Saturday, November 11, 2017

Year 7, Day 315: 1 Samuel 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here


1 Samuel 29 gives us a bit more indication towards David’s dark side.  The Philistines are marching out to go to war.  The lords among the Philistines don’t particularly want David to go down among them.  Unfortunately, given the circumstances I don’t think that I can really blame them.

Yesterday we discovered that David has been up to some nefarious actions.  He’s raiding people to stay alive.  He’s lying about his actions to Achish.  He’s killing people to cover up those lies.  He’s begun a bit of a downward spiral in his life.

Here’s the thing.  David continues those patterns of deceit in this passage.  Achish comes to him and tells him that the Philistines want him to stay behind.  Do you here what David says?  “What have I done?”  He plays innocent when he knows he’s guilty.  Perhaps what is worse is that he plays off of Achich’s ignorance of his actions as proof of his innocence.

David is showing his prowess as a liar today.  He is also showing his prowess as a manipulator.  I can’t give him a very high grade for what I see in this passage.

That being said, I can’t be too harsh on David, either.  David isn’t doing anything that I haven’t done.  David is just thinking about himself, something that I do quite frequently.  Chapters like this are a great opportunity for us to look into our lives and see where we are similarly guilty.

<><

No comments:

Post a Comment