1 Samuel 23:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Samuel 23:3

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But there is a problem; there is a snag. We are frightened to death to be here, with Saul after us with his crack troops, likely to come upon us. How much more afraid will we be, going against the Philistines to deliver this district? This bunch of four hundred people, all kinds of people there, and failures in life; they weren’t planning on fighting the Philistines. Aren’t you going to consider us? they said in effect. We are terrified where we are, and there we will be vastly outnumbered by a Philistine army. So David considers them, and it is as though he says to them, ‘I will consult the Lord again; listen.’ He surely did not do it on his own account; he believed what the Lord had said the first time. What is happening here is that, to calm the fears of his supporters, he asks again, for their sake, to give them some reassurance. He wants them to trust in the Lord’s guidance and protection, just as he does. He is now a leader and protector of others. ‘Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand.’ So they went, and they fought, and they won, and they brought away the cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter, and now there would be no more starvation in Keilah. They defeated the Philistines; they chased them off. They made an incursion into Philistine territory. They helped themselves to Philistine cattle, and that was the right thing to do: to take spoils to compensate the people of Keilah. He saved the inhabitants of Keilah. There was a son of Ahimelech who wasn't killed along with the slaughter of the priests, and he fled to David to Keilah. Now that was a brave thing to do, and he was obviously made of better metal than his family and the others. But furthermore he had come down with the ephod in his hand, which was the means by which they sought guidance from the Lord ordinarily. So he valued that, and he thought, ‘This is rightly in David's hands’, and he bought it to David. We hear a little more about that later on.

Application

David had temporarily lost faith a little earlier on. There had been an erosion of David's trust, possibly because of his change of circumstances. That led in turn to the complete collapse of his trust. He had stopped thinking spiritually, he had fled to the Philistines for safety, and had just about escaped, and been restored. Then he prayed and called upon the Lord and he was restored. Almost at once, he is given a great token of God's being with him, of what will be the future for him and the success that would be his as a protector of Israel, a token of his calling. That is interesting for us. We recover perhaps from a period of not trusting in Christ, or letting prayer slip away to next to nothing, and we recover ourselves, and repent, and we trust him, and call upon him, and often, almost immediately, comes some spiritual victory by way of encouragement, assurance, endorsement. But it is not only for David’s sake; it is also for Israel. These things will happen not just once, but repeatedly, as though Israel as a whole is being convinced by God of what is going to happen in the future. You cannot overstate this victory: four hundred men against the Philistine host. So there is a compact lesson and warning, and yet encouragement for us. We don't have to always learn the hard way, as even grand David did on this occasion. Never let us let our trust slip, not for a moment.

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1 Samuel 23:3 Commentary and Bible Study