Ep. 87 - David a Fugitive

Last we left our story, King Saul was trying to kill David. After David had defeated the giant Goliath, Saul had promoted David to be his war advisor. And David did a great job as war advisor. The Israelites were winning more battles than ever, and David and Saul got along smashingly. But as it turned out, David did his job a little too well. Because when the people began to notice David, David accidentally began to take Saul’s most precious possession – the spotlight. In the blink of an eye, Saul went from loving David to hating David. And Saul secretly began to plot against David. First, Saul demoted David to a captain in the army and sent him to the front lines…hoping he’d get killed in a battle. But David didn’t die. Then Saul tried to get David killed in a crazy battle by offering his daughter as a reward for being “valiant”. But David didn’t die. Then Saul tried the same thing again with his younger daughter – trading marriage for personally killing 100 Philistines. But again, David didn’t die. Not only did David not die, but stories of his bravery kept spreading throughout Israel like wildfire. So, after all of Saul’s secret plotting, not only had Saul not managed to kill David, but he’d somehow made David even more popular. And not only that, but now David was married to his daughter and part of the royal household. King Saul was just beside himself. What was King Saul going to do?

Well, this is when Saul really took the gloves off. Saul decided he’d had enough with all the secret plotting and behind the scenes scheming…enough with worrying about appearances…and it was time to just go after David the old-fashioned way. And the Bible says, “Now Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David.” (19:1) Yup. Saul called together all of the officials who served in his government, including his son Jonathan, and he just came out with it…get out there and kill David. Of course, many of those officials were probably shocked. Weren’t Saul and David best buds? Hadn’t David done amazing things for Saul? Hadn’t David just married Saul’s daughter? It didn’t make any sense. But no one was as shocked as Jonathan. As the Bible says, “But Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted in David.” (19:1) Jonathan and David were actual best buds. (Because if you think about it, Jonathan and David were a lot alike. They both loved God, they were both brave, they had both put their lives on the line trusting God in impossible situations.) And Jonathan just couldn’t believe that his father wanted his best friend dead. What was Jonathan going to do?

Well, even though Saul had just ordered David’s death, instead of going off and trying to kill David, right away Jonathan went to find David to warn him, saying, “My father seeks to kill you. Therefore please be on your guard until morning, and stay in a secret place and hide.” (19:3) On hearing this from Jonathan, despite whatever run-ins he might have had with Saul in the past, David was probably shocked too. What…Saul…the king whom he’d served so faithfully…his own father-in-law…was trying to kill him? Really? But Jonathan didn’t just warn David. Jonathan had a plan, and said to David, “I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak with my father about you. Then what I observe, I will tell you.” (19:3) Jonathan was going to try to reason with his father. I mean, surely this was some king of misunderstanding. Or maybe this was one of Saul’s crazy “distressing spirit” moments. And so, Jonathan brought his father to the this field, and with David listening from a comfortable distance, Jonathan tried to convince his father to change his mind, saying, “Let not the king sin against his servant, against David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his works have been very good toward you. For he took his life in his hands and killed the Philistine, and the Lord brought about a great deliverance for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, to kill David without cause?” (19:4-5) And for whatever reason, maybe because Jonathan made him see it differently or maybe because Saul hadn’t realized that Jonathan and David were such good friends, for the moment, Saul listened to Jonathan. And Saul said to him, “As the Lord lives, he shall not be killed.” (19:6)

And for a while, there seemed to be peace in Saul’s household. Saul and David were getting along again, and things went back to normal. But this happy state of affairs did not last very long. As the Bible says, “There was war again; and David went out and fought with the Philistines, and struck them with a mighty blow, and they fled from him.” (19:8) So great news, right? The Israelites had defeated the Philistines yet again. Everyone was super happy! That is, everyone…except King Saul. All Saul could think about was how David had defeated the Philistines, and how David was getting still more popular with the people, and how David was getting the spotlight. And as Saul brooded on this, the “distressing spirit” came on Saul yet again. And Saul’s servants, not knowing that Saul had become super angry with David again, did what they always did when Saul got like this…they called in David to play for Saul. And of course, because David also had no idea that Saul was super angry with him, eagerly strode into Saul’s room and began playing for him just like he always did. But after just a little bit of playing, Saul’s anger boiled over…and with spear in hand he charged at David. Somehow David saw him coming, and just at the last second, David got out of the way. But Saul was charging at David so hard, that when David moved, Saul’s spear continued and went right into the wall. And probably while Saul was struggling to get the spear out of the wall, David managed to get out of the room and run home…probably hoping that Saul would calm down overnight and that by the next day things would be back to normal.

But unfortunately, things were not going to go back to normal. In fact, with this last attempt to kill David, things would never go back to normal. Once Saul figured out that David had gone home, right away he sent his men to surround David’s home overnight. Saul didn’t want David going anywhere. And he told his men that, in the morning, as soon as David came out of his house, that they were to kill him. But while David was still hoping for the best, Michal, David’s new wife, saw the writing on the wall. Knowing her father, and understanding that things were different this time, she spoke to her new husband and tried to convince him to take things more seriously, saying, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” (19:11) And David, seeing that his wife was right, listened to her. Michal found a way to let her husband down out of a window (which it sounds like this window was high up on the side of city wall where Saul’s men wouldn’t have expected him to go out of), and David disappeared into the night.

But being a good wife, Michal wasn’t done helping David. She wanted to give David as much time as possible to run away as far as he could get before anyone realized that David had escaped. So Michal quickly came up with a plan that would delay Saul’s men. She found a statue, and overnight she dressed the statue up like David…complete with clothes and even goat’s hair on the head…and then carefully put the statue in their bed and covered it with blankets. And then, in the morning when Saul’s men broke into the house to bring David to Saul, they saw that someone was in the bed…but not moving. And when the men looked questioningly at Michal, she said to them, “He is sick.” (19:14) For whatever reason, that seemed to make Saul’s men hesitate…because they didn’t even check for themselves if David really was sick and they just went and asked Saul what to do. And a frustrated Saul, determined kill David as soon as possible, forced the men into action by saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” (19:15) And so, Saul’s men picked up David’s bed, complete with the heavy statue in it, and lugged it all the way to Saul’s palace. When the bed arrived, Saul ripped off the covers ready to kill David, and…there was the statue. And that’s when Saul realized…David had escaped sometime the night before…and was probably long gone by now. And that his very own daughter had caused this to happen. An angry Saul looked over at Michal, and said, “Why have you deceived me like this, and sent my enemy away, so that he has escaped?” (19:17) And Michal, scared of her father’s anger, lied to Saul, and said, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’” (19:17) Basically saying that David had threatened to kill her if she didn’t help him escape. Which was of course not true…and made David look really bad. It seems that lying was no problem for Saul’s household.

So where did David go? Well, there was really only one place that David could go…and that was Ramah…where the old prophet Samuel still lived. It was probably only 7 or 8 miles away from Gibeah (where Saul’s palace was), and David could get there quickly. And when David arrived in Ramah, right away he went to Samuel and told Samuel everything that had happened to him. That Saul had tried to kill him not once, not twice, but many times…and that Saul really seemed to mean business this time. And that David had done nothing to Saul…only tried to serve him faithfully. After hearing all this, and knowing that Saul wasn’t going to give up on trying to kill David, he took David to the safest place he could think of – Naioth. Naioth was most likely a school campus or a maybe like a compound within Ramah where Samuel was training students. Naioth is was probably where the famous “school of the prophets” had its beginning…more to come on that later. It was a place of spiritual learning, and the people probably thought it was a special place. Samuel hoped that Saul would respect this place of spiritual learning, respect him, and respect his students…and that Saul wouldn’t dare to send violent men to just barge in there and kidnap David.

But of course, Saul was well beyond such things. Once Saul found out that David was holed up in Naioth, he immediately sent his men. No special spiritual place would get in the way of Saul getting rid of a possible challenger. And so, off his men went to accomplish their mission. But when Saul’s men arrived in Naioth, the strangest thing happened. As the Bible says, “When they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul (that is…Saul’s men), and they also prophesied.” (19:20) Now don’t forget, when the Bible says “prophesying”, it doesn’t necessarily mean predicting the future, it often means something like preaching or Spirit-led worship. So, as Saul’s men strode up to these prophets, who were already preaching and worshipping God, they also started preaching and worshipping God. They felt the power of God’s Spirit on them, and they just couldn’t help it…they just had to prophecy.

When Saul heard about this, that his men…these rough and tough professional soldiers…had somehow been stopped by a group of gentle prophets and that they somehow gotten caught up with prophesying, Saul probably thought that maybe this particular group of men weren’t as rough and tough as he had thought they were…and sent another group of men to Naioth. But when those men arrived the same thing happened again…they just started prophesying. And so Saul sent a third group of men. And the same thing happened a third time! And ya know, by this point, most sane people might take a step back here and think, ‘Ya know what…it seems like God is protecting David. So ya know…maybe it’s not the best idea to keep on trying to kill David.’ But no no. Instead, Saul said to himself, ‘Welp…if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.’ And Saul himself went to Naioth.

But guess what? When Saul arrived in Naioth, the exact same thing happened…Saul started prophesying too! And not only did Saul prophecy, but as the Bible says, “And he also stripped off his clothes and prophesied in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night.” (19:24) For whatever reason, when Saul started prophesying, he took it to the next level. Saul took off his royal robes, and with probably nothing more than a loincloth on, he laid down on the ground…and prophesied like that all day and all night. It was like the God’s Spirit came on Saul even more than all the rest of his men. And Saul prophesied his heart out.

What a crazy turn of events, eh kidzos? Here Saul had gone to Naioth with murder in his heart, and somehow he ended up laying on the ground, naked, praising and worshipping God. It’s amazing the things that God can do, even with people with the hardest of hearts. And now that Saul had very clearly seen that God was protecting David, and now that the Spirit of God had directly touched Saul, surely Saul would stop trying to kill David right? I mean, after this experience, Saul wouldn’t dare to continue and go directly against God, would he? Well, we will find out all about it…next time.