In those days the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, “You must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army.” – 1 Samuel 28:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 21, 2019): 1 Samuel 28

It is a familiar plot device. The good guy, the hero of the story, goes undercover with the villains of the tale. The infiltration is necessary. But while undercover, there comes a moment of truth. Loyalty is tested. A gun, or some device of destruction, is placed in the hands of the hero, and he is told that he has to kill someone or die himself. Sometimes, the someone to be killed is a friend or an associate. But it doesn’t matter. As soon as the hero commits the crime and takes a life, he or she had traversed across the great divide between good and evil; the hero has become the villain.

Given the decision at hand, the writers often provide an avenue of escape for the hero to take. Maybe the cavalry rides over the hill saving the hero from having to decide whether or not to kill. Or perhaps the hero decides that he can tell that there are no bullets in the gun because of the weight of the weapon, an unlikely reality considering the weight of bullet in relation to the gun and the reality that it only takes one bullet to do the job, and fires the gun at the intended victim anyway. In real life, cavalries seldom come over the hill, and our judgment of the weight of the gun is not accurate enough to save us from ruin.

David is in trouble. The first two verses of 1 Samuel 28 are slightly misplaced in our English Bibles; they really should be the last two verses of 1 Samuel 27. Achish has come to believe that David has no other loyalty than to him. David is living with the Philistines because of Saul’s campaign against his former general. But the reality of the situation is that David, regardless of the relentless attack of Saul and the many attempts of the king to kill him, is still loyal to Saul and Israel. David has told Achish that he is attacking settlements in Israel. But what David has said is just not true. For David, to attack the people of Israel is simply not an option.

Now, as the Philistines set out to battle Israel, David is going to have to prove his loyalty. In the sight of the Achish, he is going to have to live out the lie that he has been telling the Philistine King, or his false story about being an enemy of Israel is going to crash down around him. Unless something miraculous happens, by the end of this day David could be the sworn enemy of both Philistia and Israel, and the rumor will have gone out to all of the surrounding areas that David is a man who cannot be trusted.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 29