1 Samuel 27:1-12
David Allied with the Philistines
1 And David said in his heart, “Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me anymore in any part of Israel. So I shall escape out of his hand.” 2 Then David arose and went over with the six hundred men who were with him to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath. 3 So David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men, each man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s widow. 4 And it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath; so he sought him no more.
5 Then David said to Achish, “If I have now found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” 6 So Achish gave him Ziklag that day. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. 7 Now the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was one full year and four months.
8 And David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. For those nations were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as you go to Shur, even as far as the land of Egypt. 9 Whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the apparel, and returned and came to Achish. 10 Then Achish would say, “Where have you made a raid today?” And David would say, “Against the southern area of Judah, or against the southern area of the Jerahmeelites, or against the southern area of the Kenites.” 11 David would save neither man nor woman alive, to bring news to Gath, saying, “Lest they should inform on us, saying, ‘Thus David did.’” And thus was his behavior all the time he dwelt in the country of the Philistines. 12 So Achish believed David, saying, “He has made his people Israel utterly abhor him; therefore he will be my servant forever.”
David, the man who would one day be king, fled from Saul who promised to stop pursuing him but still was trying to kill him who would take the throne from him and his son who had already acceded it to David. He lived under the protection of king Achish of the Philistines in Gath to hide from Saul under the guise of zigzagging back and forth to raid Israeli cities while really smiting more Philistines. He got away with this under the nose of Achish while zigzagging back and forth in pretense of crossing the border by entirely wiping out the people of the Philistine towns to leave no witnesses, yet also in obedience to God’s original command to His people (Numbers 33:52, Deuteronomy 7:1, 2, 20:16-17, 18) to destroy all to inherit the land without leaving ungodly idolatrous influences behind that would corrupt His people. This is akin to we in Christ needing to smite the sins in our lives (Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5) to keep them from corrupting our souls and further. David was faithful to do so as he secretly zigzagged between Gath and other Philistine towns to utterly destroy the ungodly influences that his future kingdom would be as God intended. He was able to do this for almost a year and a half under cover of supposed support for the enemy Philistines. God honored and protected him for being faithful in honoring His command for the inheritance in putting sin to death as we must in our own lives by the enabling power of His indwelling Spirit. We need no subterfuge to do this, however, as our King rules all nations and we can stand and fight to win souls for His kingdom with transparency (2 Corinthians 1:12, 2:17, 1 Thessalonians 2:2-3, 4-5) and truth. We do not zigzag between our true mission and a covert one with deception as was needed in David’s case. Let us not attempt to be zigzagging safety in a modern day Ziklag, but present the truth openly and wholeheartedly as we rely on the Lord to battle for us and protect us from the Adversary.
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