Life and Times of David
ZIKLAG

In dwelling on a history such as that now before us; a history that manifestly presents failure and infirmity, it is well for us to keep in mind what we are, so we don’t point out lapses in others from a spirit of self-complacency. The divine penman has, with unflinching fidelity, set before us the imperfections of those whose history He records. His object is to present God to the soul in the fullness and variety of His resources, meeting the helpless sinner in his deepest need. He has not written the history of angels, but of men “of like passions with us.” This is what makes Old Testament narratives so exceedingly instructive. We are presented with facts that touch the heart; we travel through scenes and circumstances that unfold the hidden springs of our nature.

We learn that man is the same in every age: in Eden, in Canaan, and in the Church – he is made of the same humbling materials. But we also learn that God is the same – “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever” – “Patient, gracious, powerful, holy” – patient with our grievous and manifold provocations; gracious, to restore our wandering souls; powerful, to deliver us out of Satan’s entangling snares; holy, to execute judgment in His house. Such is the God we serve; and we see His wondrous character in the deeply-interesting sketches that abound in the Old Testament, and perhaps in none more than the one now before us.

Few characters exhibit more variety of experience than David. He truly knew the depths and heights marking the course of the man of faith. One moment we find him with his harp, giving the most sublime strains; in another, he’s pouring out the sorrows of a defiled conscience and a wounded spirit. This variety rendered David a fit subject to illustrate the varied grace of God. The prodigal would never have known such high communion, had he not known the humiliating depths of the far country. The grace that dressed him in the best robe would not have shone so brightly, had he not been clad in filthy rags.

God’s grace is magnified by man’s ruin; and the more keenly the ruin is felt, the more highly His grace is valued. The elder brother never got a feast, so he could make merry with his friends; and why? Because he imagined he had earned it. “Lo,” he says, “these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.” Vain man. How could he expect the ring, the robe, or the fatted calf? To him they would have been just the trappings of self-righteousness – not ornaments with which grace decks the believing sinner.

It was this way with Saul and David. Saul never knew his need as David did. Saul was outwardly moral and religious, but, in reality, he was a self-righteous man. Thus, we have such expressions as, “I have performed the commandment of the Lord” – “Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me.” How

could such a man value grace? An unbroken heart, a conscience unconvinced, can never understand the meaning of the term grace. How different it was with David. In the presence of God he felt his sins, groaned under them, confessed them, judged them – God’s grace had blotted them out forever. There is a difference between a man ignorant of his sins, walking in self-complacency, and one deeply conscious of his sins, yet happy in the forgiveness of them.

The above train of thought introduces us to the circumstances connected with David in Ziklag of the Philistines – circumstances that fully manifest human infirmity and divine grace and mercy.

“And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines.” This was David’s second visit to the land of the Philistines. In 1 Samuel 21 we read, “And David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.” Here we find David taking himself out of the hands of God; putting himself in the hands of Achish. He leaves the place of dependence, and goes among the enemies of God and Israel – taking Goliath’s sword with him. In the presence of those before whom he had recently acted as champion of Israel, he now acts the madman. “The servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?”

The Philistines recognized David’s true character as “king of the land” – slayer of ten thousands. They assumed that he could not possibly act in any other way except as their enemy. But they couldn’t read the moral condition of David’s soul at this extraordinary stage of his history; little did they know that the slayer of Goliath had fled to them for protection from the hand of Saul. The world cannot understand the vicissitudes of the life of faith. Who, seeing David in the valley of Elah, could imagine that he would flee from the boldness of faith in God? Who would have thought that with Goliath’s sword in hand he would tremble? Yet, it was so. “David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.”

It’s always like this when a saint deserts the path of simple dependence on God and engages the world – “behavior” must be “changed;” real character abandoned. Instead, a course is adopted that is marked by deceit before God and folly before the world. How sorrowful. A saint should always maintain dignity – the dignity that flows from being in the presence of God. But the moment faith fades, the power of testimony is gone, and the man of faith is despised as a “madman.”

When David “said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul,” he forsook the path of real power. Had he continued as a homeless wanderer through the mountains, he would have never presented such a melancholy picture to the servants of Achish – he would not have been pronounced a madman. Achish would not have dared call David by such a name in the valley of Elah – or in the cave of Adullam. But, David put himself under the power of a stranger, pretending to be a fool in their eyes. They correctly judged him to be the king of the land, but he denied his kingship, and became a fool.

We should carefully guard against getting out of communion with God. As long as we feel that God is sufficient for all our need, we can be entirely independent of the world. However, if it’s not that way with us, then we will compromise the truth of God, denying our character as heavenly men.

David lost the sense of God’s sufficiency when he could say, “There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines.” Nothing better for a man of faith than to go back to the world for refuge. What a strange confession; a confession of one who had allowed circumstances to come between his soul and God. When we slip off the narrow path of faith, we are likely to run into the wildest extremes. Nothing more forcibly exhibits the contrast between one looking at God and one looking at circumstances than David in the valley of Elah and David scrabbling on the doors of the Philistine king. The contrast is full of solemn instruction and warning, teaching us what we are, and how little the best of us can be depended on.

We are failing and stumbling creatures; prone to wander into error and evil – prone to forsake the Rock of Ages (leaning instead on the broken reeds of the world) – prone to forsake the fountain of living waters (hewing out for ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water). Truly we have deep need to walk humbly, watchfully, and prayerfully before our God – deep need to continually utter David’s own prayer, “Uphold me according unto Thy word, that I may live; and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe; and I will have respect unto Thy statutes continually.”

Nothing short of divine grace can enable us to pursue a course of steady devotedness: for, if left to ourselves, there is no extreme of evil into which we will not run. God forbid that we should make any other use of what we may term the Ziklag portion of David’s history, other than applying it to our own hearts before God, using it as a matter of solemn and soul-searching warning. While there is a wide difference between the standing and privileges of David and those of the Church of our Lord, still, in every age human nature is the same. We seriously harm our souls if we fail to learn a wholesome lesson from David’s failure. Dispensations may differ, but there is a wonderful analogy in God’s principles of discipline throughout the ages.

As we follow David’s sojourn through the land of the Philistines, we see only humiliation. He obtains the grant of Ziklag, where he sojourns for sixteen months. During this period, though free from all fear of Saul, David remains distance from God and Israel. In one sense, it’s an easy matter to get out of a place of trial; but in doing so we also get out of the place of blessing. It would have been better for David to have remained exposed to Saul, because he would have enjoyed God’s protection. Instead he sought safety from the king of Gath. However, when the pressure of trial comes on us, the thought of relief is consuming, and we are in danger of seeking relief in our own way.

The enemy always has a by-road open for the man of faith. He had an Egypt for Abraham, a Ziklag for David; and today he has the world, in all its varied forms, for us. “And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.” It is the opportunity to return that proves the genuine fixedness of purpose to go forward. In other words, the Lord leaves His people free, in order that they may “declare plainly that they seek a country.” This is what glorifies God. What would it avail if we were to be compelled, as with bit and bridle, to go from earth to Heaven? But voluntarily abandoning the things of earth to seek those things that are above is the glory of God, because it demonstrates that what He has to give is far more attractive than this present world.¹

However, David accepted Ziklag, and instead of remaining as a homeless stranger in the cave of Adullam, he became a citizen in the land of the Philistines. Nor does he now act the madman, as before: no; he now acts the part of a deceiver. He lies about waging war on the Geshurites and Gezrites, to keep from losing his self-chosen place of protection. David proceeds so far in his unhappy course that when Achish proposes to him to act as ally to the Philistines, his answer is, “Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do . . . And Achish said to David, Therefore will I make thee keeper of my head for ever . . . Now the Philistines gathered together all their armies to Aphek; and the Israelites pitched by a fountain which is in Jezreel. And the lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds and by thousands; but David and his men passed on in the rearward with Achish.”

Here we have a strange anomaly – a king of Israel soon to be made keeper of the head of a Philistine, and about to draw the sword against the armies of the living God. How strange indeed; the slayer of Goliath, servant to a Philistine. Who could have imagined such a thing? Where would all this have ended, if David had been left to the full results of his false position? But, with rich and manifold mercies in store, God was graciously watching after His poor wanderer. God also had some humbling lessons and painful exercises of soul in store for David.

God used the lords of the Philistines as instruments to deliver David from his strange position. Based on David’s past ways, they could not be induced to trust him as an ally. “Is not this David, and how can we confide in him?” A Philistine could never rely on a Hebrew for co-operation against Hebrews. In other words, the men of this world can never place full confidence in one who has once accepted the truth of God. A saint, who is out of communion and goes back to the world, will never be regarded or confided in by the world as truly one of them – as David was by the Philistines. “Make this fellow return, that he may go again to his place which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us.”

When it became a question of war with Israel, David could not be trusted. Actually, they were wise. Let David assume whatever character he might, still, he could never be anything else except an enemy to the Philistines. He might fake madness; he might pretend to make war on the south of Judah; but when matters came to a head, David was consistent with his true character – the slayer of ten thousands of Philistines. Fact is, from first to last, David was misunderstood; the Philistines did not know what had sent him into their midst. There was more in this apparent madman than they could fathom. They thought David desired to be reconciled to his master, Saul, but little did they know that before them was one who soon would lay his hand on the scepter of Israel – one who would make them feel the weight of his power.

The Lord would not allow David to appear in the field against Israel. He sent him back or rather He led him aside, so that He could deal with him in secret. “So David and his men rose up early to depart in the morning, to return into the land of the Philistines . . . And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire; and had taken the women captives that were therein. They slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way.”

David is made to feel the bitter result of having gone to Achish for help. He had taken a position among the uncircumcised, becoming a partaker of their wretchedness. Had he remained in the mountains of Judah, he would have escaped all this sorrow – God would have been a wall of fire around him. Instead, he had fled to Ziklag to escape Saul. Later, as Saul was falling on Mount Gilboa, David was weeping over the ruins of Ziklag. “Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep . . . And David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him.”

In all this, God was dealing with His dear child, not to crush him, but to bring him to a realization of the course he pursued among the Philistines. When David beheld the smoldering ashes of Ziklag, feeling himself deprived of his wives and children, surely he experienced a practical lesson about the evil and sorrow of taking anything from the world. It’s hard to imagine a condition more painful than that in which David found himself on his return to Ziklag. For a year and four months, he had pursued a course that could have left him with an uneasy conscience toward God; he was cast off by those on whose protection he had thrown himself; his place of refuge was burned; his wives and property were gone; and lastly, his companions, those who had followed him in all his wanderings, were threatening to stone him.

David at his lowest ebb – abandoning the place of dependence; flight to Achish; change of behavior; acting the madman; telling a lie; volunteering to fight against Israel, and serving the Philistines. All these things must have anguished his soul.

But David was a man of faith, and, in spite of all this, he knew the Lord, and His “boundless stores of grace.” He had never been tested like this. He had met the lion and the bear in the wilderness; he had met the giant of Gath in the valley of Elah; but he had never met such an overwhelming array of circumstances before. Yet, David knew that God was sufficient. Thus we read, “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” Happy he who, from the deepest depths of human misery, rises up to God and His never failing resources. Faith knows God is fully equal to all human need, human weakness, human failure, and human sin. God is above all, beyond all, beneath all; and the heart that apprehends Him is lifted above all the trials and difficulties of the world.

There is no condition the Christian faces on which he may not count on God. Are you crushed beneath the pressure of trial from external circumstances? – bring God’s omnipotent power to bear on them. Is your heart oppressed by the burden of personal infirmity? – draw upon the exhaustless springs of Divine compassion and mercy. Is your soul filled with horror, because of sin and guilt? – accept the boundless grace of God, and the infinitely-precious blood of Christ. Whatever the burden, the trial, the sorrow, or the need, God is more than equal, and it’s the province of faith to use Him. “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God” when everything around was dark and depressing.

To separate our hearts from self and that which surrounds us, rising upward to the holy calmness of the Divine presence, imparts comfort and consolation beyond human words. Satan seeks to hinder this, desiring to make present things the boundary of our soul’s horizon. He enjoys surrounding us with a thick, dark, impenetrable cloud, so that we might not recognize God’s countenance – the Father’s hand in our circumstances.

But faith pierces the cloud, and goes upward to God. Faith doesn’t look at things that are seen, but at unseen things. Faith endures, seeing Him who is invisible.

Truly David’s return to Ziklag was one of his darkest hours. But, God appeared for his relief and restoration, and his dawning began. God graciously removed the weight from David’s spirit, letting the prisoner go free. God gave us freedom to taste the bitter fruit of our own ways, but true happiness is found only in His gracious and holy presence. In other words, Ziklag may shelter for a time, but it will perish. It is a worldly shelter, purchased by the sacrifice of a good conscience toward God and His people – a heavy price to pay for temporary relief from pressure! How much better to endure.

But, blessed be our God, “all things work together for good to them that love Him.” The Philistine champion’s death and the sixteen months’ sojourn in Ziklag; the cave of Adullam, and the house of Achish – all worked for David’s good. The Lord makes the failure of His children yield blessing, because it leads them to prayerful vigilance of spirit, and a closer walk with Him. May our stumbles teach us to lean more implicitly on God. As humbling as David’s Ziklag experience must have been, no doubt he would not have been humbled without it. It taught him the deep reality of God’s grace and faithfulness, enabling him to see that even when brought down to the bottom of human things, God was still there in all the fullness of His grace. This was a valuable lesson, and it will be our place to learn from it also.

Are we able to lean on the Lord amid the ruin around us? Is He more than every one and everything to our souls? Are we encouraged by Him when all without and within seems directly against us? Is His name dear to us in this day of faithlessness and emotionalism? Are we prepared to go through the desert of solitariness and desertion? Will we ever learn to stop listening to and following the world? Are we prepared to lose the approval and confidence of our brethren? When David’s companions spoke of stoning him; the Lord was “his refuge.” Do we know such power and comfort?

Consider the instructive scene between David and the young servant to the Amalekite; though not a positive type, it as a very striking illustration.

In order to appreciate the teaching of the Spirit in this Scripture (1 Sam. 30:11-16), we must keep in mind the difference between Egypt and Amalek. Egypt is associated with Israel in this way, “In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land; whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.”

On the other hand, Amalek is spoken of this way, “The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” Therefore, an Egyptian and an Amalekite stood in a different relationship to Israel.

The young servant to the Amalekite was an Egyptian, and his master left him because he had fallen sick. This was the treatment he received from his Amalekite master; abandoned in the hour of his need, because he was no longer able to serve him. His ruin and wretchedness placed him at the sympathy of David, who refreshed him and revived his spirit. David found him faint and weak from the effects of his former service, and having restored his spirit, inquired, “Canst thou bring me down to this company?” David puts his claim on the service and devotedness of the young man, now fully restored. Yet, he was unable to serve David until given full assurance of life and liberty. “Swear unto me by God,” he said, “that thou wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring you down to this company.” In order to serve David, he needed full assurance of deliverance from the power of his old master.

All this is a striking as an illustration of the apostle’s teaching in Romans 6. The believer needs to know his entire emancipation from the dominion of his old master, the flesh, before he can confidently apply himself to the service of Christ. We have felt the bitterness of serving the flesh; as the apostle says, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” It is impossible to walk in peace and liberty of heart until we know where death and resurrection have placed us. The Gospel sets the soul at rest, not only regarding the past, but also the present and future. The Lord forgives all our sins, not some of them. Not only does He forgive sins, but He also delivers from the power of sin, as we read in Roman 6 – “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” This is a precious truth for those who are daily harassed by the seeds of evil within. Though sin dwells, it shall not reign. And how is this deliverance accomplished? – By death and resurrection. “He that has died is justified from sin” (RV). What claim has sin on a dead man? None. God looks on the baptized believer as dead – dead with Christ, and risen again; and his power to deny the working of sin consists in his reckoning himself to be what God tells him he is.

Thus, as David’s oath set the young man’s mind at rest, enabling him to act against the Amalekites, so the Word of Christ banishes fear and hesitation from the believer’s heart, enabling him, through the Spirit, to act against his former master – the flesh. Grace assures us that all our interests, for time and eternity, have been fully provided for in the death and resurrection of Christ, and now our only business is living to the praise of Him who died for us, and rose again.

“Shall we continue in sin?” Could the young man in this Scripture have gone back to his Amalekite master? What fruit awaited him from his former service? – Ruin and desertion. And if we return to our former service, what fruit awaits us? – Death. The wages of sin is death. The world, the flesh, and the devil, can lead us in only one direction – to death and destruction. Jesus Christ, the true David, has done all for us, so that we might act for Him in this time of His rejection. He suffered for us and now calls on us to go forth for Him, bearing His reproach. The true believer does not act in order to get life, but because he has it. He starts on his Christian career with the full assurance of pardon and acceptance in the Beloved. Perfect justification is his starting-post, and glory the goal – “Whom He justified, them He also glorified.”

Some imagine that we can never know that our sins are forgiven while here. However, if we cannot know that our sins are forgiven, then we cannot know that God’s Word is true and Christ’s work perfect. Both rest on the same basis. Forgiveness of sins and the truth of God’s Word are linked together in the precious gospel of Christ. Doubt the forgiveness of sins, and you call in question the truth of Christ’s words, “It is finished.”

Yet, it’s hard for the heart to accept the truth of God with unquestioning simplicity; accepting the perfect remission of sins through the blood of Christ. Our thoughts are too shallow; we are too full of legalism, too full of self. Vainly we feel the need to add something to what Christ has done – works, feelings, or experiences. All this must be set aside. Christ alone is the great foundation, the eternal rock, the tower of salvation. To add anything would be to make Christ of none effect, to fall from grace.

May we cling to Christ with a deeper sense of our own vileness and His perfectness. May we wrap ourselves around Him, while passing through this cold and faithless world.

Footnote:
¹ “He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation” (Ps. 107:7). Grace not only leads forth from Egypt, but imparts the capacity and the desire to go to Canaan.

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