David saves the town of Keilah
23
📚Then they told David, saying, “Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah 📖 and they are robbing the threshing floors”. 2 📚Therefore David consulted 📖 the LORD, saying, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” And the LORD said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines, and save Keilah”.3 📚And David’s men said to him, “Look, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?”
4 📚Then David consulted the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will deliver the Philistines into your hands”.
23:4 When others were in doubt David sought confirmation of God’s will.⚜
5 So David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and struck them down with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. 6 📚And it so happened, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand.
23:6 In Israel in those days it was possible to find God’s will by means of the Urim and Thummin in the ephod. Note at Ex 28:30. In these days the Holy Spirit is willing to infallibly guide the earnest believer.⚜
7 📚And it was told Saul that David had gone to Keilah. And Saul said, “God 📖 has delivered him into my hands, for by entering a town that has gates and bars, he is closed in”. 8 And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.
9 📚And David knew that Saul was plotting evil against him, and he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here”. 10 📚Then David said, “O LORD God of Israel, your servant has heard for certain that Saul is seeking to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on account of me. 11 📚Will the men of Keilah deliver me into his hands? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD God of Israel, I beseech you, tell your servant”. And the LORD said, “He will come down”.
12 📚Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hands of Saul?” And the LORD said, “They will deliver you up”.
23:9-12 Verse 6. An example of using the Urim and Thummin.⚜
13 📚Then David and his men, who were about six hundred 📖, arose and departed from Keilah and went wherever they could go. And it was told Saul that David had escaped from Keilah, and he decided not to go there.
The men of Ziph betray David
14 📚And David stayed in the desert in strongholds, and remained in a mountain in the desert of Ziph. And Saul looked for him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hands.
15 And David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life; and David was in the desert of Ziph in a wooded area. 16 📚And Saul’s son Jonathan arose and went to David 📖 in the woods, and strengthened his hand in God. 17 📚And he said to him, “Do not be afraid, for the hand of my father Saul will not find you. And you will be king over Israel, and I will be next to you. And my father Saul also knows this”. 18 📚And the two of them made a covenant before the LORD, and David stayed in the woods, and Jonathan went to his house.
19 📚Then the Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is not David hiding himself among us in strongholds in the woods, in the hill of Hachilah, which is south of Jeshimon?
23:19 At this time David wrote Psalm 54 by inspiration of God’s Spirit, in which he revealed the character of his enemies (v 3), and declared his own trust in God (vs 4,7).⚜
20 📚Now therefore, O king, come down whenever it pleases you to come down, and our part will be to deliver him into the king’s hand”.
21 📚And Saul said, “May you be blessed by the LORD 📖, for you have compassion on me. 22 📚Please go, make further preparations, and find out and take a look at his place, where his feet take him and who has seen him there, for I have been told that he is very cunning. 23 📚Therefore look and learn about all the lurking places where he hides himself, and come back to me with definite information, and I will go with you. And it will be, if he is in the land, that I will search him out through all the thousands of Judah”.
24 📚And they arose and went to Ziph before Saul, but David and his men were in the desert of Maon, in the plain south of Jeshimon. 25 📚And Saul and his men went to look for him. And they told David, so he came down to the rock and stayed in the desert of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued David in the desert of Maon.
26 📚And Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain, and David was hurrying to get away for fear of Saul, for Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men to take them. 27 📚But a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land”. 28 Therefore Saul returned from pursuing David, and went against the Philistines. So they called that place Sela Hammahlekoth 📖. 29 📚And David went up from there and stayed in strongholds at Engedi.
23:26-29 God has many ways to protect His people. See Gen 37:22, 26, 27; 1 Kings 18:13; Esther 6:1-2; Jer 38:7-10; Dan 3:25-26; 6:21-23; Acts 12:5-11.⚜