Tag Archives: Ziphites

Dear God, it’s time for me to put this week’s Bible study for the Christian Men’s Life Skills class on Monday together. This is week 6 out of 10, and I am so grateful for how it’s gone so far. Thank you. Thank you for leading me in this. Thank you for how you are blessing me through this. Thank you for the joy and encouragement it is giving me. Thank you for what you are doing for the men through the entire class. I can see some of them considering changes. I can see them softening. Maybe not all of them. And maybe some of them won’t change. Perhaps the seeds will find the hard path, the rocks, or the thorns. But I pray for their hearts (and for mine) and that they be fertile soil for your seeds to grow and flourish. With that said, here is my preparation for 1 Samuel 24-26.

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When last we left off

• Saul was using and abusing (including murdering) a lot of people to kill David because he was insecure and selfish.
• David was in the woods near Ziph when he and Jonathan committed themselves to each other one last time, with Jonathan acknowledging that David would be king and he would serve David.
• The Ziphites, who were from Judah and you would have thought would have been loyal to David and his family, betrayed David and threw in their lot with Saul. 1 Samuel 23:19-20 – ¹⁹ Then the Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is David not hiding with us in strongholds in the woods, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon? ²⁰ Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of your soul to come down; and our part shall be to deliver him into the king’s hand.”
• Saul has finally found someone who will feel sorry for him, and it delights him. 1 Samuel 23:21 – ²¹ And Saul said, “Blessed are you of the Lord, for you have compassion on me.
• David finds out Saul is in Ziph so he goes to Maon. Saul chases him around there until he finds out the Philistines are attacking so he breaks off the chase.
  • Imagine how much more effective Saul could have been as a king and general if he had David on his side and they were all fighting together instead of fighting each other.
    • Does that ever happen in your life. Do you get distracted by making someone a needless enemy instead of making them a friend at almost no cost to you?

David Spares Saul (good leadership)

• Saul finishes fighting the Philistines, but he hasn’t forgotten David. He takes 3,000 men and goes hunting.
  • Keep in mind David has 600 men with him at this point.
• Saul needs a place to use the bathroom and finds a cave.
• As it happens, David and his 600 men are hiding in the cave.
• Keep in mind, David’s men are tired, on the run, and started out as discontented men, even before they came to David. So they tell David in 1 Samuel 24:4, “This is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, that you may do to him as it seems good to you.’”
• David responds by getting up sneaking over near Saul, taking a knife, and……cut off a piece of Saul’s robe and went back to the men.
  • How do you think the men felt about that decision?
• David not only did NOT regret not killing Saul. He DID regret the disrespect he showed by cutting off the piece of the robe.
• David tells his men he was wrong to cut off the piece of robe. 1 Samuel 24:6 – “The LORD forbid  that I should do this thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.”
  • Do you think it was easy for David to go against his men in that moment?
  • Was David afraid he would look weak to his men?
  • What is David teaching them here?
  • What do you think it would have done to his relationship with Jonathan if David had killed Saul in that cave?
• David restrains his men. 1 Samuel 24:7 – ⁷ So David restrained his servants with these words, and did not allow them to rise against Saul. And Saul got up from the cave and went on his way.
• David and Saul talk. 1 Samuel 24:8-21 – ⁸ David also arose afterward, went out of the cave, and called out to Saul, saying, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed down. ⁹ And David said to Saul: “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Indeed David seeks your harm’? ¹⁰ Look, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord delivered you today into my hand in the cave, and someone urged me to kill you. But my eye spared you, and I said, ‘I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed.’ ¹¹ Moreover, my father, see! Yes, see the corner of your robe in my hand! For in that I cut off the corner of your robe, and did not kill you, know and see that there is neither evil nor rebellion in my hand, and I have not sinned against you. Yet you hunt my life to take it. ¹² Let the Lord judge between you and me, and let the Lord avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you. ¹³ As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Wickedness proceeds from the wicked.’ But my hand shall not be against you. ¹⁴ After whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A flea? ¹⁵ Therefore let the Lord be judge, and judge between you and me, and see and plead my case, and deliver me out of your hand.”

¹⁶ So it was, when David had finished speaking these words to Saul, that Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. ¹⁷ Then he said to David: “You are more righteous than I; for you have rewarded me with good, whereas I have rewarded you with evil. ¹⁸ And you have shown this day how you have dealt well with me; for when the Lord delivered me into your hand, you did not kill me. ¹⁹ For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him get away safely? Therefore may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. ²⁰ And now I know indeed that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. ²¹ Therefore swear now to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me, and that you will not destroy my name from my father’s house.”

• Saul went home, but David stayed on the run.

Samuel Dies

• 1 Samuel 25:1 – 25 Then Samuel died; and the Israelites gathered together and lamented for him, and buried him at his home in Ramah. And David arose and went down to the Wilderness of ^[a]Paran.
  • What were the implications for David now that Samuel had died?
  • Did Saul feel like he lost something too since Samuel had found him?
  • The Wilderness of Paran is pretty much the place where the Israelites lived for 50 40 years between Egypt and the Promised Land back in Exodus.

Nabal and Abigail (and David’s crisis of leadership)

• Nabal was rich and had a lot of sheep and goats. 3,000. He lived in the Maon area That was on the  edge of the Wilderness of Paran.
• 1 Samuel 25:3b – And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance; but the man was harsh and evil in his doings.
• David’s men would see Nabal’s shepherds and leave them alone.
  • Judging from David’s reaction later, it seems like David kept them at bay.
• David needs some his provisions from Nabal so he sends 10 young men to ask for some help.
  • Part of the message is emphasizing how honorably David’s men have treated Nabal’s men and property.
• Nabal doesn’t only decline, but he is rude about it. 1 Samuel 25:10-11 – ¹⁰ Then Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, “Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. ¹¹ Shall I then take my bread and my water and my ^[c]meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?”
• They report back to David, and David’s reaction is pretty harsh. 1 Samuel 25:13 – Then David said to his men, “Every man gird on his sword.” So every man girded on his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And about four hundred men went with David, and two hundred stayed with the supplies.
• One of Nabal’s servants tells Abigail what is going on.
• Abigail gathers up a tribute to David without Nabal knowing. 1 Samuel 25:18-20 – ¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five seahs of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ And she said to her servants, “Go on before me; see, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

²⁰ So it was, as she rode on the donkey, that she went down under cover of the hill; and there were David and his men, coming down toward her, and she met them. 

• Meanwhile, David is heading towards Nabal’s place and feeling sorry for himself. 1 Samuel 25:21-22 – ²¹ Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belongs to him. And he has repaid me evil for good. ²² May God do so, and more also, to the enemies of David, if I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light.”
  • David is falling into the trap Saul fell into: Other people owe me things and when I don’t get what I’m owed I an justified in getting revenge.
• Abigail finds David, gives him all of the stuff and David realizes he almost made a mistake. 1 Samuel 25:32-25 – ³² Then David said to Abigail: “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! ³³ And blessed is your advice and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand. ³⁴ For indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning light no males would have been left to Nabal!” ³⁵ So David received from her hand what she had brought him, and said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your voice and respected your person.”
• Abigail gets home and finds Nabal partying with his friends and very drunk. She waits until morning to tell Nabal what she did.
  • When she does, Nabal has some sort of heart attack or stroke and immediately falls silent and dies 10 days later.
• David decides to marry Abigail and another woman named Ahinoam of Jezreel.
  • It made sense for him to want to marry a rich, influential widow.
• They throw in here that David’s wife Michal had been given to another man since it seemed David wasn’t coming back and, for all Saul knew, David had threatened her life.

Return of the Ziphites

• The Ziphites go to Saul and tell him exactly where David is within their area.
• Saul shows up again with 3,000 men. We don’t know why Saul changed his mind after the last meeting.
• David sent out spies to figure out exactly where Saul was.
• He finds Saul and takes his cousin, Abishai, the brother of his general Joab, to infiltrate Saul’s camp. 1 Samuel 26:7-8 – ⁷ So David and Abishai came to the people by night; and there Saul lay sleeping within the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. And Abner and the people lay all around him. ⁸ Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day. Now therefore, please, let me strike him ^[a]at once with the spear, right to the earth; and I will not have to strike him a second time!”
  • Abishai implies that David was wrong to let Saul go the first time, but they can finish this right now.
• David forbids it with the same lesson he tried to teach in the cave about protecting God’s anointed. 1 Samuel 26:9-11 – ⁹ But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless?” ¹⁰ David said furthermore, “As the Lord lives, the Lord shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish. ¹¹ The Lord forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed. But please, take now the spear and the jug of water that are by his head, and let us go.”
• Verse 12b indicates God caused the deep sleep that put Saul at David’s mercy. 1 Samuel 26:12b – For they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the LORD had fallen on them.
• David mocks Abner, the Saul’s cousin and head general.
• David and Saul talk again, but this time, David lets Saul know that what he’s doing is hurting David. 1 Samuel 18-20 – ¹⁸ And he said, “Why does my lord thus pursue his servant? For what have I done, or what evil is in my hand? ¹⁹ Now therefore, please, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the Lord has stirred you up against me, let Him accept an offering. But if it is the children of men, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day from sharing in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’ ²⁰ So now, do not let my blood fall to the earth before the face of the Lord. For the king of Israel has come out to seek a flea, as when one hunts a partridge in the mountains.”
• Saul says he’s sorry, returns Saul’s spear, and teaches everyone the lesson of not harming God’s anointed. 1 Samuel 23-24 – ²³ May the Lord repay every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness; for the Lord delivered you into my hand today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed. ²⁴ And indeed, as your life was valued much this day in my eyes, so let my life be valued much in the eyes of the Lord, and let Him deliver me out of all tribulation.”
• David went back to his men and Saul went home.

Wrap-Up

• David had to lead his men and teach his men at the same time. He also had to go against their will when he had to have been tempted to go along with it.
• Even David had a moment of self-pity. Feeling sorry for ourselves and thinking people or life owes us is one of the things the can harm us the most.
• Saul wasted a lot of resources because of his selfishness and self-pity

Father, I will spend the next couple of days thinking about this before Monday night, but I pray that you will bless this preparation. Holy Spirit, lead me through this story for the next 60 hours or so. Teach me. Live through me. Love through me. And prepare the hearts of the men who will be there Monday. To you be all the glory, honor, and praise forever and ever.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen