1 Samuel 23:6

DAVID WARNED BY GOD TO LEAVE KEILAH

"When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with an ephod in his hand. Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. And Saul said, "God has given him into my hand; for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars." And Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. David knew that Saul was plotting evil against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, "Bring the ephod here." Then said David, "O Lord, the God of Israel, thy servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as thy servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant." And the Lord said, "He will come down." Then said David, "Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul"? And the Lord said, "They will surrender you." Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David was escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition. And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand."

"Abiathar the son of Ahimelech ... came (to David) with an ephod in his hand" (1 Samuel 23:6). Scholars disagree as to the point in time when Abiathar came to David. Willis placed their coming together here at Keilah.[4] Matthew Henry's commentary supports Willis in this understanding of the passage;[5] however, Keil wrote that, "The words `to David to Keilah' are not to be understood as signifying that Abiathar did not come to David until he was in Keilah. What is meant is that, `when he fled after David (1 Samuel 22:20), he met with him as he was already preparing to march to the aid of Keilah and proceeded with David to Keilah.'"[6] Of course, the International Critical Commentary would place 1 Samuel 23:6 at some other place in the narrative.[7] This writer fails to see how the solution of this question involves anything very important.

"Saul said, `God has given him into my hand'" (1 Samuel 23:7). "It is ironic that Saul would think that God had delivered David into his hand, since Samuel had declared to him emphatically that God had rejected him because of his sins (1 Samuel 13:13-14; 15:23,26)."[8]

It is a mark of Saul's paranoid hatred of David that, at the very moment, "When Israel's king (Saul) should have been considering what honor and dignity should be done to David for his deliverance of Keilah from the marauding band of the Philistines, he caught at the situation as an opportunity for killing David. What an ungrateful wretch Saul was!"[9]

"And the Lord said, `They will surrender you'" (1 Samuel 23:12). "The men of Keilah," the people of whom the Lord here spoke, does not refer to the general population of the place but to its leaders, elders or leaders. David doubtless enjoyed widespread popularity with the people; but the leaders, through abject fear of the murderous Saul, would have surrendered David at once rather than risk the extermination of the whole city like that suffered by Nob.

In spite of David's tremendous popularity throughout Israel, there were many situations like that at Keilah where there continued to be a residual loyalty to Saul. "This chapter gives two instances in which the people would gladly have turned David over to Saul."[10]

There seems to be some confusion in 1 Samuel 23:10-12 regarding the inquiring of the Lord by means of the Urim and Thummim. We do not believe that any part of these verses needs to be omitted or moved. Keil has an excellent explanation of them just as they appear in the text.

It is evident that when the will of God was sought through the Urim and Thummim, the person making the inquiry placed the matter before God in prayer and received an answer, but always to one particular question only. David asked two questions in 1 Samuel 23:11, but received an answer to only one of them, so he had to ask the first question a second time.[11]

"And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph" (1 Samuel 23:14). John Rea writes that, "Ziph was a town in the hill country of Judah (Joshua 15:55), located five miles south southeast of Hebron, sometimes identified as El Zif, which had a strategic position commanding the desert. It was founded by Mesha, a son of Caleb (1 Chronicles 2:42, NEB). It was near this place that David twice hid from Saul; and the citizens of this place twice betrayed the secret of David's hiding place to Saul (1 Samuel 23:19; 26:1)."[12]