guardedly expressed

the great Evangelical truth that the ceremonial law, however rigid, must give way before the claims of suffering humanity.

At the court

Prophet and Priest having alike failed to protect him, David now threw himself on the mercy of his of Achish. enemies, the Philistines. They seem to have been at this time united under a single head, Achish, King of Gath, and in his court David took refuge. There, at least, Saul could not pursue him. But, discovered possibly by "the sword of Goliath," his presence revived the national enmity of the Philistines against their former conqueror. According to one version he was actually imprisoned, and was in danger of his life;1 and he only escaped by feigning a madness, probably suggested by the ecstasies of the Prophetic schools: violent gestures, playing on the gates of the city as on a drum or cymbal, letting his beard grow, and foaming at the mouth. There was a noble song of triumph ascribed to him on the success of this plan. Even if not actually composed by him, it is remarkable as showing what a religious aspect was ascribed in after-times to one of the most secular and natural events of his life. "The angel "of the Lord encamped about him" in his prison, and "delivered him." And he himself is described as breathing the loftiest tone of moral dignity in the midst of his lowest degradation: "Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile. Depart from evil "and do good, seek pursue it." 4 peace and He was now an outcast

:

1 Title of Ps. lvi.

2 This is the subject of one of David's apocryphal colloquies (Fabricius, p. 1002).

3 1 Sam. xxi. '3, LXX. Aghyle

from both nations. Israel

Aga, a well-known modern Arab chief, escaped from the governor of Acre in like manner, pretending to be a mad dervish.

4 Ps. xxxiv. 1, 7, 21

and Philistia were alike closed against him. There was no resource but that of an independent In the cave outlaw.1 His first retreat was the cave of Adul- of Adullam. lam, probably the large cavern not far from Bethlehem, now called Khureitûn. From its vicinity to Bethlehem, he was joined there by his whole family, now feeling' themselves insecure from Saul's fury. This was probably the foundation of his intimate connection with his nephews, the sons of Zeruiah. Of these, Abishai, with two other companions, was among the earliest. Besides these, were outlaws from every part, including doubtless some of the original Canaanites of whom the name of one at least has been preserved, Ahimelech the Hittite. In the vast columnar halls and arched chambers of this subterranean palace, all who had any grudge against the existing system gathered round the hero of the coming age, the unconscious materials out of which a new world was to be formed.

6

In the hold.

His next move was to a stronghold, either the mountain afterwards called Herodium, close to Adullam, or the gigantic fastness afterwards called Masada, in the neighborhood of En-gedi. Whilst there, he had, for the sake of greater security, deposited his aged parents beyond the Jordan, with their ancestral kinsmen of Moab." The neighboring king, Nahash of Ammon, also treated him kindly. He was joined here One was a detachment of men

by two separate bands.

1 1 Sam. xxii. 1-xxvi. 25. 2 See Bonar's Land of Promise, pp. 244-247.

3 1 Sam. xxii. 1.

4 1 Chron. xi. 15, 20; 1 Sam. xxvi. ; 2 Sam. xxiii. 13, 18.

5 1 Sam. xxvi. 6. Sibbechai, who ills the giant at Gob (2 Sam. xxi.

18), is said by Josephus to have been a Hittite.

61 Sam. xxii. 4, 5; 1 Chron. xii. 8, 16.

7 Ithmah the Moabite (1 Chr. xi. 46) and Zelek the Ammonite (2 Sam xxxiii. 36) may have followed his track.

8 2 Sam. x. 2.

from Judah and Benjamin under his nephew Amasa, who henceforth attached himself to David's fortunes.1 Another was a little body of eleven Gadite mountaineers, who swam the Jordan in flood-time to reach him. Each deserved special mention by name; each was renowned for his military rank or prowess; and their activity and fierceness was like the wild creatures of their own wild country: like the gazelles of their hills, and the lions of their forests. Following on their track, as it would seem, another companion appears for the first time, a schoolfellow, if we may use the word, from the schools of Samuel, the prophet Gad, who appears suddenly, like Elijah, as if he too, as his name implies, had come, like Elijah, from the hills and forests of Gad.

It was whilst he was with these little bands that a foray of the Philistines had descended on the vale of Rephaim in harvest time. The animals were there being laden with the ripe corn. The officer in charge of the expedition was on the watch in the neighboring The well of village of Bethlehem. David, in one of those Bethlehem. passionate accesses of homesickness, which belong to his character, had longed for a draught of water from the well, which he remembered by the gate of his native village, that precious water which was afterwards conveyed by costly conduits to Jerusalem. So devoted were his adherents, so determined to gratify every want, however trifling, that three of them started instantly, fought their way through the intervening army of the Philistines, and brought back the water. His noble

1 1 Chron. xii. 16-18.

2 Ibid. xii. 8-15.

3 1 Sam. xxii. 5.

4 2 Sam. xxiii. 13-17; 1 Chr. xi.

15-19. See REPHAIM in Dict. of Bible.

5 See Ritter's Palestine, 278.

spirit rose at the sight. With a still loftier thought than that which inspired Alexander's like sentiment in the desert of Gedrosia, he poured the cherished water on the ground-"as an offering to the Lord." That which had been won by the lives of those three gallant chiefs was too sacred for him to drink, but it was on that very account deemed by him as worthy to be consecrated in sacrifice to God as any of the prescribed offerings of the Levitical ritual. Pure Chivalry and pure Religion there found an absolute union.

At the warning of Gad, David fled next to the forest of Hareth (which has long ago been cleared In the hills away) among the hills of Judah, and there of Judah. again fell in with the Philistines, and, apparently advised by Gad, made a descent on their foraging parties, and relieved a fortress of repute at that time, Keilah, in which he took up his abode until the harvest was gathered safely in. He was now for the first time in a fortified town of his own,' and to no other situation can we equally well ascribe what may be almost called the Fortress-Hymn of the 31st Psalm. By this time the 400 who had joined him at Adullam had swelled to 600. Here he received the tidings that Nob had been destroyed, and the priestly family exterminated. The bearer of this news was the only survivor of the house of Ithamar, Abiathar, who brought with him the High-Priest's ephod, with the Urim and Thumʊim,' which were henceforth regarded as Abiatha's special charge, and from him, accordingly, David received ora

1 1 Sam. xxii. 5, xxiii. 4, 7.

Ps. xxxi. 2, 3, 4, 8, 20, 21 (where the metrical version of Tate and Brady has inserted "Keilah's wellfenced town").

3 1 Sam. xxii. 2, xiii. 13.

4 Ibid. xxiii. 6, xxii. 20-23 J. rome, Qu. Heb. on the passage

cles and directions as to his movements.

A fierce burst

of indignation against Doeg, the author of the massacre, traditionally commemorates the period of the reception of this news.1

The situation of David was now changed by the appearance of Saul himself on the scene. Apparently the danger was too great for the little army to keep together. They escaped from Keilah, and dispersed, "whithersoever they could go," amongst the fastnesses of Judah.

The inhabitants of Keilah were probably Canaanites. At any rate, they could not be punished for sheltering the young outlaw. It may be, too, that the inhabitants of southern Judea retained a fearful recollection of the victory of Saul over their ancient enemies, the Amalekites, the great trophy of which had been set up on the southern Carmel. The pursuit (so far as we can3 trace it) now becomes unusually hot.

He is in the wilderness of Ziph. Under the shade of the forest of Ziph for the last time, he sees Jonathan. Once (or twice) the Ziphites betray his movements to Saul. From thence Saul literally hunts him like a partridge, the treacherous Ziphites beating the bushes before him, or, like a single flea skipping from crag to crag before the 3000 men stationed to catch even the print of his footsteps on the hills. David finds himself driven to a fresh covert, to the wilderness

1 Ps. lii. (title).

5

and perhaps 1 Sam. xxiv. 1-22, xxvi.

2 See Lecture XXI. and Wright's 5-25). Life of David, p. 108.

3 We cease to follow the events with exactness, partly from ignorance of the localities, partly because the same event seems to be twice narrated (1 Sam. xxiii. 19-24, xxvi. 1–4;

66

4 1 Sam. xxiii. 16.

5 Ibid. xxiv. 14, xxvi. 20; Heb. one flea."

6 Ibid. xxiii. 14, 22 (Heb. " foot"), 24 (LXX.), xxiv. 11, xxvi. 2, 20.