Then said David, Jehovah, God of Israel, thy servant hath heard for certain that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.
David had just rescued Keilah from the Philistines. Now word reaches him that Saul is marching on that same town. David does not plan his own escape. He calls for the priest and lays the whole matter before God. That includes the painful part: Saul would wreck a whole city just to reach him.
The report reaching David was not only that Saul wanted him dead, but that Saul would level an Israelite town to get him. David does not treat the rumour as settled; he brings it to God to be confirmed.
David's prayer to the Lord tells us that Saul was willing to go as far as destroying Keilah to kill David. David understood this, but he wanted God to confirm what would happen. His first question is: would Saul come? God answers, Yes, he would come.
David asks through the ephod, the garment a priest wore when seeking God's answer. One writer sees more in it than a way of getting guidance.
The breastplate could never be parted from the ephod, and it carried the names of all the tribes of Jacob. David was about to learn by bitter experience what the people he was going to serve were like. The breastplate reminded him that the Lord's compassion for them had not changed, however much their circumstances had changed. To judge them by their conduct might have made him a stranger to them. But to see them as the Lord thinks of them, which is what this picture shows, would deepen his interest in them... His cry was most solemn, most reverent, most earnest. He appealed again and again to the LORD as the LORD God of Israel, and asked his questions.
reason: unsupported facts moved into quote; trims watery lead-in
It does not appear that he used the priest when he asked counsel about rescuing Keilah. But here, when Saul was secretly plotting against him and he needed to know what to do himself, he tells the priest to bring the ephod. The first time, it was a simple question of whether he should serve others or not. His motives were not in doubt, so he only had to turn to the Lord for direction. But when our own interests are involved, we are much more likely to follow our own will, and to lose our undivided heart and purpose. We are never outside Christ. In serving others we act directly with Him. But when self is in any way involved, we need to realise how fully God accepts us, and to sift our motives. This is where the priesthood comes in.
David asks two things no scout could tell him: what Saul will do, and what the men of Keilah will do. The plainness of the exchange — question, answer, question, answer — is itself the point.
God prompts the question that only He can answer. It would have been natural for David to distrust the men of Keilah. Whatever led him to ask in this way, it was of God, to keep him from the trap closing around him at that moment... But notice the closeness between the Lord and David, and between David and the Lord. It stands out in this incident. He had long been a man of faith. But here he pleads his case in a way beyond anything we have seen before.
Set beside David's prayer, Saul's behaviour stands out. He never once asks God anything.
Saul, sitting under the tamarisk tree at Gibeah, is like a man fighting in the dark. He scolds his servants for not telling him that Jonathan is in league with David. Miserable man! He does not turn to God to learn the true state of things. Instead dark suspicion fills his heart.
God's reply was not comforting. David learned that the town he had just saved would hand him over, and he had to walk away from it.
The Lord makes this humbling truth known to David, and so David escapes from the people he had just befriended. Truly the path of faith is often a lonely one. Sometimes we have to leave the very people we serve, in case they turn their hostility against us. But God is over all. He keeps His beloved servant safe to continue the work he was anointed for.
- Ask — David hears the threat and neither runs nor schemes. He puts a plain question to God, who alone knew what Saul and Keilah would do.
- Ask with the priest — David sends for the ephod when his own safety is at stake. Self-interest needs sifting in a way that plain service does not.
- Ask, and hear back — God answers plainly. David pleads his case with a closeness beyond anything recorded of him before.
- Ask, and see the contrast — Saul never asks. He fights in the dark while suspicion fills his heart.
- Ask, and accept the cost — the answer sent David out of the city he had rescued. He left alone, but God kept him safe for the throne.
Will the citizens of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? Jehovah, God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And Jehovah said, He will come down.
David has just saved the town of Keilah from Philistine raiders. Now word reaches him that Saul is marching on the town to take him. Shut in behind gates and bars, with the ephod at hand, he puts two plain questions to God. The answers decide where he sleeps that night.
David's prayer starts from something he had "heard" — a rumour that Saul would wreck an entire town to reach one man. He does not act on the rumour, and he does not dismiss it either.
David however had well learned to be on guard. He called for Abiathar to bring the ephod in order to enquire of God. His prayer to the Lord tells us that Saul was willing to go so far as to destroy Keilah in order to kill David. David understood this, but wanted confirmation from God about what might happen. Would the men of Keilah give David and his men up to Saul? The Lord answered that they would. Their loyalty to David was not as strong as their fear of Saul. Yet their thinking is easy to understand: it was this, or their city would be destroyed. A terrible choice!
Earlier in the chapter David asked God whether to attack the Philistines. That time he did not call for a priest. Here he does. One writer traces the difference to whose interests are at stake.
The first time, the question was simple: should he serve others or not? No one was questioning his motives, so he had only to turn to the Lord for direction. But when our own interests are involved, our own will is far more likely to lead us. Our heart and purpose lose their singleness. We are never outside Christ. In serving others we act directly with Him. But when self comes into it in any way, we need to grasp how fully God accepts us, and we need to sift our motives. This is where the priesthood comes in.
What David held in his hands shaped how he saw the townspeople who were about to betray him.
The breastplate could not be separated from the ephod, and it carried the names of all the tribes of Jacob. David was about to learn the character of the people he had to serve, and to learn it by bitter experience. The breastplate reminded him that the Lord's compassion for them had not changed, however much their circumstances had. To look at them in the light of their conduct might have turned him away from them. To see them as the Lord sees them, which is what this picture expresses, would deepen his interest in them. His cry was most solemn, most reverent, most earnest. Again and again he appealed to the Lord as the Lord God of Israel.
David asks about two things no man could report: what Saul will decide, and what the men of Keilah will do.
God prompts the question He only can answer. David might naturally distrust the men of Keilah. Whatever led him to enquire like this, it was of God, to preserve him from the trap closing around him. He will guide the meek in judgment, and He will teach the meek His way. But notice how striking the closeness is here — the Lord's closeness with David, and David's with the Lord. He had long been a man of faith, but he pleads his case here in a way beyond anything we have seen before. He is the clear type of one who walked in perfect dependence on God.
While David is putting questions to God, Saul is drawing conclusions about God. Set side by side, the two men show what having God's mind is worth.
Saul, under the tamarisk tree at Gibeah, is like a man fighting in the dark, as he scolds his servants for not telling him that Jonathan is in league with David. Miserable man! He does not turn to God to learn the true state of things; dark suspicion fills his heart. His son, his servants, his relatives all seem to fail him, and Doeg the Edomite is the only one ready to do what he wants.
God's reply did not promise a battle or a rescue. It told David that the town he had rescued would hand him over — so he walked out.
He made no complaint. He cannot wage war with Israel, with the people whose names were on the breastplate. He can strike no blow at his master, the Lord's anointed. He will not fight.
The sting of the answer is that the men who would give him up were alive because of him.
God did bring David to Keilah. But He also knew how to bring him out — not for Saul's sake, but for His own glory and Saul's confusion. The base men of Keilah would have handed him over to Saul. But again he seeks direction and finds it. God led him both to befriend the men of Keilah and to flee from their ingratitude. The Lord Jesus met the same ingratitude from those He befriended.
- Ask first. David heard a report and took it straight to God for confirmation rather than acting on it or ignoring it.
- Ask carefully. When his own safety was at stake, not just the service of others, he called for the ephod. Self-interest needs motives sifted.
- Ask God alone. Only God knew Saul's plans and where Keilah's loyalty would land. He prompted the very question He alone could answer.
- Get a plain answer. The reply was short and exact, and it sent David out of the city instead of into a fight with his own nation.
- Expect ingratitude. The town he had rescued would have sold him; the same happened to One greater than David.
And David said, Will the citizens of Keilah deliver up me and my men into the hand of Saul? And Jehovah said, They will deliver [thee] up.
David has just saved the town of Keilah from Philistine raiders. Now Saul is marching to besiege the town, and David asks God what the people he rescued will do. The answer is blunt: they will hand him over.
No one could have told David what the men of Keilah would do. One writer sees God's hand in the asking itself.
God prompts the question He only can answer. David might naturally distrust the men of Keilah. Whatever led him to ask, it came from God, to keep him from the snare closing in around him.
The same writer points to something striking in the way David and God speak to each other here.
The closeness between the Lord and David, and between David and the Lord — one might almost call it familiarity — is very striking in this incident. He had long been a man of faith, but here he pleads his case in a way beyond anything we have seen before. He is the clear picture of a man who walked in complete dependence on God.
David asked God through the ephod, the priest's garment used for seeking His mind. Attached to it was the breastplate, and by the Urim and Thummim the answer came. One writer draws out what David saw there as he asked about people who were about to fail him.
The breastplate could not be separated from the ephod, and it carried the names of all the tribes of Jacob. David was about to learn by bitter experience what the people he was to serve were really like. The breastplate reminded him that the Lord's compassion for them had not changed, even though their circumstances had. Looking at them in the light of their conduct might have turned him away from them. But seeing them as the Lord thought of them, pictured here, would deepen his interest in them. And by the Urim and Thummim he could have the guidance he needed.
Another writer sets Saul's asking beside David's.
Saul asks the Lord only rarely. When he does, he gets no answer, or he gets an answer by lot that passes judgment on his whole behaviour. David has none of the outward help of the appointed forms of worship, yet he talks directly with his God.
The verse does not say the townsmen hated David. It says they would surrender him. One writer weighs what drove them.
We see in this that their attitude to David was not as strong as their fear of Saul. Yet we can understand their thinking, natural as it was. It was either this or their city would be destroyed. Terrible alternative!
David was inside Keilah as its rescuer, and these were the people who would sell him. One writer connects the moment to words spoken by One greater than David.
As it turned out, the men of Keilah were quite ready to hand their rescuer over to Saul if the chance came. It was a shameful act, and only one thing stopped it: David asked the Lord through the ephod and found out what the men of Keilah meant to do. Now he has to learn what One greater than David had to say: "In return for my love they accuse me… So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love." (Ps. 109:4-5)
God's answer showed David what the men of Keilah were ready to do, so he never gave them the chance. Notice what he refused to do next.
He made no complaint. He cannot wage war with Israel, with the people whose names were on the breastplate. He can strike no blow at his master, the Lord's anointed. He will not fight, but "David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go."
Keilah's failure is not only Keilah's. One writer turns it round on the reader.
It is sad to see this. The deliverance David won for the men of Keilah did not stir them to gratitude. They would hand him over to Saul, and so he must flee from them. So little does the average Israelite value what has been done for him! And what shall we say of ourselves? Have we rightly valued that wonderful freedom which faith has won for us? Do we value the people the Lord has used to bring us priceless truth — truth that has won the victory over the Philistines?
- Ask. David brought God the one question no man could answer, and the asking itself kept him safe.
- Access. The ephod gave David his guidance. Its breastplate reminded him that God's compassion for these failing people had not changed.
- Answer. God told him the truth: they would give him up. Their loyalty to David was weaker than their fear of Saul.
- Anguish. The town he had just saved was ready to sell him. It is the same wound One greater than David would know: evil paid back for good.
- Action. David made no complaint and struck no blow. He took God's answer and left.
Then David and his men, about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David had escaped from Keilah, and he forbore to go forth.
David had just rescued Keilah from the Philistines, and God then told him that the townsmen he saved would hand him over to Saul. This verse is what he did with that answer, and it raises a hard question: why did saving a town leave the rescuer homeless?
David did not guess about Keilah's loyalty. He asked God, and even the question came from God.
God prompts the question that He alone can answer. David might naturally have distrusted the men of Keilah. Whatever led him to ask, it was God's doing, to preserve him from the trap closing in on him.
Two things David would not do: make war on Israel, and lift a hand against Saul. That left him only one option — to walk out.
The breastplate bore the names of all the tribes of Jacob... He made no complaint. He cannot wage war with Israel, with the people whose names were on the breastplate. He can strike no blow at his master, the LORD's anointed. He will not fight, but "he and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go."
That decision cost him shelter, and it changed Saul's plans too.
David realised that his only course was to leave the inhabited area and find somewhere for himself and his 600 men to live. They would not be safe in any city: they had to accept the status of fugitives. When Saul heard they had left Keilah, he did not go there, but tried every day to find where David was... It was no small thing for 600 men to remain hidden: they would have to be constantly on guard.
The townspeople were not simply wicked. They faced a choice no town should have to make.
He asks next, would the men of Keilah give David and his men up to Saul? The Lord answered, Yes, they would. Of course we see in this that their attitude toward David was not as strong as their fear of Saul. Yet we can understand their very natural thinking: it was either this or their city would be destroyed. Terrible alternative!
Saul's choice of battles gives him away.
He would not go to Keilah to save the people there from the Philistines. But he would take his army there to fight against David — the man who had been willing to fight for Keilah!
Saul had said God handed David over to him. The chapter answers him, and the answer starts the moment David walks out of the gates.
Saul is terribly blind. He can still say, "God has given him into my hand," though he had heard Samuel's solemn word: "he has also rejected you from being king" (1 Samuel 15:23). What a hardening of heart! The persecutor of the "beloved one" believes he knows God and has Him on his side. But he knows the God of Israel no better than he knows himself. Psalm 2:4 says, "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision." In the same way, the Word answers here with well-deserved irony: "God did not give him into his hand" (v. 14).
The wound did not stay in the past. It went into David's Psalms.
Many of his Psalms show the strong emotion he felt while writing them. Few show it more than the ones he wrote when he discovered the ingratitude and treachery of the people he served. "In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love" (Psalm 109)... So God, by the Spirit, has used his afflictions "to express the feelings not only of the people of God, but often of the Lord Himself."
Comfort reached him even in the wilderness.
David now goes "wherever he could go" (verse 13), and eventually stays in a mountain in the wilderness of Ziph. Here Jonathan comes to him and "strengthens his hand in God"... How graciously the Lord cheers us by human sympathy when we have entered the wilderness depending only on Him!
- Ask — His question about Keilah's loyalty was God's doing. It kept him out of a trap that was already closing.
- Leave — He acted on God's answer at once. He would not fight Israel or strike Saul, so he walked out with six hundred men.
- Lose — Obedience cost him shelter. No city was safe, so he and his men accepted life as fugitives.
- Laugh — Saul boasted that God had given David into his hand. The Word answers with irony: "God did not give him into his hand."
- Sing — The betrayal became psalms. David's pain gave words to the people of God, and often to the Lord Himself.