It’s very easy to get lost in the fascinating details of the conflict between Saul in his deepening madness, and David in his growing faith. It was the King’s paranoia that drove David out of his position in Saul’s court. We notice how David struggled to remain faithful to the Covenant without exposing himself to the King’s insanity. It only complicated matters that David and the King’s son, Jonathan, had sworn a covenant of friendship.
What matters for us here is how David weathered this fallacious persecution by remaining loyal to Jehovah. Nothing in Moses promised all things would always be smooth sailing; rather, God had warned that there would be times of testing. David was being forged as an instrument of divine justice.
In the previous chapter we learn that the priests had managed to reconstruct some portion of their divine service in a hilltop community called Nob. The Tabernacle was gone, as were the furnishings, but they continued with however much of the rituals they could as required in the Covenant. In his flight from Saul, David stopped by their worship tent. He sought to spare the current acting High Priest the liability from having to choose whether to cooperate with him, and so deceived him about the nature of his visit. The future king obtained discarded Bread of Presence and Goliath’s sword, since the technology of forging iron weapons was still a closely guarded secret of the Philistines.
We learn that Saul had accepted the feudal service of Doeg, who was from Edom. Such service required Doeg fully convert to the Covenant of Moses, and the rituals may have been a part of why he was there the day David and his bodyguards came. Of course, David knew who Doeg was, having served in the same royal court. He also knew Doeg would report it to Saul, but harming Doeg was simply not allowed under Moses.
David passed through a series of hideouts, even pretending to madness himself while staying in Gath of the Philistines. For a time he gathered an army of malcontents who had suffered under Saul’s reign, along with his extended family household in the cave of Adullam. Seeking to protect his aging parents, he committed them to the care of the King of Moab, relying on his kinship through his great-grandmother, Ruth.
Then, the prophet Gad warned David not to stay in the Cave of Adullam, which was on the border with Philistia, but to find some place in Judah proper. David and his army camped in the forest near Hareth. Our focal passage begins with Saul having received an incomplete report about David’s whereabouts. About the only reason Saul would be hanging out under a tamarisk tree would be the dense shade during the hotter months in Israel. He pulled out a characteristic rant about how he had been so good to his chief officers (fellow Benjamites), and here they showed their loyalty by keeping secrets about Jonathan and David working together against him.
Doeg had everything to gain at this point, because he was the only outsider. He related David’s visit to Nob and how the High Priest had given him Goliath’s sword and some leftover showbread. So the priest was ordered to appear before Saul. He did so with alacrity.
When presented with charges of conspiring with David, the elder priest answered correctly and honestly. He had no reason to imagine David was a traitor, and this was hardly the first time he would have provided any services David might have requested. It would have been treasonous to have refused David anything he asked.
In his paranoia, Saul refused to hear anything the priest answered, but ordered his servants to strike down the man, and then to go and destroy the village whence he came. But Saul’s fellow Israelis refused, because they knew it was a deep crime before the Lord. So he ordered Doeg to lead the reprisal. The Edomite didn’t hesitate, proving that his conversion was a mere formality of convenience. His depravity was characteristic of his home nation. Once again, the priestly service of worship in Israel was destroyed.
Indeed, the whole town was slaughtered as if they were Amalekites worthy of total annihilation. A single surviving priest managed to escape and went to find David. The young leader took full blame for the destruction. There was no just way to prevent that outcome. He knew Doeg would do anything to consolidate his position in Saul’s court, but had to trust the Lord. Yet he knew beyond all doubt that God would not abandon him to Saul’s madness.
