The old man looked up from his writing as a furtive knock sounded on the outer door. His eyes held a question; there should be no one abroad at this late hour of the night. The villagers of Ramah would normally all be asleep and no traveller on lawful business should be out there in the darkness. He listened for a minute; the knock came again.

There was a movement in the big outer room where Samuel's students, 'sons of the prophets' were lying asleep and the sound of quiet footsteps going to the door of the house. He heard it unbarred and opened and the murmur of voices. Soon his own door opened silently to reveal the form of a young man.

"David is here" he said quietly. Samuel rose to his feet. Behind the other he perceived the athletic frame of the lad he had once, at the Divine command, anointed as Israel's future king. That had been seven years ago; he had not seen him since. Here in this quiet retreat, remote from the affairs of the nation since his parting from Saul, contentedly spending his time teaching a small band of young disciples the things of God, he had heard from time to time of the exploits of the son of Jesse. He must have rejoiced when he learned of the victory over Goliath and the discomfiture of the Philistines. He must equally have been saddened by news of Saul's continued rejection of God and consequent inability to deliver Israel completely from those same Philistines. Perhaps he wondered at times how the Lord would fulfil His expressed intention to replace Saul by David as king, but if so his faith would rise to the surface and he would rest the matter entirely with the Lord. Meanwhile he continued with the quiet work that the Lord had given him to do here in Ramah, a work seemingly so insignificant compared with the mighty deeds of his earlier life when he ruled supreme as Judge over Israel. Now he looked at David, mingled welcome and question showing in his eyes. David came into the room, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

"I am David, son of Jesse, whom you once anointed to be king over Israel" he said simply.

"I know it, my son" came the calm reply, "What brings you here?"

"I flee from the face of Saul. He seeks my life. He uses me to lead his armies to victory against the Philistines but he cannot bear that I receive the applause of the people when I return in triumph. He fears that I will lead an insurrection to usurp his throne and he cannot understand that I am content to wait until the Lord gives it to me in His own time and way. I have lost my wife, my home and my friends, and I am an outcast, destitute and alone. But I am still the anointed of the Lord. I come to you that you may tell me what the Lord would have me do next.'

The older man spoke gently. "You will stay here with me, my son" he said "and soon I will tell you where to go and what to do. For now you will stay with me."

The other dropped into a seat and rested his head in his hands, elbows on knees. "But Saul will find out that I am here and send men to kill me, and you and yours will be involved on my account. I cannot allow that to happen"

Samuel spoke quietly. "Saul will discover that you have taken refuge here in my Naioth, school of the prophets and he will send messengers to take you. And when they come to this house, the Spirit of God will take possession of them and they will be unable to do anything but be caught up in a rhapsody of prophesying and so they will return to Saul without having achieved their purpose." His eyes grew sombre. "In his anger Saul will come himself with his servants to take you. When he sets foot in this house the Spirit of God will come upon him also and he will fall down prostrate before me a day and a night. Then he will rise up and go his way back to Gibeah, not knowing why it is that he cannot take you. That shall be a sign to you, my son, that the protection of the Lord is over you and that you will surely become king over Israel. Lie down now and sleep, my son, for the way before you is arduous and the trials severe. If your faith fails not and you endure to the end, you will yet sit on the throne of the Lord and rule His people in righteousness and equity. Lie down now and sleep, for the way before you is arduous.

* * * * * * * *

So David departed from Ramah and went to Nob, five miles away, where the High Priest, Ahimelech, great-grandson of Eli, endeavoured to administer the ritual of the Mosaic Law within what was left of the sacred Tabernacle. Its central glory, the Ark of the Covenant, taken in battle by the Philistines at the battle of Aphek more than seventy years previously was still in the house of Aminadab at Kirjath-jearim in the south. It is not definitely known what happened to the Tabernacle structure at Shiloh after that disastrous battle. Probably it had been hurriedly dismantled and hidden before the Philistines reached and destroyed Shiloh, and in later years re-erected at Nob. So David came to Ahimelech, tired and hungry after three days probably aimless wandering about the countryside since leaving Samuel, begging food and weapons from the High Priest. The poverty of Ahimelech's establishment is shown by the fact that the only food he could offer David and the young men with him was the cast out hallowed "shewbread" from the sacred table in the Holy of the Tabernacle. This bread that once had been consecrated to God should have been destroyed and not profaned by secular use. The measure of David's desperation is revealed in that he took and ate the hallowed bread, a sacrilege he would never have dreamed of doing in normal circumstances. He looked for a sword and the priest produced the sword of Goliath the Philistine giant slain by David, that had been placed in the sanctuary as a remembrance of that notable occasion. Armed with that he made his way across country some twenty-five miles to the Philistine town of Gath, hoping to find sanctuary with Achish the chieftain of the town. That he should run the risk of joining the enemy he had so consistently fought against demonstrates the fear of Saul he had developed. Only in the enemy land would he feel safe. Of course, in taking himself out of the Lord's protection he was not safe at all. It was not long before some of the Philistines discovered his identity. "Is not this David the king of the land?" they said. "Did they not sing… of him in dances, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? ". (1 Sam. 21.11 RSV). In panic David pretended to be mad, acting like an idiot, until the Philistines turned from him in contempt, and he was able to make hisescape and get back into the territory of Judah. So he came into the rocky mountainous country between Jerusalem and Hebron and found a cave near Adullam, far from the haunts of men, and there he sank down, and rested, and pondered.

It is impossible to gauge the state of David's mind at this time. He was to be on the run from Saul for another six years, always on the move from place to place and never knowing where he would be next. The one thing that does stand out in the narrative of 1 Samuel 20-26 is his determination never to take action himself to wrest the kingdom from Saul. He could have done it; there is much evidence that the south country, Judah, was behind him. On two occasions Saul's life was in his hands and he deliberately refrained from taking advantage of the opportunity. He was resolved to wait until the Lord gave him the kingship. There is here the paradox of a man who is possessed of faith on the one hand and consumed by fear of his adversary on the other. Perhaps David was not so unlike the rest of us after all. So often faith and fear, trust and doubt, co-exist in parallel compartments in our lives and it takes the lessons of bitter experience to enable the one to overcome the other. That at any rate is how it turned out for David.

He must have remained in Adullam for something like two years or more. During that time he collected around himself a band of four hundred men, renegades and outcasts mainly, but all consumed by hatred of Saul and prepared to fight under David's leadership. Such a number could only be sustained under such conditions by the material and moral support of the local populace; there is not much doubt that this was forthcoming. Adullam was in the centre of the territories of the southern tribes. Simeon and Judah.that were traditionally at variance with Saul's tribe Benjamin and the tribes of northern Israel. 1 Samuel 22.6 reveals that Saul at this very time had made his headquarters in his home town of Gibeah in a "grove in a high place" which means an idolatrous sanctuary. This indicates that Saul had finally rejected God and gone over to the gods of Canaan, acceptable to the north but anathema to the south. David's cause must have become identified with the re-establishment of national loyalty to God and his friendship with Samuel and Ahimelech would have buttressed that position. His "guerilla campaign" must have taken on more and more the aspect of a "holy war" to restore the worship of the true God in Israel.

For the next two years, David was on the move all the time, changing his headquarters from place to place to avoid detection by Saul's men. He went from Adullam to Hereth, from Hereth to Keilah, from Keilah to Ziph. Then on to Maon, En-gedi by the Dead Sea and back to Ziph again. All these places were within twenty or thirty miles of each other and it is possible that his followers who had now increased to six hundred, were scattered over the whole area and formed an underground movement within the boundaries of Saul's kingdom. The hearts of the people were steadily turning more and more toward David.

It was at this time that there occurred the strange incidents, in which David had Saul at his mercy, but chivalrously refused to take advantage of the opportunity. The accounts are in 1 Samuel 24 and 26. In the one account, David and some of his men were in the recesses of a cave when Saul inadvertently entered, not knowing anyone was there. David silently cut off a piece of his outer garment without being noticed and after Saul had left the cave he called out to him to demonstrate how near death he had been. In the other account David with one companion crept into Saul's camp when all there were asleep and got away with Saul's spear and pitcher, forbearing to take his life. He then called to him from the other side of the valley. In both cases Saul expressed his contrition and vowed he would persecute David no more, but went back on his word almost immediately. What stands out in both events is David's determination not to be responsible for Saul's death. He was still resolved to wait the Lord's time, confident that the Lord would eventually fulfil His word.

David was increasingly becoming a man of violence. The story of his encounter with Nabal, a wealthy farmer (ch.25) shows this. Nabal's far-flung lands lay in the area scoured by David's followers. His shepherds enjoyed the protection of David's men from bandits and, probably. marauding Philistines. David sent a message soliciting a little material consideration for services rendered. Nabal refused with scorn and insult. Immediately David set out with four hundred armed men to seek revenge, vowing to kill all Nabal's household and take his possessions. Bloodshed was only averted when Nabal's wife, Abigail, went out to meet the avenging horde and interceded with David. David rather shamefacedly admitted that God had kept him from this bloodthirsty vengeance by sending Abigail in this manner, but the fact remains that his character was undergoing a change and that not for the better. In the upshot Nabal died suddenly and David took Abigail to be his wife and inherited her late husband's not inconsiderable property. This made him a wealthy landowner but still a fugitive with a price on his head. At about this time a grievous blow fell upon him; his old friend and mentor, the aged prophet Samuel died.

Samuel must have been well over a hundred years old at his death. His political power had waned considerably with Saul as king, but his moral influence was still great. All Israel remembered and revered him as the man who in earlier generations had saved them from the Philistines: they could not but be painfully conscious that Saul, with all his warlike prowess, had failed to maintain that position. But Saul was still in power, and with Samuel now gone, David evidently felt that his personal safety whilst in Saul's dominions was less secure. "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul" he said (1 Sam.27.1 RSV). He took a bold decision. He would take his whole household (he now had two wives in addition to Saul's daughter whom he had left behind when he fled) and his six hundred men, and make alliance with his old enemies the Philistines. He went to Achish, a Philistine chieftain of Gath and proposed settlement in his territory. That worthy, knowing something of David of old. and eyeing his six hundred stalwart warriors somewhat speculatively, probably reflected that they would form a useful addition to his own forces at the next showdown with Saul, and assigned him the nearby town of Ziklag for his use. What the citizens of Ziklag thought of the arrangement is not stated: they of course were not consulted.

David's occupation of Ziklag lasted sixteen months. He was no longer in fear of Saul and he spent his time now in a systematic ravaging and plundering of the nomadic tribes between Canaan and Egypt. It does not make pleasant reading. "David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel and returned, and came to Achish' (1 Sam. 27.9). It looks as if Achish had a share of the spoils, upon which he probably congratulated himself; at the same time David pretended to him that his forays had been directed against the tribes of Israel at which Achish must have congratulated himself still more and now the sands were running out for Saul. He had long since lost his best military leader in David. He had lost the sobering influence on the nation exerted by Samuel. His subjects were resentful, his warriors demoralized, he himself, at about sixty-five years of age fearful and panic-stricken at his continuous failures and the ever present Philistine menace. His ill-advised visit to a sorceress at Endor to try and raise Samuel from the nether-world to advise him only brought dark prophecy of doom and death. Now the Philistines, secure in the knowledge that David was no longer a threat, invaded Israel in force. Saul and his men were forced back to the other side of the land, until at last, with virtually the whole of Israel occupied by the enemy, they made a last desperate stand on Mount Gilboa.

That was the end. As the Philistines scoured the deserted battlefield the following morning. they found, lying in the midst of his three dead eldest sons, the body of Saul, king of Israel. The time for the kingship of David had come.

AOH (To be continued)