CHAPTER XVI.

David and his men dwell at Ziklag. He destroys the Geshurites and Amalekites. The Philistines prepare to attack the Israelites. Saul assembles his forces to meet them, and inquires of the woman at En-dor, who has a familiar spirit.

David's residence in Gath seems to have led Saul, certainly for the time, to abandon all thoughts of pursuing his victim, and subsequent events put this entirely out of his power, even if he formed any such purpose.

In the meanwhile David was desirous of dwelling in some place by himself, with his followers and their families. He may have thought that he was imposing too heavy a burden upon the generosity of Achish, and, in addition to this, have felt the evils of being in habits of such constant and immediate intercourse with idolaters, without enjoying the unconstrained exercise of the forms and duties of the religion of his fathers. Whatever were the reasons, he did not hesitate to make his wishes known to the king. Achish was ready to comply with them, and assigned Ziklag as the future place of residence for David and his party. This was a city quite in the south

ern part of Canaan, originally in the lot of the tribe of Judah, but afterwards assigned to the tribe of Simeon. Either it had never been subdued, or the Philistines, in some struggle with the Israelites, had made themselves masters of it, and it was now in their possession. It afterwards fell into the tribe of Judah again, and continued to be the property of the kings of Judah.

From this city, where he remained a year and four months, David, with his armed men, made an excursion into the territory of the Geshurites, the Gezrites, and the Amalekites, lying south of Canaan. We are told that he "smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish ;" probably to answer, in season, the inquiries of the latter before he should receive information from any other source. In reply to these inquiries, David concealed the truth; saying that the excursion had been made against "the south of Judah; and against the south of the Jerah-meelites," (in that tribe ;) and against "the south of the Kenites," who dwelt west of the Dead Sea, extending themselves into Arabia. Petroa, and whose lands were, also, in the lot of the tribe of Judah.

David practised this equivocation, lest the king of Gath, knowing where he had been, and the great havoc he had made, should fear a similar

attack, before long, upon the nations in alliance with the Philistines, or even upon the Philistines themselves. He would fain have Achish believe that he had been laying waste the territory of the Israelites, and thus retain his confidence, by leading him to think that David was ready to take a hostile attitude against his own countrymen, and would prove, with his brave band of armed men, a valuable ally to the Philistines.

Achish was confirmed, too, in this opinion from the fact that, before the predatory excursion from Ziklag, David's party had been reinforced by a number of mighty men of war from the tribe of Benjamin; the same to which Saul belonged, making this defection from him the more striking. They were armed with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow. The names of twenty-three such are given in the sacred narrative. More of the Israelites, Achish thought, might soon follow their example.

The importance which David attached to the producing of these impressions upon the mind of the king of Gath, is evident from the reason which, we are told, he had for leaving none of the inhabitants alive of the countries which he laid waste. He feared if he spared any of them, that some of the. number would carry the tidings of what had happened to Achish, and alarm his fears by telling him that similar excursions would 8

David.

doubtless be made by David and his men so long as they should dwell in that region.

But if the king had felt any such apprehensions, from whatever source, the account given to him by David entirely removed them. Achish fully believed this account, and, on hearing it, said of David, "He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him: therefore he shall be my servant for ever."

Different opinions have been expressed with regard to the predatory excursion made by David at this time, and his entire extermination of the inhabitants whose territory he laid waste. Some have condemned the whole proceeding as one of a most cruel and unjustifiable kind. Others have approved his conduct on the ground, that the Israelites had been expressly commanded to exterminate these nations; that God had said to Saul, "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not," and that the latter had been charged by Samuel with great guilt for not complying strictly with this injunction, and told that God had rejected him from being king. They say that David acted, in this affair, not as a private individual, but as one elected and anointed to be king over Israel; that the same Spirit of God, which once inspired Saul with all regal virtues, was now gone over to David, and rested with him; and that it would be strange, if David, under such circumstances,

incurred guilt in doing that which Saul, when rightfully wearing the crown, was deposed for not doing.

While, therefore, we must leave it to a higher tribunal to decide how far guilt was incurred by David, we ought not, in the opinion of the writer, to attempt to justify the prevarication which he employed to deceive the king of Gath and preserve the confidence of that monarch. For nothing is gained to the cause of truth and godliness by endeavoring to find apologies for the errors and sins of even the best of men.

About this time the Philistines meditated another attack upon the Israelites. They assembled their forces in great numbers near Shunem, a city in the tribe of Issachar, a few miles south of Mount Tabor, in the plain of Esdraelon. Achish, the king of Gath, before leading his men out to the war, told David that he should rely on him and his band to accompany him. David's reply was an ambiguous one. "Surely thou shalt know," said he, "what thy servant can do." Achish, interpreting it favorably, promised David to make him captain of the king's life-guard, a post of great responsibility and honor.

In the meanwhile, Saul gathered together all the Israelites who were capable of bearing arms, and encamped near mount Gilboa, not many miles from the army of the Philistines in a south-eastern direction. Their vast numbers terrified him,