UP TO NOW DAVID HAD BEEN PART OF KING SAUL’S GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION, EVEN HIS INNER COURT. BUT FROM THIS POINT FORWARD THE TWO BECOME MORTAL ENEMIES AND IT’S FROM THIS PLATFORM THAT DAVID WILL COMPLETE HIS UNLIKELY RISE TO THE THRONE OF YISHARAL AS YAHUSHA'S ANOINTED EARTHLY KING. WE START TO SEE A DARK SIDE EMERGE IN DAVID’S CHARACTER THOUGH AS HE REGULARLY EMPLOYS LIES AND DECEPTION TO ESCAPE (THE NOW PARANOID AND HOMICIDAL) KING SAUL’S ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS. ALTHOUGH HE SEEMS TO BE CUNNING AND CAREFUL AND THE DECEPTION WAS NOT INTENDED AS EVIL, THEY WILL PROVE DISASTROUS TO MANY INNOCENT PEOPLE AS OFTEN HAPPENS WHEN SINS ARE CASUALLY COMMITTED.
COMPASSION (SAM.21)
David was on the run from Saul and thought he'd find food and supplies in the town of Nob. He went to see Ahimelech, the High-Priest at Nob (GREAT GRANDSON OF ELI - SAM’S FORMER MENTOR). He was one of two competing High-Priests living at this time, but Ahimelech was not of the Yahusha-authorised line of High-Priests (from Aaron’s firstborn) rather he was from Aaron’s youngest son Ithamar.
Ahimelech heard that this warrior David from the King’s Court (who’s name women were chanting in song) had arrived alone in Nob and the alarm bells were going off inside him. Something seemed suspicious and not right, so Ahimelech was freaking out a bit as he approached to meet David. “Why are you alone?” Ahimelech asked.
“Why isn’t anyone else with you?”
David (who’s always thinking two steps ahead) knows that Ahimelech is the brother of Saul’s personal priest Achiyah, and doesn’t know if he can fully trust him, so makes up a whopper of a story :
“I’m on a mission for King Saul, and he ordered me not to tell anyone what the mission is all about, so I had my soldiers stay somewhere else. Do you have any food you can give us? How 'bout a spare five loaves of bread?” (FIVE LOAVES FOR JUST HIMSELF WOULD’VE SOUNDED SUSPICIOUS).
“We have no ordinary bread left, only the set-apart bread we’ve just baked,” he told David. REMEMBER 12 LOAVES OF SPECIALLY PREPARED AND SET-APART BREAD ARE TO BE BAKED AND PLACED IN THE TABERNACLE, BEFORE YAHUAH AND EVERY SHABATH, THEY ARE TO BE EXCHANGED FOR FRESH ONES AND THE PRIESTS MAY EAT THE WEEK-OLD LOAVES.
“You can have it if your soldiers haven’t shacked up with women last night.” SEX WOULD MAKE SOMEONE UNCLEAN AND TEMPORARILY UNFIT TO TAKE PART IN A SACRED MEAL.
“Of course we haven’t been with women, I never let my men do that when we’re on a mission, even a common one. They have to be acceptable to serve Yahuah and today it’s a special mission.”
The only bread the priest had was the set-apart showbread that he had taken from the Tabernacle after putting out the fresh loaves. So he gave it to David. It so happened that one of Saul’s officers was there in Nob, serving Yahuah that day. His name was Doeg the Edomite and he was in charge of Saul’s shepherds.
David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or a sword? I had to leave so quickly on this mission for the king that I didn’t bring mine, or any other weapons.”
The priest answered, “The only sword here is the one that belonged to Goliath the Philistine. You were the one who killed him in Elah Valley, so you can take his sword if you want. It’s wrapped in a cloth behind the statue.”
“Wow, that’s the best sword there is, I’ll take it!”
DAVID’S ENTIRE ENCOUNTER WITH AHIMELECH, THE HIGH PRIEST OF NOB, WAS FILLED WITH DECEPTION AND DECEIT AND SOON IT WOULD RESULT IN THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF THE EXTERMINATION OF EVERY PERSON ASSOCIATED WITH THE NOB SANCTUARY.
David kept on running from Saul that day until he came to Gath, where he met with King Achish. The officers of King Achish were also there, and they asked Achish, “Isn’t David a King back in his own country? Don’t the Yisharalites dance and sing, ‘Saul has killed a thousand men, but David’s killed ten thousand?”
David heard what they were saying, and was afraid of King Achish. So right there in front of everyone, he pretended to be insane, acting confused and scratching up the doors of the town gate, while frothing and drooling in his beard.
“Look at him!” Achish said to his officers. “Can’t you see he’s nuts. Why’d you bring him to me? Don’t I have enough crazy people here? Get him outta my palace!”
IN THESE DAYS MADNESS WAS VIEWED THROUGH THE LENS OF SUPERSTITION. JUST AS IT WAS THAT KING SAUL’S OWN INNER COURT SAW HIS FITS OF RAGE AS A KIND OF MADNESS, AND CONCLUDED THAT SINCE MADNESS IS CAUSED BY EVIL SPIRITS THEY NEEDED THE MYSTERIOUS ANTIDOTE OF MUSIC TO COUNTERACT IT, SO FOR KING ACHISH, TO HAVE A MADMAN IN HIS PRESENCE OR TO KILL HIM COULD CAUSE EVIL SPIRITS TO BEDEVIL HIM OR HIS CITY. SO DAVID’S PLOY WORKED AND HE MANAGED TO SAVE HIMSELF. BUT WE’RE GOING TO FIND OUT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER THAT YAHUSHA’S PLAN WAS THAT DAVID WASN’T SUPPOSED TO LEAVE HIS COUNTRY AND SEEK A FOREIGN NATION FOR PROTECTION. RATHER HE WAS SUPPOSED TO TRUST YAHUSHA FOR HIS SAFETY. PERHAPS WITH GOLIATH’S SWORD ON HIS HIP AS A REMINDER, DAVID WOULD RECALL THAT AMAZING DAY IN THE ELAH VALLEY NOT SO LONG AGO, WHEN A SHEPHERD-BOY ARMED WITH NOTHING BUT A SLING AND FACING IMPOSSIBLE ODDS, MOCKED THE ENORMOUS PHILISTINE WARRIOR WHO STOOD TOWERING OVER HIM. YAHUSHA WAS NOT ABOUT TO ALLOW HIS ANOINTED KING TO DIE EARLY.
ENGLISH UNDERSTANDING: COMPASSION - sympathetic pity (SORROW) and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help the physical, mental, or emotional pains of another. Compassion is often regarded as having sensitivity, which is an emotional aspect to suffering. If someone shows kindness, caring, and a willingness to help others, they're showing compassion. This is a word for a very positive emotion that has to do with being thoughtful and decent. ... When you have compassion, you're putting yourself in someone else's shoes, really feeling for them and putting yourself off to understand them … kinda like letting someone have it isn’t it ?
HEBREW UNDERSTANDING (ABOVE)
SCRIPTURAL UNDERSTANDING:
"One Shabath, Yahusha and His followers were walking through some wheat fields and were hungry, so they began picking and eating grains of wheat. But some Pharisees noticed this and said to Yahusha, “OY! Why are your mates pick’in grain on the Shabath? That’s not allowed!” And Yahusha answered, “Surely you must've read what David did when he and his mates were hungry. He went into the house of Alahim, and ate the set-apart loaves of showbread that only the priests are supposed to eat. Haven’t you read in the Instructions of Moses that the Priests are allowed to work in the temple on the Shabath? But no one says they’re guilty of breaking the Shabath Instruction do they? Well THERE’S DEFINITELY SOMEONE HERE RIGHT NOW GREATER THAN THE TEMPLE AND ALL IT’S SERVICES. DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT THE SCRIPTURES MEAN WHEN THEY SAY, “INSTEAD OF OFFERING SACRIFICES TO ME, I WANT YOU TO BE MERCIFUL AND COMPASSIONATE TO OTHERS?” If you knew what this meant, you wouldn’t condemn these innocent guys. So the Son of Adam is the Master of the Shabath". MATT 12 BRS
"Later, Yahusha and his followers were having dinner at Matthew’s house and Many Tax Collectors and other sinners were also there. And some Pharisees asked Yahusha's followers, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and other sinners?” But Yahusha heard them and answered, “STRONG HEALTHY PEOPLE DON’T NEED A DOCTOR, BUT SICK PEOPLE DO. GO AND LEARN WHAT THE SCRIPTURES MEAN WHEN THEY SAY, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, NOT OFFERING SACRIFICES TO ME'. I DIDN’T COME TO INVITE OBEDIENT, GOOD PEOPLE TO BE MY FOLLOWERS. I CAME TO BRING SINNERS TO REPENTANCE.” MATT 9 BRS
When confronted by Pharisees on the Shabath, Yahusha recalls what also happened to David on the Shabath (some 1000 years prior). He was fleeing from Saul (the Anti-King) and interestingly Matt 24 mentions fleeing to the mountains from an Anti-King/Messiah also, and that it hopefully won’t happen in the winter or on the Shabath (because travelling great distances and exerting lots of effort is not resting). ANOTHER LANGUAGE PATTERN
Just as Yahusha considers the Priests blameless for continuing their services in the Tabernacle on the Shabath (keeping the altar fire, the lamps and incense burning, and animal slaughters going in order to maintain good peaceful relations and atonement between Yahuah and mankind) He also considers Ahimelech blameless for giving a hungry David bread on the Shabath (and Divine-Bread at that).... why? ... Compassion!
Just like rescuing an animal from a well on the Shabath is better than staying in your rest, because it is humane and compassionate. We saw this same concept in Yahusha’s story of the Good Samaritan, where a priest wouldn’t help an injured man because he thought he might be dead and cause him to become unclean (which the Turah does say) and yet the Samaritan, without any thought of personal defilement, picked up the man and put him on his donkey and looked after him, because the life and well-being of the injured was more important than his own defilement. Why? ... Compassion!
The Pharisees in Yahusha’s day scrupulously followed the `Letter of the Law' in their self-righteousness, yet Yahusha stood there telling them that compassion is better ... that the `Spirit of the Law' is so much better, not because disobedience to a direct instruction is encouraged, but because when two Instructions seem to collide in that very moment, offering (obedience to a set proceedure) gets kicked to the curb in favour of ... Compassion!
The abstract meaning and behavioural direction is so much better, and the greatest direction Yahusha gave us all was to love our neighbour as ourself ... Compassion!
COMPASSION IS A REAL BEHAVIOUR OF TENDER LOVING-KINDNESS, WHILE OFFERING/SACRIFICE IS ALL ABOUT THE SELF AND BLIND IGNORANT OBEDIENCE. ONE IS ABSTRACT, MOMENT-TO-MOMENT AND INSPIRED BY THE SPIRIT OF YAHUSHA AND THE OTHER IS ONLY THE LETTER (THE INK ON THE PAGE).
“If you don't feel guilty about how you behave you are truly blessed!" ROM 14 BRS
SOMEONE LISTENING & DOING HAS NOTHING TO BE GUILTY OF !