1 Samuel 22:5 Commentary and Bible Study

‘The prophet Gad’ – no doubt schooled in Samuel’s school of the prophets – ‘said unto David,’ – he was on his side – ‘Abide not in the hold [in your stronghold]; depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hareth’, a great wooded region. So now God is speaking to David through Gad, and communication, as it were, from God, the direction of God, is fully restored to David. David’s instinct was to get as far from Saul as he could, which is why he had fled to the Gath, but now he is walking with the Lord again instead of trying to solve his own problems. He is seeking the Lord’s will for his life, and the Lord guides him in a way which he would not have chosen for himself. He is to return to Judah, and he goes to the Forest of Hareth which we must assume to be in Judah. Saul is in Gibeah, not far away in the region of Benjamin, his own tribe. Jonathan seems still to be absent, following Saul’s homicidal outburst, for Saul talks about him in the third person. He soon hears that David is back from the land of the Philistines, but that will be no hindrance to the Lord’s protection. Saul is paranoid and gives a complaining speech to his men, full of unfounded suspicion, exaggeration, and self-pity. You see a picture of a man who is extremely cunning and vicious, but almost half mad. He is constantly concerned about some kind of a coup, some kind of a plot – David’s supporters overthrowing him, or being subjected to attack. He lives with his spear in his hand. What is the significance of that? It is either an indication of his paranoia– so that he lives, possibly sleeps, with a spear in his hand and surrounded by his servants. He is surrounded by those who have been rewarded with lands and promotion to buy their loyalty. There are only Benjamites among them, people of his own tribe, who he had assumed would have a self-serving interest in taking his side. He is the king of all Israel, but he is so paranoid that he cannot have anyone that isn't of his own tribe in his bodyguard, and he doesn't even trust them not to work against him. His guilty conscience and his self-pity make him imagine all kinds of conspiracies and plots against him, of which there was no real evidence. ‘Hear now ye Benjamites,’ he says to them, ‘will the son of Jesse’ – he so hates David, he won't even name him – ‘give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you captains of thousands and hundreds?’ So it bribes them. The implication is that David, the son of Jesse, will kill them all, and only he can reward them and make them rich. Will David treat them in this way? Of course not. David wouldn't have been the kind of king who would seize other lands and possessions from people, to give to his courtiers and his servants and his officers of state. ‘Know which side your bread is buttered’, says Saul. He accuses them of conspiring against him. He is convinced that his son Jonathan is in league with David, and nobody has told him. Nobody has informed on Jonathan, and that proves to Saul's fevered mind that they are all against him. There is a pathetic phrase in the middle: ‘and there is none of you that is sorry for me [sees things my way], or sheweth unto me’ – he repeats himself – ‘that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day.’ They had kept quiet about Jonathan's friendship with David, and so they are all criminals in Saul sight, and they would have trembled. This meant at the very least that they might lose their positions, and their possessions, and, worse still, they might be put to death. So he begins to expresses his great fury and anger at them.