Today’s passage: 1 Samuel 27:1-12
Helpful thoughts:
- David doubted Saul’s promise to stop chasing him down. He was right to doubt. Saul only stopped hunting David when he went into Philistia.
- Ziklag was within the territory that God had given to the tribes of Simeon and Judah. This was the beginning of David’s claiming more of the Promised Land during this year and four months.
- The areas and people groups that David was conquering were all within God’s instruction to Israel prior to entering the Promised Land.
- David’s lying resulted in a somewhat misguided trust from King Achish. Due to the mixture of the lying and the military successes of David in the Promised Land, this chapter is very complex. There seem to be things to celebrate and things to avoid/rebuke.
Questions to consider:
- In what way could we continue to contrast David and Saul from what we learn in this chapter? In particular, how did both men respond to commands from the Lord in the conquest of the Promised Land?
- How does a chapter like this help us to trust in the authenticity of God’s Word? If the Bible was trying to hide anything from us to make people (Namely, David) look better than what they were, would we get to learn about these kinds of times?
- Is it ever right to lie? Do passages like this (Or, Exodus 1:15-21, Joshua 2:1-7) tell us it’s OK to lie or do they simply give an accurate report of what occurred?