A GUEST ARTICLE BY MATTHEW CANDLER OF IHOPKC
Woven into the fabric of the Biblical story from Eden until the time of David and beyond, are two prominent threads of the biblical story line. First, the coming Seed of the woman Who would reverse the dire consequences of the rebellion in the Eden’s garden-sanctuary. Second, the result of this reversal would invite reconciled humanity within the gates of Eden again, brought out of the exile of banishment into God’s embrace. This is why Genesis pays particular attention to genealogy, they were looking, longing, anticipating the promised Seed to come from the woman.[1]
The punishment for the sin of humanity was death and exile from God’s presence. The idea of exile as punishment for sin is shot through the Scriptures. Just as Adam was banished in exile from Eden, so also Israel was warned of the horrors of exile for not obeying His voice.[2] This perilous scattering due to disobedience Israel knew all too well in her history— first to Assyria, then Babylon, to 70AD. The judgment of exile was so familiar, even the man after God’s own heart experienced it and its effects.
The Two Exiles of David
I love the life of David. There is nothing like it. I have enjoyed decades of musings over the man after God’s own heart in books, music, and movies to ignite my holy imagination. Apart from Jesus, no one is featured more prominently in the Scriptures than David. Like so many, one of the reasons I value the life of David so much is because we discover how to be a person after God’s heart when we fall flat on our face in sin and failure.
Exile of Disobedience
Within a very short time after David was made king over all Israel he crashed and burned in sin. He despised the commandment of the LORD by taking Uriah’s wife Bathsheba and attempted a cover up that eventually lead to Uriah’s premeditated murder. According to the law, we would have expected the death of David[3], but the LORD opted to preserve his life and enact a three-fold judgment.[4] First, David’s house and kingdom would know the sword all their days for the slaying of Uriah by the sword. Second, an adversary from his own house would take his wives in public view for the taking of Uriah’s wife. And lastly, the son conceived and born would die.
It wasn’t until some decades later that David would know that the adversary from his house would be his son Absalom. At the height of the insurrection, David arose and fled Jerusalem.[5] Originally stemming from his sin and disobedience so many years before, David flees in exile away from the ark of His presence in Jerusalem.
Then David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, “Arise, and let us flee, or else there will be no escape for us from Absalom.[6]
The scenario is all too familiar isn’t it? Like Adam before him, he “saw” the forbidden fruit, that it was “good” and “took” it,[7] resulting in death in exiled from God’s presence because of his disobedience. I refer to this flight during the latter part of David’s life as an exile of disobedience, or rather, an exile due to disobedience or sin.
Exile of Obedience
Yet this was not the only flight of exile that David knew from a family adversary. He also knew a flight from his father-in-law Saul, the first king of Israel who pursued him for years across the landscape of Israel.[8] But this exile was different from the one in his later years, this one was an exile of obedience.
While David was not perfect in this flight, his righteous character is intentionally contrasted with Saul’s time and again. He is honorable and kind to Saul who attempted to murder him multiple times. He cares for his family who rejected him, restrains his men from striking Saul, patient amidst suffering, defends Israel from her enemies endangering his own life, bears reproach from his own countrymen while protecting them, and more. In fact there are numerous overlaps between this period of David’s life and Jesus in the Gospels.[9]
Although I did not always see David’s flight from Saul this way, especially when he settled in one of the three capital cities of the Philistines for sixteen months, Ziklag.[10]
So that day Achish gave him Ziklag. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.[11]
I used to think that David was in rebellion to God’s word by stationing himself in Ziklag because of what the prophet Gad spoke to David 1 Samuel 22:5, “…go to the land of Judah.” A few things shifted my perspective. First, Ziklag was part of the original tribal allotment to Judah.[12] Like his hometown of Bethlehem which had a Philistine outpost within it,[13] David still resided in the land apportioned to Judah when he asked Achish for Ziklag. He also chose Ziklag for its access to metal weapons for the men of war rallying to David during this time[14] as well as its strategic location to protect Israel against the Amalekites which Saul failed to do because of his pathological pursuit of David leaving Israel vulnerable.[15] Lastly, nowhere in the biblical narrative do we find where the LORD or a prophet call into question David’s action to base in Ziklag as disobedient or rebellious.
David is not the only one who knew an exile because of being obedient to the LORD. Joseph likewise was well acquainted with the animosity of his family resulting in an exile to Egypt, but due to no sin of his own.[17] There is also Joshua in the wilderness wanderings amidst rebellious Israel, and Daniel in Babylon.
So David had two primary family adversaries from his own nation that resulted in two flights or exiles. The first was at the hands of Saul and was an exile because of his obedience to the LORD. The second was from his son Absalom and was an exile that was the result of his sin and despising the LORD.
The Great Commission and Collision of Exiles
So what are we to make of this? We see the man after God’s own heart in exile in both a season of obedience before he was king as well as disobedience following his kingship. At minimum we see that there is a cost to obedience, not only a cost to disobedience. David’s obedience to the LORD during his flight years from Saul was costly and David was not concerned with managing his reputation before the nation but his righteousness before the God he loved.
Rose-Marie Slosek came to know the Lord in the early seventies and has a passion for organic church and the maturing of the Body of Christ. She serves on the Emmaus Online Lead Team, leads Maranatha Northeast, and a local home fellowship. She can be reached at rmslosek@comcast.net.
[1] Ephesians 4:13, Berean Standard
[2] Galatians 3:24
[3] John 17:21
