and rich booty was made of their cattle.

But soon the danger which David's men had apprehended seemed really at hand. When Saul heard that

David had "shut himself in by coming into a town with gates and bars," it seemed to him almost as if judicial

blindness had fallen upon him, or, as the king put it: "Elohim has rejected him into my hand." So thinking,

Saul rapidly gathered a force to march against Keilah. But, as we learn from the course of this narrative, each

side was kept well informed of the movements and plans of the other. Accordingly David knew his danger,

and in his extremity once more appealed to the Lord. It was not a needless question which he put through

the Urim and Thummim,209 but one which was connected with God's faithfulness and the truth of His

With reverence be it said, God could not have given up David into the hands of Saul. Nor did his inquiries

of God resemble those by heathen oracles. Their main element seems to have been prayer. In most earnest

language David spread his case before the Lord, and entreated His direction. The answer was not withheld,

although, significantly, each question had specially and by itself to be brought before the Lord (23:11, 12).

Thus informed of their danger, David and his men escaped from Keilah, henceforth to wander from one

hiding-place to another. No other district could offer such facilities for eluding pursuit as that large tract,

stretching along the territory of Judah, between the Dead Sea and the mountains of Judah. It bore the

general designation of "the wilderness of Judah," but its various parts were distinguished as "the

wilderness of Ziph," "of Maon," etc., from the names of neighboring towns. In general it may be said of this

period of his wanderings (ver. 14), that during its course David's head-quarters were on "mountain

heights,"  210 whence he could easily observe the approach of an enemy, while "Saul sought him every day,"

but in vain, since "God gave him not into his hand."

The first station in these wanderings was the "wilderness of Ziph," on the outskirts of the town of that

name, about an hour and three-quarters to the south-east of Hebron. South of it a solitary mountain -top

rises about one hundred feet, commanding a full prospect of the surrounding country. On the other hand,

anything that passed there could also easily be observed from below. It seems that this was "the mountain"

(ver. 14), or, as it is afterwards (ver. 19) more particularly described, "the hill of Hachilah, on the south of the

wilderness,"  211 where David had his principal station, or rather, to be more accurate, in "the thicket," or

"brushwood,"  212 which covered its sides (vers. 15, 16).

It was thither that in the very height of these first persecutions, Jonathan came once more to see his friend,

and, as the sacred text emphatically puts it, "strengthened his hand in God." It is difficult to form an

adequate conception of the courage, the spiritual faith, and the moral grandeur of this act. Never did man

more completely clear himself from all complicity in guilt, than Jonathan from that of his father. And yet not

an undutiful word escaped the lips of this brave man. And how truly human is his fond hope that in days to

come, when David would be king, he should stand next to his throne, his trusted adviser, as in the days of

sorrow he had been the true and steadfast friend of the outlaw! As we think of what it must have cost

Jonathan to speak thus, or again of the sad fate which was so soon to overtake him, there is a deep pathos

about this brief interview, almost unequaled in Holy Scripture, to which the ambitious hopes of the sons of

Zebedee form not a parallel but a contrast.

But yet another bitter experience had David to make. As so often in the history of the Church, and never

more markedly than in the case of Him Who was the great Antitype of David, it appeared that those who

should most have rallied around him were his enemies and betrayers. The "citizens"213 of Keilah would have

given him up from fear of Saul. But the men of Ziph went further.

Like those who hypocritically pretended that they would have no other king but Caesar, they feigned a

loyalty for which it is impossible to give them credit. Of their own accord, and evidently from hatred of

David, they who were his own tribesmen betrayed his hiding-place to Saul, and offered to assist in his

capture. It is pitiable to hear Saul in the madness of his passion invoking on such men "the blessing of