Scripture Daily

Context No. 1671 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 22:1-5: in context

1David therefore departed from there and escaped to Adullam’s cave. When his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. 2Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered themselves to him; and he became captain over them. There were with him about four hundred men. 3David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab; and he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and my mother come out to you, until I know what God will do for me.” 4He brought them before the king of Moab; and they lived with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. 5The prophet Gad said to David, “Don’t stay in the stronghold. Depart, and go into the land of Judah.” Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hereth.

David, fleeing from Saul, escapes to the cave of Adullam. His family comes down to him there, and so do others, a striking company: everyone in distress, everyone in debt, everyone discontented gathered to him, about four hundred men, and he became their captain. He arranges safety for his parents with the king of Moab, and, warned by the prophet Gad not to stay in the stronghold, moves on into the land of Judah.

Look at who gathered to David in the cave: the distressed, the indebted, the discontented, the strugglers and the down-and-out, people at the end of their resources, with nowhere else to go. These were not the impressive of Israel, not the influential or the successful; they were the troubled and the failing, and they came to David because they had nothing to lose. And from this unpromising company David formed his band, the men who would become his loyal followers and, in time, the renowned warriors of his kingdom. God took the distressed and the indebted and made something of them. There is real encouragement in this for those who feel they are among the strugglers rather than the successes. God has a long habit of gathering the down-and-out, the broken, the ones at the end of themselves, and making them into something. The people who come to him are often not the impressive but the desperate, those who have run out of other options and have nowhere else to turn; and these are the very people he takes up and shapes. If we come to God as the distressed and the indebted, that is no barrier; it is, if anything, the usual way in. The cave of Adullam was full of people whose lives had not worked out, and it became the seedbed of David's kingdom. God is not looking for the already-impressive; he gathers the struggling and makes them his own. Those who feel they have little to offer, only their distress and their need, are exactly the sort who found their way to David, and find their way to God.

Do I think I must have my life together, be among the impressive rather than the struggling, before I can come to God, or can I take heart that it was the distressed and the indebted who gathered to David, and that God has a habit of taking the down-and-out and making them his own?

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