1 Samuel 29: God's Faithfulness

“I know that you are as good in my sight as an angel of God” (v. 9). Wow! What a compliment! These were the words of King Achish of the Philistines to David. Remember that Goliath had been a Philistine. But the pagan king saw the virtue in David even though his brethren found the Hebrews contemptible or at least untrustworthy (v. 3).

We have an inverted military alliance here: David joining with the Philistines in opposition to the army of Israel. This is especially confusing in light of the fact that David had previously refused to take Saul’s life. So what was going on?

It seems that David had a crisis of faith. He had left Israel to escape from Saul (I Sam. 27:1-2). And now he would even go to war against the Saul-led army when he had twice refused to take action against Saul personally. It’s hard to understand all of this, but it appears that God was blessing David even in the midst of his faith crisis by denying him an ungodly military campaign against Israel.

So what we draw from this somewhat confusing narrative can be that 1) God will accomplish his will even in the face of our disobedience, 2) God can protects us from further sin even while we are in sin, and 3) the righteousness of God can still shine through even our own disobedience.

This is a difficult passage. Let’s take away to be careful of spiritual alliances, stay faithful and to realize that if the Lord is thwarting our plans it may be because we are starting from the wrong side of the battlefield. In all things God is good to us. That is a comfort to us even in our errors.

Posted by Aaron Martin