Hard Life of Bitterness or Easy Life of Righteousness
1 When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.” 2 Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Wildgoats’ Rocks. 3 And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave. 4 And the men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’ ” Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. 5 And afterward David’s heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. 6 He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord’s anointed.” 7 So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.
1 Samuel 24:1–7 ESV Read More
David is on the run and Saul is out to kill him. There are a couple really cool details that are easy to skim over here. Remember that David has about 600 men with him that are ragamuffins and punks. Saul sets out with an army of 3,000 army men to get him! Those aren’t as bad as the odds Saul faced against the Philistines, but they are still pretty bad odds for David.
David is finding refuge in En Gedi. The region of En Gedi is a desert surrounding a fresh water spring near the coast of the Dead Sea. Here is what a traveler in the early 1900s had to say about this region:
“He who has been to En Gedi fears lest he exaggerate its fertility to those who have not. The oasis bursts upon him from one of the driest and most poisoned regions of our planet. Either he has ridden across [the Wilderness of Judea], seven hours without a spring, three with hardly a bush, when suddenly, over the edge of a precipice, 400 feet below him he sees a river of verdue burst from the rock … . Or he has come along the coast, through sulphur smells, with the bitter sea on one side, the desert cliffs on the other, and a fiery sun overhead, when round a corner of the cliffs he sees the broad fan of verdue open and slope before him … . [The] water, strange and sudden, with the exhilaration of the view across the sea, produce most generous impressions of this oasis, and tempt to exaggerate its fertility. The most enthusiastic, however, could not too highly rate its usefulness as a refuge, for it lies at the back of a broad desert, and is large enough to sustain an army.”
So for Saul to attack David, he has to march 7 hours through desert and not find relief unless he defeats David and takes the spring. If you look at this region on Google Earth, you will be struck at the cliffs and the streams. It’s similar in a few spots to the Grand Canyon, only with narrower gorges.
With all of these caves and hiding places, David would have the upper hand. Bloodthirsty Saul takes so many men because he knows he is going to lose a lot of them to exposure, the cliffs, and to ambushes. This desire to spend a lot of lives and work in order to kill David stands in stark contrast to David who won’t kill Saul even when he has an easy and clean shot. A man driven by hatred will go to all kinds of trouble to do the thing that the righteous man knows to avoid.
David did right and it sent Saul repenting and retreating 7 hours walk back to Jerusalem and no battle was fought that day.
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