Go and get more information. Find out where David usually goes and who has seen him there. They tell me he is very crafty. – 1 Samuel 23:22

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 15, 2019): 1 Samuel 23

Spies. Our novels are filled with them, enchanting us with their exciting adventures. In real life, they work beneath the surface trying to gain influence and pass on information that, they hope, will help one side against another while enriching the spy, and maybe even advancing the personal world view of the infiltrator. One of the most famous spies of World War I was Margreet Zelle, better known by her stage name “Mata Hari.” Zelle was an exotic dancer and a prostitute who was supposed to have used the connections she built through her occupation to gain information of value to give to the Germans. France executed Zelle for spying for the Germans during the latter portion of the War. But the story of Mata Hari is not a tale of a great spy; it is a tragedy centered around both national and personal failure. Mata Hari might be the most famous of the numerous spies involved in Europe in the early Twentieth Century, but modern historians doubt that Zelle offered any information to the Germans that was not available from the pages of a World War I newspaper. At the time, France needed a well-known scapegoat on whom the failures of the war could be blamed. Mata Hari perfectly fit the bill. She was never an important spy, even though she was famous. But she was an essential figure in the war because her trial and execution distracted the attention of the public away from the military failures of the nation.

So far, Saul had failed to find David. And then he gets more information about where his poet-general might be hiding. But Saul is concerned about his failures. He wants concrete information. King Saul doesn’t want to know that David might be hiding in the area. He wants to know where it is that David goes and who it is that has laid eyes on him. Saul needs to know whether the information is credible. What had been given to him so far was information that was on par with what Margreet Zelle passed on to the Germans during the First World War. It was stuff that Saul could have gleaned through several news sources. Saul wanted something more specific.

It is interesting to note that Saul argues that David is crafty. It is a more comfortable belief than the truth, which is that David is depending on God, and God seems to be supporting the poet, and not the reigning king. We have the advantage of being able to read the personal journal of David as he went through these events in his life. David’s diary is preserved in the Psalms, and Psalm 54 is written during this moment of his life. Here David writes:

Save me, O God, by your name;
    vindicate me by your might.

Hear my prayer, O God;
    listen to the words of my mouth (Psalm 54:1-2).

David believed that his future does not depend on how crafty he might be. There is no doubt that David was a great military general. But at this moment, David knows that he is unable to keep himself safe. He has nothing to offer except his life in service to his God, and to the king who is chasing him. And so David is placing his faith in the power of his God and not in his own ability to be “crafty,” regardless of what the King might believe.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 54