CONTENTS
David's distresses are still continued, and form the subject of this Chapter. He is constrained to leave Achish, and gets to the cave of Adullam. His relations now seek to him: many persons in desperate circumstances join him: Saul's rage against him breaks out with more and more violence: Doeg the Edomite, having informed Saul of Ahimelech the priest's kindness to David, Saul causeth the priests of Nob to be slain, and the city of Nob is destroyed by him. Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech, escapes, and flees to David. These are the principal matters contained in this Chapter.
(1) В¶ David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him.
It is an observation that meets us at every part of David's history, and ought to be marked down by the Reader with a particular mark, that but for the many and multiplied troubles of David, the Church of the Lord would have wanted those precious things which his book of Psalms contains. It is indeed a Book of rich experiences. And the Holy Ghost hath furnished for the Church, from this man's history, a great variety to suit most cases of his people. The title of Psalms 142:1 marks this as the period, in David's life, when it was written. And a most precious Psalm it is. I beg the Reader to turn to if, in order to behold the workings of David's mind. But, while I do this, in order that the Reader may have the more lively idea of David's history, I beseech him to be always looking beyond David to behold him whom David so strikingly typified. One example in proof will be sufficient to justify this request, and may serve to throw light upon many others. In that Psalm David saith, I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Now the Reader cannot fail, I should hope, to recollect that Jesus was precisely in this state, when all the disciples forsook him and fled; when one denied him and another betrayed him.