was more perfect or more able than other men; He chose David because He foreknew that despite his failures and stumblings David would always choose Yehoveh.”

When I first heard this, I thought “I would call mass murder a stumbling” but then I thought back to David’s Psalms and I haven’t been through them extensively yet, but I remember reading some after he had Uriah killed of his repentance and sorrow for doing that, and is that not turning back and choosing God? If we truly believe that Jesus atoned for all sins, is that not one of them? Is that one action too far gone for God to deal with in his own way? Of course not. And if I have to accept that for others, then I have to accept that for this man as well. TB compared David to General Patton, who by his own admission and all evidence, was a warmonger and hated by his own men. But he had a very specific set of skills and abilities that the moment called for. I think Brigham Young was similar, and I struggle with him too, but his personality type and abilities were exactly what the church needed to make it through that stage of development. David was the man for this moment. It’s also interesting to compare the men in the Old Testament to those in the Book of Mormon. Essentially Moroni was a David type, but the difference in character is stark. Whereas we see David and all the mayhem that he wreaked, Moroni is described as “if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never had power over the hearts of the children of men.” The contrast is pronounced.

The other part of this to consider is, what should David have done, if he found himself in this circumstance, if he had been aligned with God, what should he have done instead? Should he have stayed in the caves and tried to kill animals in the wilderness for food? Should he have tried to hire out to jobs like guarding sheep and stuff to support himself that way? Should he have killed Saul and taken the throne when given the chance twice before? I don’t know, I don’t have the answers to that, maybe David wasn’t wrong here at all, maybe this is what God wanted him to do, I personally doubt it, but I’ve been wrong before. The thing that TB says sets him apart though, is that no matter what happens, no matter what he does right or wrong, he always goes back to God to repent. And that’s the promise right? That no matter what happens, no matter what we do, that we can come back to God and repent? If it’s true for me, then it’s got to be true for David as well. If it’s true for Paul, Moses, Lamoni, then it’s got to be true to David as well. TB ends the lecture after describing the dichotomy of David’s actions and violence up to that point, by saying, despite all that, “God loved him and used him mightily… This ought to give each of us who loves the Lord the greatest hope. Even when we fail, miserably, provided we maintain unwavering loyalty to God, He will continue to claim us. Even though those stages of our lives that we’re too embarrassed to reveal to those closest to us, and after some of our darkest moments, God can still use us for His Kingdom if we will stick to Him and not close off the possibility ( on our own accord) due to out shame and guilt and belief that there is no way that we are anything but shattered and useless vessels.”

I guess it’s easy for me to sit back in my comfy chair 3,000 years later and look at what a man did and “struggle” with who he is and what he does. God still used him to fulfill his purposes, God still loved him and made him the same promises that he makes to me, and if I can look to God and seek forgiveness and purpose, then it surely isn’t up to me to deny anyone else that same opportunity, which is what I’ve been doing in a lot of cases by judging. I just hope that wherever I am, in whatever capacity I am in, that I will seek to do things the way that God wants me to do them instead of doing whatever I think is right in my own mind. I hope that I can look at all the examples before me in the scriptures and try to find the right examples to look to when the time comes, and that I can learn the proper ways to do things so that I can minimize my own mistakes. I guess that’s the whole purpose of the scriptures anyway, to grow closer to God and to become who He wants us to become.