David asks before he moves at all. Word comes that Philistines are raiding the threshing floors of Keilah, and David, a fugitive with every reason to think only of his own survival, asks the LORD. 2"Shall I go and attack these Philistines?" He gets a clear yes and could act at once. Instead, when his men balk, 3"we are afraid here in Judah," David goes back and asks again. It is patience with his men, a willingness to seek confirmation, unlike Saul, who simply commands. The LORD answers again, and David saves a town that never asked him for anything.
Keilah's gratitude does not last the length of a chapter. When Saul mobilizes to trap David inside the gates, David goes back to the ephod for a third and fourth time and asks two separate questions with two separate answers. Will Saul come down? 11"He will come down." Will the men of Keilah surrender him? 12"They will surrender you." God tells David plainly that the people he risked his life for would betray him, so that he can act and avoid being blindsided. Meanwhile Saul, hearing only that David has entered a walled town, says with total confidence, 7"God has given him into my hand." He never asks. He simply assumes his own desire and God's will are the same, the mistake that has defined his kingship since chapter 13.
Then comes the quiet center, easy to read past between two accounts of pursuit. 16"Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David at Horesh, and strengthened his hand in God." It is the last recorded meeting of the two friends. Jonathan brings words. 17"Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you." He says it to David's face, knowing it means giving away the throne that would otherwise be his. He reminds David what is true when everything visible says otherwise, and then goes home to a father hunting the friend he just left.
What follows shows how much strengthening was needed. The Ziphites, David's own countrymen, volunteer his location to Saul, and Saul answers, 21"May you be blessed by the LORD, for you have had compassion on me." A man who can no longer hear the LORD still knows how to invoke his name for his own purposes. David is hemmed in at Maon, with Saul on one side of the mountain and David on the other. Then, with no warning, a messenger tells Saul the Philistines have raided the land, and Saul turns and leaves.
That is the entire mechanism of David's rescue, an enemy nation's raid arriving at the moment it was needed. David did not engineer it. The same LORD who twice confirmed his word at Keilah was governing every army on the field, including the ones fighting for the other side. The place is named the Rock of Escape. David never sees the danger coming and never sees exactly how he is delivered from it. He only sees afterward that he was.
To be strengthened in God, and not in circumstances, looks like this. Danger closes in on both sides of a mountain, a friend reminds you what is true, and God moves whole armies to keep his promise.
Prayer
Father, thank you that you govern every circumstance, even the ones that look like nothing but threat, to keep your promises. Give us Jonathan's courage to strengthen others' hands in you with nothing to offer but the truth of who you are. When we cannot see the rescue coming, keep us asking as David did, and not assuming as Saul did that our desires and your will are the same. In Jesus' name, amen.