This scene sits beside the events at Endor. Saul, cut off from every legitimate word from God, gropes after a forbidden one and hears his own doom. David, marching in the rear of a pagan army toward a battle he never should have joined, is about to be delivered from it entirely, by people who have no idea they are doing him a favor.
The bind David is in is severe. He has spent over a year in Achish's service, living the lie that has kept him safe, and the lie has caught up with him in the worst way. The Philistines are marching against Israel, and Achish expects David to march with them. There is no clean way out. Fight for the Philistines against his own people, and he betrays everything Samuel anointed him for. Turn on the Philistines mid-battle, and he betrays the man who trusted him.
He does not find the way out himself. The Philistine commanders find it for him, for the wrong reason as far as David is concerned and the right reason as far as the reader can see. 3"What are these Hebrews doing here?" They remember the old song about Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands, and they read David's loyalty correctly while Achish reads it wrong. Their demand is to send the man back lest he become an adversary in the battle. 4"how could this fellow reconcile himself to his lord? Would it not be with the heads of the men here?" Their suspicion is closer to the truth than Achish's confidence.
Achish resists as long as he can. 6"As the LORD lives, you have been honest." He swears by the God of Israel to vouch for the man who is deceiving him. Still the commanders overrule their king, and Achish sends David home.
David's protest reads two ways at once. 8"But what have I done?" he says, asking why he may not fight 8"against the enemies of my lord the king." Achish hears loyalty to himself. But "my lord the king" could as easily mean Saul, or the LORD, and David, who has chosen his words with this kind of care throughout the book, may be saying something true in a way meant to be misheard. Whatever he wanted in that moment, what he receives is dismissal, sent home before dawn, spared a decision no cleverness could have resolved cleanly.
This is the shape providence so often takes, in this book and in this life. A handful of suspicious foreign commanders, protecting their own interests, unknowingly protect David from himself. No dramatic rescue occurs that David could call a miracle. The commanders want to save their own army from a possible traitor, and underneath it all, without a verse naming God's hand, the LORD closes a door David could not have closed on his own.
David rode home not yet knowing that Ziklag was burning while he marched toward it. The dismissal, painful as it felt in the moment, was the LORD clearing an obstacle before David knew there was a fire to run toward. Think of a door that closed on you that you were desperate to walk through, and consider what may have stood on the other side.
Prayer
Father, thank you for the doors you close through hands that have no idea they are working for you, the suspicious, the self-interested, even our enemies. Give us David's willingness to accept a closed door without forcing it back open, trusting that you see what we cannot. Thank you that even when we cannot trace your hand in a single verse of our circumstances, you are governing every outcome for our good. In Jesus' name, amen.