And David abode in the wilderness in strongholds, and abode in the mountain in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand.
In this verse David is a hunted man, hiding in rocky strongholds while King Saul searches for him. His hunt fills the verse. The last line decides the outcome.
Just before this verse, Saul boasted that David was trapped in the town of Keilah. The last line of this verse answers that boast.
Saul in his terrible blindness can say, "God has given him into my hand." Yet he had heard Samuel's solemn word: "The LORD has also rejected you from being king!" (1 Sam. 15:23). What hardening of heart! The persecutor of the "beloved one" believes that he knows God and has Him on his side, but he does not know the God of Israel any 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).
Saul read David's position as proof that God was helping him. God can let events look like they favour a stubborn will, and then expose it.
Saul was completely deluded and had no guidance from God. David was shut in at Keilah, among people Saul could influence, and Saul saw this as God's move to hand his enemy over to him. Malice is so often blinded like this. When self-will is at work, God allows circumstances to seem to favour it. That only proves more fully how far such vindictive bitterness is from His will.
David asked God a question, and the answer kept him out of a trap.
God prompts the question that only He can answer. David might well have distrusted the men of Keilah. Whatever led him to ask, it was God who kept him from the trap closing around him.
The strongholds were rock. What that rock was for David, the Lord is for us.
A rocky area providing shelter and security. The Lord is a rock, the Lord is security, the Lord provides protection. Storms and problems and difficulties surround us. They come not only from our relationship with the world, but sadly sometimes from our relationship with other believers. If we hide in Him, the Lord can protect us in body, heart and mind.
The name of the place tells you what these months were for. One writer also marks a limit: here David mirrors our experience, not Christ's.
In the wilderness of Ziph Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand. David learned by experience what the name Ziph means: "refining." Suffering and endurance refined the shepherd-king and made him ready for the exaltation to come. In this he is not a type of our Lord, but we can read our own experience here.
David wrote from this wilderness. The songs we still sing came out of the hardship this verse describes.
David knew those experiences in the wilderness of Judah, and they enabled the sweet psalmist of Israel to write this way. David was never more with God, and God with him, than in that wilderness... Deep, searching trials did come upon him there. But they were precious trials of a faith that only grew stronger under the healthy discipline it went through. Realised dependence upon God turned his weakness into strength every time. God kept him from the hand of Saul.
From this point on, David has nowhere to live. Commentators differ on how far this pictures Christ.
From this point onward we see David hounded, pursued, and betrayed. He hides in caves and forests. He is in danger in cities and takes refuge in strongholds. He wanders on the mountains and the hills. He lives in the wilderness of Judah, of Ziph, of Maon, of Paran, with no place to rest his head.
We can only find that fellowship with Him in one place.
The outcast David and the cave of Adullam are open to us now, or never. The soul cannot get into such an association with our Lord except in the world which has cast Him out.
- Hunted. Saul searched every day. The verse still ends with the one thing he could not change.
- Held. God did not give David into Saul's hand. Saul had boasted that God already had, and the verse answers him.
- Refined. Ziph means "refining." The hunted months shaped the shepherd-king for the throne ahead.
- Near. The wilderness was not distance from God but closeness to Him. David was never more with God than there.
- Shared. The rock that hid him pictures the Lord as shelter. His outcast path is where fellowship with the rejected Christ is still found.
And David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life; and David was in the wilderness of Ziph in a wood.
David is a hunted man, and he knows it: Saul has come out with an army to take his life. He hides at Horesh in the wilderness of Ziph — older translations call the place simply "a wood."
One writer sees a purpose in this open break. It stripped David of every support until only God was left.
This is just what they need. They feel the conflict with a power they cannot set aside, and they feel their own utter weakness. That forces them to refer everything directly to God, and throws them into dependence upon Him for every step. At last Saul drives him right away. Saul shows full hostility, and David becomes an outcast. All this is necessary for the exercise of his faith, and it trains him to wait on the Lord.
One writer hears irony in the verdict passed on a king who was sure God was on his side.
The persecutor of the "beloved one" believes that he knows God and has Him on his side, but he does not know the God of Israel any 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."
On the ground it looked simple: Saul had the numbers, and David had the rocks.
Saul sought him "every day," we read, but did not find him. David and his men could hide among the rocks, and they were secure. Saul and his 3,000 couldn't find David and his 600.
One writer finds the lesson in the name of the wilderness itself.
David learned by experience what the name of Ziph means; it means "refining." That refining process of suffering and endurance fitted the shepherd-king for his coming exaltation. In this he is not a picture of our Lord, but we can read our own experience here.
One writer takes that order — the appointment first, the fitness for it afterwards — as God's normal way.
It is always God's way to appoint first, and then to qualify. With man it is the reverse: he needs qualification before appointment. But we may rest assured of this: God will fit us for whatever office He has destined us for, after He appoints us to it.
The place of greatest danger became the place where David was closest to God. One writer traces his psalm-writing back to that desert.
The wilderness of Judah was where David lived through the experiences that let the sweet psalmist of Israel write this psalm. David was never more with God, and God with him, than in that wilderness. Deep, searching trials did come upon him there. But they were precious trials of a faith that only grew stronger under the healthy discipline it passed through. Dependence upon God, felt and acted on, turned his weakness into strength every time.
Saul held the throne, the court and the army. David held a wood. Yet one writer puts everything worth having on David's side — even the ephod, the garment God's priest wore.
Saul's court was a defiled place then, a place that had turned away from God. God was with David then. The glory was in the wilderness with him; the dens and caves of the earth hid it in that day. The ephod was with David, the priest, the sword of God's strength, the witness of victory.
- Hunted. Saul's open hostility drove David out of every human shelter. His faith needed that stripping.
- Hidden. Saul searched daily with three thousand men and failed. God did not give David into his hand.
- Refined. Ziph means "refining." The suffering of the wilderness was fitting the shepherd-king for the place God had already appointed him to.
- Nearest. David was never more with God than in that wilderness. Dependence on Him turned his weakness into strength.
- Glory. Saul kept the throne, the army and the court. The glory, the ephod and God's presence were out in the wood with the rejected man.