"The Sad Decline of King Saul, Part One"
1Samuel 18-22
January 20, 2008
by C.W. Powell
I want to read from the 10th verse of chapter 21 to the end of chapter 22 of the book of 1Samuel:
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“10 And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
11 And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
12 And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
13 And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands,and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
14 Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me?
15 Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?
22:1 David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him.
2 And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.
3 And David went thence to Mizpeh of Moab: and he said unto the king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth, and be with you, till I know what God will do for me.
4 And he brought them before the king of Moab: and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold.
5 And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hold; depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hareth.
6 When Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men that were with him, (now Saul abode in Gibeah under a tree in Ramah, having his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him;)
7 Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds;
8 That all of you have conspired against me, and there is none that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or sheweth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?
9 Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub.
10 And he enquired of the LORD for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.
11 Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests that were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king.
12 And Saul said, Hear now, thou son of Ahitub. And he answered, Here I am, my lord.
13 And Saul said unto him, Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread, and a sword, and hast enquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?
14 Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king’s son in law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honourable in thine house?
15 Did I then begin to enquire of God for him? be it far from me: let not the king impute any thing unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father: for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more.
16 And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou, and all thy father’s house.
17 And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the LORD; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not shew it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the LORD.
18 And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod.
19 And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword.
20 And one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David. 21 And Abiathar shewed David that Saul had slain the LORD’S priests.
22 And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul: I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father’s house.
23 Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard.” (1Sa 21:10-22:23 av)
It was a long trail that led from the triumph over the giant Goliath to the murder of the priests at Nob, and we will try to trace the steps of Saul and David to this place, for they show the sad and horrible decline of Saul into a cruel tyrant and murderer of his people. Because he had no faith in God, he could not keep faith with his people or keep the promises that he had made to David.
I want to set several scenes before you that brings David from the time of his great victory over Goliath to the murder of the priests at Nob. It may be difficult to understand a strict chronology, for the writing of history in ancient times, including the Bible, was not necessarily a recounting of chronology, but the description of events that show the character and the meaning of the events. We must keep this in mind as we read these ancient histories.
I. Scene One: David’s reception by Saul after the death of Goliath; David carrying the head of Goliath. His friendship with Jonathan, Saul’s son, who renounced all claims to the throne in favor of David. Ch. 17, 18.
II. Scene Two: The return of David from victory over the Philistines and the cries of the people. Saul is filled with jealousy. Saul’s first attempt on David’s life, by throwing a javelin at him, while he was playing the harp to ease the evil spirit that afflicted Sauol.
III. Scene Three. Marriage of David to Michal. This was plot by Saul that went awry. Saul’s eldest daughter given to another man; David’s love for Michal, Saul’s flattery and device to have David killed by the Philistines.
IV. Scene Four. Entreaty of Jonathan to Saul; Saul’s assurance that David would not be slain. This was after more victories over the Philistines and Saul’s jealous command to his servants to kill David.
V. Scene Five: New war and David’s huge victory and slaughter of the Philistines and Saul’s second attempt to kill David with a javelin. Saul sends messengers to David’s house, but David is saved by Michel who puts an image in the bed and lets David out through a window and he escapes to Ramah where Samuel lives as an old man. Samuel and David flee to Naioth in Ramah
VI. Scene Six: Saul hears that David is a Naioth and sends messengers to Naioth. Three times Saul sends his people to seize David at Naioth, but the spirit of God comes upon them, they prophesy, and are unable to capture David, because of the overwhelming power of God’s spirit. Saul himself goes to Naioth, and the Spirit comes upon Saul and he strips himself naked and all day and night is under the power of the Spirit.
VII. Scene Seven: David leaves Naioth and consults with Jonathan who tells him that his father will surely kill him someday. David then flees to Nob, where the priests of the Lord and Ahimelech the high priest dwell. Ahimelech is afraid for David comes alone, but David assures him. Ahimelech gives him the bread of the priests and the sword of Goliath that was kept there. David is seen by one of the servants of Saul, Doeg an Edomite, who comes to tell Saul. David flees into the land of the Philistines to the city of Gath, where he pretends to be mad, and from thence to the cave Adullam where he is joined by his relatives and a band of disillusioned and endebted men, and he becomes their leader.
VIII. Scene Eight: King Saul retaliates against the priests of Nob, and Doeg, when the other servants of Saul refuse the horrid deed, slays all the inhabitants of Nob, men, women, children and babies, and all the animals, and eighty five priests. Only Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech, was able to escape and come to David and became priest to David for the rest of David’s life.
So we have in brief the story of Samuel and Saul to the death of the priests at Nob. What shall we say to these things.
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1. We see the terrible power of sin in the heart of King Saul. Sin so powerful that he could not deliver himself. He could not be persuaded from it by the virtue and wisdom of David’s life; not by the best interests of the nation of Israel; not by the entreaty of his son Jonathan; not by the sacred ministry of Samuel nor the priests of the Lord. Sin is an awful tyrant that hold dominion over the souls of men, and they cannot deliver themselves from that sin.
2. We see that Samuel lived to see the beginning fulfillment of the horrors of the kingdom that Israel had demanded. They had rejected God to be king over them, to live in families and tribes with only God as the centralized power over them. Samuel had described the nature of the kingdom and it came to pass completely and the nature of this humanistic kingdom played itself out in the history of Israel and Judah, its horrors being mitigated only in part in the days of David and other good kings. But the prophetic description of Samuel of the kingdom that he gave in 1 Samuel 8 came to pass most perfectly in the days of Solomon: let us read again the description that Samuel gave:
“11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;
20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
21 And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the LORD. 22 And the LORD said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city.” (1Sa 8:11-22 av)
It will always be true, than when men turn aside from the rule of the kingdom of heaven, that they will turn to human power and strength, they will increase the power of the state over their lives, their churches and their families and institution; taxes will increase to pay all the expenses that are required to satisfy every want and need; the power of the perverse, the immoral, and the ungodly will be increased and intrude into every facet of man’s life and he will have no place to flee. This came to pass in the days of Saul and in the days of Solomon and the kings that followed. There was only a brief respite in the days of David, the man after God’s own heart, so that Israel might hope that when David’s son the Messiah came, there would be relief from the tyranny of men and sin and death. If they would not have God rule over them, then they must have the tyranny of men. This is always true. But God shows that even in man’s rebellion, He has not abandoned the government of his people, but gives them rulers to satisfy His own heart and His own plan and purpose. And David himself, when he had great power, used it to murder and man and steal his wife. The rules of men can never replace the rule of God, which is by His spirit and word from heaven. The arms abd power of the greatest of men can reach that far.
3. We see also the fulfillment of Samuel prophecy concerning the descendants of Eli the priest. Because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not, God removed them from being priests, and the beginning of this rejection takes place with the death of Eli and his sons Hophni and Phinehas on the day the Ark of God was taken by the Philistines. Now this decree of God, given to Samuel in the house of Eli when he was but a small lad, is now working in the family of Eli. Eighty-five of his descendants are slain with the sword of the Edomite, the descendant of Esau the brother of Jacob. Doeg is the wicked servant of Saul and he does that which the Israelites refuse to do, and his sword is red with the blood of the priests of God. But even in this the will of God is being done, and only one descendant of Eli escapes. Abiathar comes to David and continues until the days of Solomon, when he is removed from the priesthood during the days of the rebellion of Adonijah. So the prophecy of Samuel concerning Eli was fulfilled, and Samuel lived to see most of it done.
4. We see also the power of the Spirit of God, even against the rebellion of men. The servants of Saul cannot arrest David at Naioth. Even Saul himself cannot resist the power of the Spirit of God. I do not know what it meant in that context to “prophesy” and I am not sure that anyone else does either, but it does show that the Spirit of God is not bound to the will of man or to the moral character of man, but can do as he pleases with the souls of men. Certainly, whatever Saul experienced, it was not regeneration and renewal, but a temporary phenomenon that did not deliver him from the power of sin and death. There is a contrast here between what happened to David and Saul and what happened to Jesus and the soldiers that the priests sent to arrest him. Saul could not arrest David because of the power of the Spirit speaking in Saul; the soldiers could not arrest Jesus because of the power of the words that the Lord spoke.
Lesson: If the power of the Spirit is strong in those who resist and rebel against Him; what great work must He do in those who love and gladly receive His work.
Another Lesson: the work of the Spirit is not self-validating. Regeneration is known by the fruit of the Spirit, not the presence of the Spirit. Saul had the presence of the Spirit, but not the fruit of the Spirit. Saul was never conformed to the image of Christ.
5. Samuel sees the working out of his warning to Saul: Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. God had forbidden Samuel to continue to mourn for Saul. The purposes of God are often like the grinding of grain in the mill: the grinding is often very slow, but it grinds exceeding fine. Saul is on a downward course that would end in the chambers of the witch at Endor and the killing fields of Mt. Gilboa.
6. God doesn’t promise His people an easy time: witness David fleeing from Saul; living in terror of his life; pretending to be mad before Achish. It is by many tribulations that we enter into the kingdom of God. Let us have faith and compassion on those suffering, for we do not know what the plan of God for them is.
7. How necessary it was for our Lord Jesus to come, to put away sin, and introduce the rule and reign of His Spirit: to put His laws into our hearts and minds, to teach us to truly love Him and to love one another, as He gave us commandment; so that we would serve in the Spirit and not in the letter, not in bondage to sin and death, but in the power of the Holy Spirit our comforter and guide.
May God bless you.
Amen and Amen