Joel M Bradshaw

10And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11And 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,

‘Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands’?”

12And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 14Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”–1 Samuel 21

David was a fugitive on the run. And he fled from Saul to the one place on earth you think he WOULDN’T go–Goliath’s hometown.

We might wonder how David was recognized so easily by the Philistines. This was an era before pictures or social media. They didn’t have images of David in their supermarket magazine racks! But every soldier that survived Goliath’s defeat would have recognized David. Even an older David. His was a reputation that preceded him with the Philistines. And the killer of Goliath of Gath had come to Gath.

The text doesn’t paint the Philistines in a good light. They thought David was king and he wasn’t. But it was an honest mistake. King Saul had hid in his tent while young David fought Goliath. They had heard the songs that were sung about David. Many of those families felt those songs too, as David had recently killed 200 men and circumcised them as a wedding price for Saul’s daughter!

The most humorous part of the text is the line at the end. We picture the court of King Achish having so many madmen in it so that he didn’t need one more! Maybe this was like a court jester.

David didn’t lie, but he did play a little loose with the truth. He was scared and a fugitive running for his life. He pretended. We the readers know that it is David’s God who saved him rather than David’s acting. Divine providence is how God uses the events of life to accomplish his will.

We will see God use this season of David’s life to grow him. What is he expecting you to learn in your current season?–JMB