Understand the KJV Bible

Engedi, near the Dead Sea, is a place of many caves, in one of which David hid from Saul, who wanted to kill him. However, Saul chose the very same cave when he needed to do something privately.

David's men urged him to take the opportunity to kill his enemy, and David was able to creep so close to Saul that, with a stroke of his knife, he cut off the fringe of Saul's robe. But would David now act to make himself king by ending Saul's life? And if not, how could God's promise ever be fulfilled that David would rule Israel?

The people in Keilah should have been truly grateful to David. With his group of 600 men, he fought to save them from the Philistines, who had been robbing their supplies of food. However, when Saul threatened to surround their town with his army, they cared little about David's life.

In Ziph, the inhabitants did not even need to be threatened to want to hand over David. They were glad to see an opportunity to please King Saul.

From both of these places, David's escape was truly a miracle. At one, a warning from God himself; at the other, an urgent message for Saul, was all that saved David from capture.

Yet in the middle of all this, David's friend Jonathan, the son of Saul, found him, and strengthened him with a reminder of the promises of God.

In the midst of Saul's persecution, David found a place of refuge in the cave at Adullam, and a band of men, outcasts from Israel, joined themselves with him.

However, Saul's anger continued unabated, and it drove him to one of the most terrible incidents in the entire Bible. Doeg the Edomite was remorseless in hunting down the families of Israel's chief priests. The sole survivor, Abiathar, escaped to David, taking the chief priest's ephod with him.

Welcome to our 200th Episode. During the last 5 years, we have released 200 talks covering 175 complete chapters of the King James Bible, studying each chapter verse-by-verse and word-by-word.

Today we reach 1 Samuel 21, with David in a truly desperate state, fleeing from King Saul, who is determined to kill him. David first goes to Nob, the town of the priests, where he begs for bread and a sword. Then he goes to Gath, the town of his enemy, the Philistine champion Goliath, hoping for a safe place of refuge from Saul's anger. On the way, there's deceit, and fear and danger, and the chapter doesn't show David at his best. But even so, David is learning a deeper trust in God too, and his experiences in this chapter provided the inspiration for two of the Psalms, Psalm 56 and 34.

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Jonathan tested the attitudes of his father, King Saul, towards David. Alas, the situation was much worse than Jonathan had ever imagined. An angry outburst from Saul was so violent that he almost killed Jonathan himself.

So it was a sad and difficult message that Jonathan brought to David as David hid in the field. It had become plain that Saul's cruelty had, at last, forced the two friends to separate.

Separated, yes - but still the love remained. Apart from each other, in life or even after their deaths, their friendship must continue. Their covenant, their serious promises to each other in front of God, demanded it.

Saul was dangerous and unpredictable - but until now, David and Jonathan believed that they were in control of the situation. Now however, after many attempts to kill David, David was at last convinced. His life was in danger; he could no longer remain with Saul.

So David asked Jonathan to test Saul. It was the beginning of the month, a festive occasion in Israel, and Saul expected David to be present at his feast. David, however, would go to Bethlehem and return on the third day. That would give Jonathan the opportunity to find out Saul's reaction to David's absence.

David and Jonathan realised the likely effect on their own friendship of this. If Saul was determined to kill David, then Jonathan and David must separate, perhaps for ever. So they made a covenant, promises of friendship, which they intended to be binding on them, and their families after them into the future.

David was now son-in-law to King Saul, and one of the chief commanders in his army. It did not make his life with this unpredictable and unreliable king any easier - rather, matters grew much worse.

Still for about 10 years, and with the strong support of Jonathan, Saul's eldest son, David managed to continue to serve Saul. Then, suddenly, matters grew much worse...

When David defeated Goliath, the result was an immediate change in his life. Before, David was an unknown shepherd boy; now in towns across Israel, women sang to celebrate his victory. Before, David would occasionally go to the palace, to play on his harp to help the king, when the evil spirit troubled him. Now Saul commanded that David must work for him constantly. He became the friend of Jonathan, Saul's son, and the husband of Michal, Saul's daughter. And he became one of the chief commanders in Saul's army.

All this promotion was a cause of great danger for David - and the greatest danger was Saul himself, the king whom David respected and loved. Saul was jealous, violent and unpredictable. At any moment, he might attack David, or cause David to be at great risk in battle.

But David acted with great wisdom. He did not try to oppose Saul. He waited for God to carry out his (God's) plans in his life.

David had no experience in war, but he came to the battle with a deep and mature trust in God, formed during his work as a shepherd boy on the hills near Bethlehem. There, he had defeated enemies who were stronger than him: a lion and a bear. He was confident that the God who saved him then, would defend him now.

It must have been difficult to reject the sword and the armour that King Saul offered him. Yet without experience of such things, David chose the simple home-made weapons of a shepherd. So when God gave him the victory, with nothing but a sling and five smooth stones, that would bring great honour to God. As David told Goliath before the fight began, people across the world would hear of this fight, and know that there truly is a God in Israel - in fact, that Israel's God is the only true God.

David was never intended to fight in the battle against Goliath, the champion of the Philistine army. His three eldest brothers had joined Saul's army; but David was assigned a different task: to look after the family's sheep.

However, the battle was slow to begin. For 40 days, Goliath taunted Israel's army. He demanded that they must find a man who dared fight against him, massive as he was. If they dared not fight him, how could they hope to defeat Philistia's army?

So it was that David was sent to the battlefield, not to fight, but to refresh the supplies for his brothers. And there he heard Goliath. But David was not, like the other men, terrified by Goliath. Rather, David was defiant: who is this, who dares to taunt the army of the living God?