Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Samuel · About this commentary
Strengthened His Hand in God
1 Samuel 23:15-29
15 David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph in the woods. · WEB
A friend walks into the woods to hearten a hunted man; informers walk to the king to sell him — and a Philistine raid saves David by the width of a hill.
Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David into the woods, and strengthened his hand in God 1 Samuel 23:16.
Five words define a ministry. Jonathan crosses hostile country, at real risk, for no tactical purpose whatever — he brings no troops, no supplies, no plan — and does the one thing David cannot do for himself. To strengthen a man's hand in God is not encouragement in general; it is turning a discouraged person back toward what is true about God when he can no longer see it from where he stands.
"Don't be afraid, for the hand of Saul my father won't find you; and you will be king over Israel, and I will be next to you; and Saul my father knows that also" 1 Samuel 23:17.
And this is the last recorded conversation between them. Jonathan states the succession plainly, accepts second place in a kingdom that should have been his, and adds the detail that explains everything about his father: Saul my father knows that also. The hunt is not ignorance. It is a man who knows the verdict and has organized his life around resisting it — while his son, who knows the same verdict, has organized his around serving it. Two men with identical information; the difference is surrender.
Jonathan never gets the promised second place. He dies on Gilboa beside the father he could not save 1 Samuel 31:2, and the reader is left with a promise made in good faith that history did not keep — one of Scripture's honest griefs, and the reason David's lament for him carries what it carries 2 Samuel 1:26.
"Doesn't David hide himself with us in the strongholds...?" 1 Samuel 23:19.
Then the Ziphites, volunteering their neighbor to the king for nothing but favor — you are blessed by Yahweh, for you have had compassion on me 1 Samuel 23:21 is Saul's grotesque reply, a blessing pronounced on informers. Psalm 54 is headed with this episode and answers it with a sentence that refuses to make the enemy the subject: Behold, God is my helper Psalms 54:4.
Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side 1 Samuel 23:26.
The closest call in the book. The encirclement is closing, David is hurrying to get away, and a messenger reaches Saul with news of a Philistine raid 1 Samuel 23:27. The king turns, the net opens, and the place keeps a name meaning the rock of divisions. God's rescue arrives as somebody else's emergency and looks, from the ground, exactly like luck.
settled What this mark means