Saul nearly faints. "Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel's words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and all that night." (1 Samuel 28:20) Why has Saul gone so long without eating? Has his anxiety over the coming war been too great? Has he been fasting in hopes of receiving a favorable answer? If he has been fasting, he has not been doing it in the right spirit or else the Lord would have answered him; we were told earlier in our chapter that the Lord did not answer him when he sought the Lord by various means (priests, prophets, dreams) before unlawfully resorting to a medium. I think if Saul was fasting he was doing it in the attitude of one who thinks correctly performing rituals will win him favor with God. But as the Lord will say time and time again in a number of ways throughout the Bible, going through the motions with a heart far from Him does not please Him. He wants a relationship with us. If we are careful to maintain a close relationship with Him, our thoughts and our actions will naturally reflect a heart devoted to Him.
The medium and the two men with Saul urge him to eat. He lacks the strength to even make it back to his army camp if he doesn't take in some calories. "When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, 'Look, your servant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do. Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.' He refused and said, 'I will not eat.' But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch. The woman had a fattened calf in the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast. Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. The same night they got up and left." (1 Samuel 28:21-25) I have the impression that this woman feels very sorry for him. She speaks to him in a compassionate tone and with what I believe is genuine concern for his welfare. She prepares food for him and his men, at what is probably great cost to herself, to fortify them against the long march and the battle ahead.
Now the scene switches to David who is living among the Philistines. He has been working hard to prove himself valuable to King Achish, living at Ziklag and carrying out raids on the enemies of Israel while pretending to the king that he has plundered the citizens of Israel. But, as we learned when last we saw David, this has landed him in hot water. King Achish is so happy with David's performance that he announced David and his men must fight for the Philistine army. Achish's words weren't so much an offer as a command, not subject to refusal. Now David, who has only been pretending to have turned against his own people, is about to be compelled to actually fight against his own people. It is only because the commanders of Achish's army object to having David in their midst that David is rescued from this predicament.
"The Philistines gathered all their forces at Aphek, and Israel camped by the spring in Jezreel. As the Philistine rulers marched with their units of hundreds and thousands, David and his men were marching at the rear with Achish. The commanders of the Philistines asked, 'What about these Hebrews?'" (1 Samuel 29:1-3a) Achish told David earlier that he wanted him to be his own personal bodyguard, which is why David and his men are traveling with the king. We could compare them to the president's secret service. Up until now we haven't found any of the Philistine soldiers objecting to having expatriates of Israel in their ranks but the commissioned officers are displeased when they see foreigners, instead of high-ranking Philistine military officials, guarding the king. They are offended that these prestigious positions have been awarded to "Hebrews" and they do not trust David and his men to have the king's best interests at heart.
I can't help feeling a bit sorry for King Achish as he defends the loyalty of David (who is not loyal to him at all) to these men who actually are loyal to their king and country. David has deceptively won the king's trust and as a result the king has been very kind and generous to him. The king trusts him so much and likes his character so much that he even tries to stand against his own people in order to keep David as head of his secret service. "Achish replied, 'Is this not David, who was an officer of King Saul of Israel? He has already been with me for over a year, and from the day he left Saul until now, I have found no fault in him.'" (1 Samuel 29:3b)
But the commanders won't listen to the king. I think they will refuse to go into battle for him if he does not release David and his men from duty. The king may be convinced of David's loyalty but his army commanders think he's being very naive. They accuse David of wanting to be in their army so he can turn on the Philistines to win back the favor of his own nation's king. "But the Philistine commanders were angry with Achish and said, 'Send the man back, that he may return to the place you assigned him. He must not go with us into battle, or he will turn against us during the fighting. How better could he regain his master's favor than by taking the heads of our own men? Isn't this the David they sang about in their dances: 'Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands?'" (1 Samuel 29:4-5) They say, "Release him and his men from service and send them back to Ziklag, the town you so generously (and perhaps unwisely) assigned to them. We don't need them here and we don't want them here. They are a liability to us. They are just waiting for an opportunity to strike us down!"
I don't believe David and his men were plotting any such thing. Having found themselves between a rock and a hard place, I think they would have reluctantly followed through with their promise to aid the king who has given them asylum from the murderous Saul. King Achish doesn't believe they are plotting against him either but in tomorrow's passage we'll find him apologetically sending them back to Ziklag. This is the mercy of the Lord upon David and his men! The Philistine commanders, in their suspicion and in their prejudice, object to the presence of Hebrew soldiers in their army. But their evil attitude toward David actually turns out for his good. He will be saved from fighting against his own people. In yesterday's passage we found Samuel predicting the loss of the battle and a great loss of life for the people of Israel; David will be spared from having a hand in the tragedy Samuel prophesied.
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