The Runaround - 1st Samuel 21

After figuring out that Saul was in fact still trying to kill him, David leaves and goes to Nob to the priest Abimelech. David was alone when he showed up and as far as anyone knew, he held a very high position in Saul’s government so traveling alone would have been very unusual for a man of his station, so it tipped Abimelech off that something was wrong and he was afraid of David, or probably afraid to get caught up in the drama that would come with David showing up alone. So he asks David why he’s alone and David lies and says that he’s on a super secret mission and that his men are with him they are just hiding. David also asks for 5 loaves of bread “or what there is present.” Abimelech answers that there is no regular bread, only the shewbread, which was the specially consecrated bread that sat on the altar for 7 days, then was replaced with a new batch and the priest was allowed to eat it. Abimelech gave that shewbread to David to eat, and it’s just a few verses but apparently was such a big deal that a thousand years later, Jesus references this event when teaching principles.

The shewbread was supposed to only be eaten in the sanctuary area and only by the priests, so Abimelech was technically breaking Torah law by giving that bread to David to eat. However, in Matthew 12:1-8 we read about Jesus and his disciples going through a field on the Sabbath and picking ears of corn to eat because they were hungry. Of course, breaking the sabbath by picking and eating food was a big no-no, and the Pharisees rebuked Jesus for it. Jesus’ reply was that David ate the shewbread “which was not lawful for him to eat, either for them which were with him, but only for the priests.” The IM explains, “David’s partaking of the shewbread, which was reserved only for the priests, was technically a violation of that Mosaic law. Jesus, however, used this incident to show that in times of dire necessity a breach of the ritual law was not a sin. As Paul said, ‘the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.’” TB gives an extensive explanation about how this confronts the concept of how so many times in life we are confronted with decisions that are impossible for us to win spiritually. TB gave the example of Corrie Ten Boom, the woman who hid Jews in her home and lied to Nazis about it. In order to obey the letter of the law, she would have been required to give up those she was hiding, but to obey the letter of the law, she had to lie to those who would kill them, and she chose the better part.

After eating the bread, David must have noticed that an Edomite name Doeg was there who was Saul’s chiefest servant. This freaked David out, understandably, because he knew that Saul had commanded all his servants to kill David any chance that they got, so David gets ready to make his exit. Interestingly about Doeg, TB notes, “Fittingly the ungodly King of Israel had chosen this uncircumcised pagan to be his eyes and ears and to be in charge of his bodyguards and his flocks.” Makes sense that he chose a non-Israelite man to be one of his closest advisors. Before David can leave, he needs to get what he really came for. He asks Abimelech if he has any weapons that he could take and Abimelech answers that there is only Goliath’s sword that David took in the first place. I didn’t make this connection, but after hearing TB explain, it made more sense. Back when David first slays Goliath, it says that he put the armor in “his tent,” but it’s also translated as “the tent” meaning the religious sanctuary at the time, which was in Nob, where he was right then. TB explains, “David thought to ask for a weapon at a very unlikely place to find one (the sanctuary of YHWH) because he himself had brought that sword there only a few years earlier and wondered if it might still be present.”

David was there to get food and the sword because he put it there previously. Interestingly, I’ve been seeing some videos about the parallels between David and Nephi and one of the parallels is that David cuts Goliath’s head off with his own sword and then 400 years later Nephi cuts Laban’s head off with his own sword. The sword of Goliath and the sword of Laban play prominent parts in both Israelite and Nephite records. Both of these swords were also used to denote royalty and leadership. Just some speculation, I saw a video that said that the sword carried by Laban at the time that he was slain very well could have been the sword of Goliath because it probably would have been kept in Jerusalem with the other historical artifacts and surely Laban would have carried it with him as a sign that he was the ruler there and to denote how important that he was. Meaning that the sword of Goliath might very well be the sword of Laban that Nephi took with him. I could be convinced either way, but it was an interesting idea. Abimelech tells David were the sword is, David takes it and leaves.

Fleeing to get away from Doeg, David goes to the city of Achish to see the king of Gath. This begs the question, why was David going to meet with an enemy of Israel? Maybe he was hoping to form some sort of alliance with the king there, kind of an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” type of situation. Maybe he’s hoping that he can get sanctuary there, maybe he’s hoping that tales of his successful military ventures have reached this king and maybe David could lead their armies to battle because of God’s favor. David does not get the reception that he's hoping for. To me the words that the king and his followers say don’t really make sense but TB explains it nicely. The servants say, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?” I don’t know why this was a big deal, but David got the message that he was not welcome there. TB explains, “Achish knew full well that David wasn’t the King of Israel; his soldiers had been fighting against King Saul for years. Rather this was a kind of mocking as he looked up this great warrior of whom the women sand songs, but now a disheveled and well out of his comfort zone. One can only imagine what was going through the King of Gath’s min. Whatever would have possess David to show up here? He had to be wary, suspicious, and a bit worried.

That plan did not work out the way David was hoping, and he had to make an exit plan, so he starts acting insane, like literally, “scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.” Achish says that he’s crazy and asks, basically, “why did you bring a crazy man to me? Do I not have enough crazy men?” And sends David away. I didn’t understand this interaction at all, but TB asks why the king didn’t just kill David? He answers, “In those times madness was viewed through the lens of superstition. Just as it was that King Saul’s own inner court saw Saul’s fits of rage and irrationality as a kind of madness… so for Achish to have a madman in his presence or to kill him could cause evil spirits to bedevil him or his city.” The king doesn’t want to curse himself or his city by killing someone he thinks is insane, but he just instead throws him out.