This week we welcome guest blogger, Kirk Marks. Kirk retired from a long career in pastoral ministry, denominational leadership and theological education. He now works in global fair trade.
The armies of Philistia and Israel are gathering, facing off. War is about to erupt. As we reviewed in the previous post, though David and his 600 men are Israelites, they have been living in Ziklag, a Philistine town, with the blessing of the Philistine king Achish.
Now in 1st Samuel 29, David and his 600 men arrive at the front, ready to join the Philistine army. The commanders of the Philistine army look at Achish and they say, “What are you doing bringing this Israelite here with his Israelite soldiers? You really think they’re going to fight for us? As soon as this fighting begins, they’re going to turn on us. They’re going to chop off our heads and say, ‘Hey, Israel, see what we did? We actually are with you!’ This is all going to go against us.”
Achish says, “I trust David. He’s going to be fine. This will be okay.”
But Achish’s other officers will not have it, leaving Achish in a tough political spot in that honor and shame culture. By honoring his officers, Achish will need to shame David, which is a cultural sin. The other option is to honor David and shame the Philistine officers, which Achish cannot do. What does Achish do? He goes to David and he says, “David, you know what? I think you need to sit this one out. This is not going to work. My commanders aren’t comfortable with you guys around here.”
David should have said, “Whew, thank goodness. I don’t have to go fight my brother Israelites.” Instead, David becomes indignant. It’s the weirdest thing. He says, “Wait a minute. I’ve been loyal to you, Achish. We should be here. We should be part of this fight.”
We don’t know why David responds like this. Maybe he is keeping up a ruse of being loyal to Achish. Maybe he is feeling shamed and is defending his honor.
No matter, because Achish says to him, “No, David, it’s not going to happen. I want you to sit this out, go back to Ziklag, take a vacation, and after this war’s over, we’ll settle things out.”
That brings us to 1st Samuel chapter 30. As the war is ready to start between Philistia and Israel, David and his soldiers goes back to Ziklag to discover something terrible has happened. While he and all his armed men have been gone, Ziklag was unprotected. The Amalekites, which were a neighboring ethnic group that was opposed to Israel, took advantage of that vulnerability and sacked Ziklag. They have taken away all the people that were there, David’s wives, all his soldiers’ families, and all their possessions, and carried it off. When David and his men arrive back home in Ziklag, they are shocked to find it’s not there anymore.
Notice the irony. David, who’s been raiding his neighbors while he lived in Ziklag, now himself has been raided. It’s a sad and terrible moment. David and his soldiers don’t know what’s happened to their families. They think they may have lost them, and they mourn the loss of what’s happened.
Then David says, “Let’s inquire of the Lord and see what he wants us to do.” David has with him Abiathar, the priest. Through Abiathar, David inquires of the Lord using the Urim, and he receives the message from the Lord that he should pursue the Amalekites. God’s going to give him favor, and there’s going to be a rescue involved. So David says, “Okay, men, let’s go.”
David and his men head into the desert. They don’t know where to find the Amalekites, but they stumble upon an Egyptian man. It turns out he was with the Amalekites, got sick, and the Amalekites left him for dead, but he didn’t die. David, knowing the Egyptian is an intelligence asset, says, “Can you tell us where the Amalekites are going?” He says, “Yeah, if you promise you won’t kill me, I’ll help you,” and he gives David usable intelligence.
They catch up with the Amalekites and overthrow them. To David and his soldiers’ great surprise and joy, none of their families who were kidnapped from Ziklag have been harmed in any way. They rescue every single person, retrieve their possessions which the Amalekites had stolen, and then they plunder the Amalekites. The bring everything safely back to Ziklag, and David sends some Amalekite plunder to his needy Israelite neighbors. David’s sharing with nearby Israelites is the beginning of David’s growing reputation among the Israelites. In the coming weeks we will see how that relationship blossoms.
That brings us to the end of 1st Samuel 30, but what about the war between Philistia and Israel? In the previous post, I mentioned that I was skipping some crucial events in 1st Samuel 28. In the next post, we’ll return to that chapter which tells the story of an extremely weird episode in King Saul’s life.
Photo by Akshar Dave🌻 on Unsplash
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