Wednesday Bible Study: And now, a word from David, part one

 

I'm about to put a pause- a short one- on "The End of All Things", because there is something else that needs to go right HERE.  You see, several weeks ago I felt the Lord start telling me, "Do a study on David's mistakes, like you did with Peter."  Now you may have hit my posts on what I continue to learn from Peter's mistakes, and the anagram- BLEST HOW? FAVA- I use to remember it.  Now I wasn't delaying David- When I felt the call, I usually felt, "soon", with it.  But this weekend, I went to work on it.  And I was absolutely blown away by the 'magic' God puts in His Word!  I anticipated a few weeks of meditation on it before sharing... but then I realized that upcoming last chapter of Nehemiah was the very APPLICATION of what I found!  I had no choice but to work this in now, so that Nehemiah 13 would make perfect sense!

This is going to take a while, so this break is going to be at least a couple of posts.  I want to show you the thought process in the search AND in what I discovered.  Before I began working on David's actual mistakes, I decided I needed to examine that part of the David v Goliath story nobody talks about...

1Sa 17:28  And his oldest brother Eliab heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the naughtiness of your heart. For you have come down to see the battle.

So was Eliab right?  Were those things in David's heart- was the battle with the giant the result of a sin?  Each and every commentator said the same thing- Eliab spoke falsely out of pride.  Pride that had been hurt when he was passed over by Samuel for David when the prophet came looking for a new king.  So, I said, well, that settles that.

But, it didn't.  As I studied the mistakes David made, they fell (even in chronological order!) into three categories- and the headers "your pride", "the naughtiness of your heart", and "passing over responsibility" ("...and with whom have you left those few sheep...") are so perfect that it would seem that, while Eliab didn't intend it, his comments were a prophecy of David's errors.  So while Nehemiah will be the application bookend, Eliab has the prophetic starting end of the story.

As I said, the 12 mistakes I found line up, chronologically and subject wise, into three neat groups.  Today, since I had to spend some time on the set- up, we'll cover just one of these sets.

GROUP ONE:  Sins of COMMITTING to God (aka who's going to do it? instead of bringing it to God)

 

Sin 1: Lying to Ahimelech

David has just started his flight from Saul.  He needs a friendly face, some food, and a weapon.

1Sa 21:1  And David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said to him, Why are you alone, and no man with you?
1Sa 21:2  And David said to Ahimelech the priest, The king has commanded me a business and has said to me, Let no man know anything of the business about which I send you, and what I have sent you. And I have sent servants to such and such a place.
1Sa 21:3  And therefore, what is under your hand? Give five loaves of bread in my hand, or what there is to be found.
1Sa 21:4  And the priest answered David and said, There is no common bread under my hand, but there is holy bread if the young men have kept themselves at least from women.
1Sa 21:5  And David answered the priest and said to him, Truly women have been kept from us for about three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and in a way the holy bread is common. Also surely today it is sanctified in the vessels.
1Sa 21:6  And the priest gave him holy bread. For there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence that was taken from before Jehovah, in order to put hot bread in on the day when it was taken away.

Almost every commentator said the same five words about this:  "This was a plain lie."  David went to a priest of God- a man who speaks for God- and instead of committing his truth to God, he told a lie, to calm the priest.  But one of Saul's cronies was there, and because of that, the priests were killed.

Sin 2: Faking insanity

1Sa 21:10  And David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
1Sa 21:11  And the servants of Achish said to him, Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
1Sa 21:12  And David laid up these words in his heart, and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
1Sa 21:13  And he changed his behavior before them, and pretended himself to be mad in their hands, and marked on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down on his beard.
1Sa 21:14  Then Achish said to his servants, Lo, you see the man is mad. Why have you brought him to me?
1Sa 21:15  Do I have need of mad men, that you have brought this one to show madness in my presence? Shall this one come into my house? 

 

The commentators point out that David made an assumption- that the fame he'd gained under Saul's command was a fleeting thing to the enemies he defeated.  But the sin wasn't in acting crazy- it was in not committing his safety to God.  As it would turn out, there were plenty of places in Judea he could have hid and God would have protected him- and once he returned, his brothers (even Eliab!), is parents, and a band of warriors gathered to his cause.

Sin 3: "I'm gonna Kill that fool"

Here, he had been in the area of the herds of a dude named Nabal (which, as his wife points out, means, 'fool'), and despite the kindness his men had shown Nabal's guys, Nabal told them to kiss off when David sent some men to ask for food.  David vowed to end his life; but one of Nabal's hands, who was smarter than his master, told the wife, Abigail what was up.

1Sa 25:24  And she fell at his feet and said, On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be. And please let your handmaid speak in your ears, and hear the words of your handmaid.
1Sa 25:25  Please do not let my lord regard this man of worthlessness, Nabal. For as his name is, so he is. Nabal is his name, and foolishness is with him. And I, your handmaid, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.
1Sa 25:26  And now, my lord, as Jehovah lives and as your soul lives, since Jehovah has withheld you from coming to shed blood, and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now let your enemies, and those that seek to do evil to my lord, be as Nabal.
1Sa 25:27  And now this blessing which your handmaid has brought to my lord, let it even be given to the young men who follow my lord.
1Sa 25:28  Please forgive the trespass of your handmaid. For Jehovah will certainly make a sure house for my lord, because my lord fights the battles of Jehovah, and evil has not been found in you all your days.
1Sa 25:29  Yet a man has risen to pursue you and to seek your soul. But the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with Jehovah your God. And the souls of your enemies, He shall sling them from the hollow of a sling.
1Sa 25:30  And it shall be, when Jehovah has done to my lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning you, and commanded you to be ruler over Israel,
1Sa 25:31  this shall be no stumbling to you, nor offense of heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood for nothing, or that my lord has delivered himself. And may Jehovah deal well with my lord, and you remember your handmaid.
1Sa 25:32  And David said to Abigail, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, who sent you today to meet me.
1Sa 25:33  And blessed is your advice, and blessed are you who have kept me from coming to shed blood today, and from delivering myself with my own hand.
1Sa 25:34  And truly, as Jehovah, the God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from doing evil to you, for unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely there would not have been left to Nabal by the morning light one who urinates against the wall.

So let's get two things out of the way.  Yes, David had a colorful way of saying, "men".  Second, if you were to look a few verses back, to the author's description of Nabal, where it says, "and he was of Caleb."  This actually is a mistranslation- Caleb means "dog", and the intent of the phrase was that Nabal "was a dog of a man"- about the worst thing you could call an Israelite.

But to the point, only Abigail saved David from a big mistake because he didn't commit his anger to God.  But because he heeded her, Nabal was spared- until he heard how his wife had saved him and had a stroke- and David ended up with a virtuous wife out of the bargain.  Not surprisingly, his change of heart was the only happy ending we get here.

Sin 4:  Let's try this Gath thing again...

At this point David has twice been close enough to kill Saul and spared him both times.  Both times, Saul recognized that David was more righteous than he was, and vowed not to chase him any more.  And yet...

1Sa 27:1  And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. Nothing is better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines. And Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any border of Israel, and so I shall escape out of his hand.
1Sa 27:2  And David arose and passed over, he and the six hundred men with him to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath.
1Sa 27:3  And David lived with Achish of Gath, he and his men, each one with his household; David with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal's former wife.

Seriously?  So David returns to Gath, running raids for Achish, telling him he was attacking Saul's cities when he was doing nothing but the sort.  Even this didn't gain him total trust; in fact, he got repaid when the other Phillistine lords told him to get lost, and when they went back to their base in Ziklag, the Amalekites had burned the city and took their wives.  David failed to Commit his fear to God; but then...

1Sa 30:6  And it greatly distressed David, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, each one for his sons and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself in Jehovah his God.

And doing what he should have done in the first place, he recovered everything that Amelek took.

Next time, we'll at least be looking at David's sins of (non) submission.