The Ziphites reappear with their offers of betrayal. Without caring about the king’s lack of righteousness and about the grace David had shown to him they turn to the one from whom they hope to obtain advantages or whose displeasure would be able to harm them. Such disdain for David’s person and character are perhaps more terrible than Nabal’s crude affront. The Ziphites are a true picture of the Christian world today. In appearance it welcomes Christ and in reality it betrays Him. The favors it covets cannot be given by Jesus; therefore they turn to the enemy to obtain them, “deny[ing] the Master that bought them” (2 Peter 2:1).
Saul has forgotten everything: the grace which spared him in the cave of En-gedi, his own words of repentance, and the generous oath that David had sworn to him to spare his seed. His old hatred rises again; a proposal from the Ziphites is enough to kindle the fire smoldering within him. Animosity against Christ may lie dormant in the natural man; some occasion revives it; then one sees that nothing is changed in the sinner’s heart and that it is, as always, desperately wicked.
David sends spies and is informed of everything while Saul is still searching for him. There comes a time for the believer when a certain confidence in his enemies is no longer justified, when we must be on our guard and refrain from revealing to them our secrets which they would only use as weapons against us. We are not ignorant of their designs and, if the Word recommends that we be guileless as doves, it also at the same time exhorts us to be prudent as serpents. That is what characterizes David here and what characterized the Lord Himself when He was asked whether it was necessary to pay tribute to Caesar.
But when it is a matter of confidence in God, all of David’s prudence disappears. He advances boldly—the world would say “recklessly”—with Abishai alone into the midst of three thousand adversaries and fearlessly goes to seek out his enemy. Faith that feeds on difficulties grows through meeting them. The hill of Hachilah where David goes towards Saul is the witness of greater faith than was the cave of En-gedi where Saul inadvertently fell into David’s hands. But however varied the circumstances may be in which faith is involved, the principles that direct faith are unchanging. Saul, although on the verge of judgment, remains the Lord’s anointed to David as long as God has not given the final signal. For David to act otherwise toward him than in grace would be to deny his character all the more seriously since he had received the Lord’s approbation at En-gedi. Abishai, David’s companion, lays a snare for him here without even realizing it himself, and probably because of the very affection he bears for his master. Knowing that David will not avenge himself, Abishai offers to avenge him. (1 Sam. 26:8). Had this taken place, the rejected king’s character of grace would have been entirely compromised once again. This is one of Satan’s principal objects with regard to believers. If he can induce us to take our own interests in hand, to avenge ourselves, to demand our rights in this world, he makes us fall from faith because at the same time we become like the world we deny our confidence in God alone. David had been in danger of giving up this principle in the matter with Nabal, but he had learned his lesson; God had strengthened him and his own heart had no need to reproach him as at the “rocks of the wild goats.” “Destroy him not,” he says to Abishai, “for who can stretch forth his hand against Jehovah’s anointed, and be guiltless?” (1 Sam. 26:9). This unchanging principle follows him until just after Saul’s death, when he has the pretended murderer of the king struck down: “How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thy hand to destroy Jehovah’s anointed?” (2 Sam. 1:14). Thus until his last breath Saul remains inviolable for David, as being the Lord’s anointed.
Often we fail where David triumphed. In the face of the persistent unrighteousness of men after having acted in grace once or twice this seems enough to us, and we think we are right to resist and protest against iniquity. If we walk with God we will learn very quickly that by protesting we move out of His pathway, and if we act contrary to this knowledge Satan will quickly make us his prey.
The deep sleep that God had caused to fall on Saul and on all the camp might have given birth to the thought of taking advantage of such a moment. This was not so. God had sent this sleep to preserve His beloved and not to give him an occasion to avenge himself. God would save him in view of the work of grace He would call Him to accomplish toward Saul. Grace is reserved for David; judgment is reserved for the Lord. But David takes a token, as he had taken one in the cave. The spear and the cruse of water are two witnesses by which the events that had taken place are confirmed. The weapon that Saul had sought to use against David more than once is now found in David’s hand. Would he use it against the Lord’s anointed as he had once used Goliath’s sword against this enemy of Israel? In no way. It is enough for David to take away from Saul that which he had used in his effort to harm David, to show the king that he was well aware of his weapons and that they were powerless against him.
Now David goes far away from sleeping Saul and puts “a great space... between them” (1 Sam. 26:13). To have acted otherwise would have been blind confidence in man. Sometimes the world must see the distance that separates it from the children of God. If they do not distance themselves from the world they often support it in its illusion as to its condition.
In speaking to Abner (1 Sam. 26:13-16), not without irony, David shows him that there is more interest and care for the world in a child of God than in those who pretend to support, help, or defend it.
And now (1 Sam. 26:17-20) Saul is summoned to answer the one whom he is pursuing like “a partridge on the mountains.” “Why?” “What have I done?” These questions elicit only silence. Before them every mouth will be closed forever. If it is the Lord who has stirred up Saul against David why does He deliver David from his hand? If it is men let them be cursed, those men who have driven David from his inheritance and compared him, the Lord’s anointed, to idol worshippers, as later they compared Jesus to demons. This sin will not be forgiven them.
But all that David asks is that his “blood [not] fall to the earth far from the face of Jehovah” (1 Sam. 26:20), that he may serve the Lord, and that his death be approved by Him in the very place from which the king of Israel is seeking to chase him. Just as Jesus later on, so David must suffer in Judah; this is why the word of the Lord had sent him there (1 Sam. 22:5), and if he must die to glorify the Lord, that is where he must die.
Saul says: “I have sinned... I will no more do thee harm... I have acted foolishly, and have erred exceedingly” (1 Sam. 26:21). How many times had he not already said or acknowledged that this was so? Did that change his ways in the least? Often we allow ourselves to be deceived by appearances when it is a matter of appreciating the condition of souls. David is not fooled. He confides in God alone and not at all in Saul’s feelings. He returns his weapons to him, knowing that Saul can do nothing without God’s will. The king’s life had been precious to David, but David does not count on his life being precious to Saul. “And behold, as thy life was highly esteemed this day in mine eyes, so let my life be highly esteemed in the eyes of Jehovah” (1 Sam. 26:24). He counts on the Lord. The life of David, a flea, a partridge on the mountains, is of great price in the eyes of Him who had chosen him, called him, and kept him as the apple of His eye. Thus God glorifies Himself in those who are little and weak.
What does Saul’s blessing matter? He who had told the Ziphites: “Blessed be ye of Jehovah,” can say to David: “Blessed be thou, my son David” (1 Sam. 26:25); he who had said: “Thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame” (1 Sam. 20:30), can well say: “Thou shalt certainly do great things, and shalt certainly prevail” (1 Sam. 26:25). Is Saul also among the prophets? All this has no more value in David’s eyes than in the Lord’s eyes. David is content with his God’s approval and promises and that suffices him perfectly.