Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 28-31.

After the second time David had a close encounter with King Saul when Saul was pursuing him, David decided to take his men over and enter into the service of the Philistine king of Gath, Achish.  This was second time David went to the king of Gath to join his service.  The first time David was alone and pretended to be crazy to avoid being killed.  This time David had a force of 600 loyal men following him, giving him protection.  We read in yesterday’s passage that David went to a lot of effort to convince Achish that he was raiding Israelite towns and villages, when he was not actually doing so.  As a result, when the Philistines went to war against King Saul, Achish asked David to accompany him and planned to give him a position of great importance in his order of battle.  However, the other Philistine rulers feared that David would do what the Israelite mercenaries in their army had done in their first battle against King Saul many years earlier and insisted that Achish not include David in his order of battle.

We do not know what David intended to do had Achish included him in his order of battle, but we see how God worked to keep David from going into battle against his own people.  God also worked to send David and his men back to their village in time to rescue their families, who had been taken captive by a raiding party while they were with the Philistine army.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.