CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1 Samuel 22:5. “Gad.” It must remain a matter for conjecture whether Gad had gone with David to Adullam, or whether he now comes to him for the first time with a special Divine message. “Get thee into the land of Judah.” Keil thinks that “David was not to seek for refuge outside the land; not only that he might not be estranged from his fatherland and the people of Israel, which would have been opposed to his calling to be King of Israel, but also that he might learn to trust entirely in the Lord as his only refuge and fortress.” But Erdmann sees the reason for this direction in the fact that “the Philistines were now making plundering incursions into the south of Judah, help and protection against them was needed, and this David and his valiant’ band could give, and thus fulfil part of the theocratic calling in respect of which the distracted, arbitrary rule of Saul was now impotent.” “Forest of Hareth.” An unknown region. Josephus calls it the city of Hareth. It was probably a woody district in the mountains of Judah.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF 1 Samuel 22:5
THE PROPHET GAD
I. God does not leave His servants in their times of danger and perplexity without help and guidance. “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness” (Psalms 112:4), and light often comes to men as it now came to David by means of a man of God. For the very presence of such a man is light in the cloudy and dark day. It will encourage the dejected soul to hold fast its confidence in God, and will exercise a restraining influence when we are exposed to the temptation to turn aside from the path of right which great trial sometimes brings. David had yielded to such a temptation once, but Gad’s companionship would be likely to prevent another such fall. The presence of a prophet of God in the hold was a token of God’s good will, and as such was a light in the darkness. And the counsel of such a man at such a time is a light which not only cheers, but guides. God can guide His servants, as He can feed them, in many different ways. As He has fed them direct from heaven, so He has guided them by a voice direct from the invisible world. He has fed men by the instrumentality of angels, and He has guided them by such an instrumentality. But He more generally helps man by man, and this was the method He employed here.
II. When God’s children have good reason to believe that the light that thus ariseth is a light from heaven, it is wise to follow its guidance implicitly. It is the first duty of a benighted traveller to make sure whether the light upon his path is an ignis-fatuus luring him to destruction, or the lamp of a friend pointing to the highway of safety. When he has made sure that it is the latter, he will only reveal his foolishness if he neglects to walk in the way which it reveals as the right one. Gad was doubtless well known to David; he was in all probability one of that company at Ramah who had grown up around Samuel, and upon whom the prophetic spirit had descended in such a manner as to qualify him to give counsel and guidance to the elect king of Israel, and David, in his unhesitating obedience to his word, acts with true humility and wisdom.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
It is to be noted here as an interesting fact, that in the hold of Adullam and in the wilderness of Judah we have, side by side, representatives of the oracular and the prophetical methods of the communication of the will of God to men; and that, in the life of David, as a whole, we have the era of the transition from the one to the other. Up to this time the priest had been the most important personage in the nation, and the only recognised channel through which God indicated his will to the people. True, there had been great outstanding prophets, like Moses and Samuel; but the former was an exception to all rules as being the leader of the Exodus; and the latter, from his training under Eli, was as much a priest as he was a prophet. True, again, in the time of the Judges there was Deborah, the prophetess; but she was raised up in connection with a particular crisis in the history of her people. The general system, however, was, that when the head of the nation, whether judge or king, wished, at any special emergency, to ask counsel of the Lord, the inquiry was made through the priest, and the, answer was given by the Urim and Thummim. But now the prophet, as a standing official personage, comes into prominence, and the mind of God begins to be made known through his human individuality, and not through any such visible media as those which were connected with the priestly breastplate.
In the hold and in the wilderness, David received divine directions through both channels, but gradually, even in his life, the breastplate oracle disappears or falls into desuetude; and from the reign of Solomon downward we have no mention made of its employment in the Jewish annals. In the same gradual manner the prophet waxes into preeminence, Gad and Nathan preparing the way for Elijah and Elisha, and these, in their turn, giving place to Isaiah and Jeremiah, who were succeeded, in the days of the exile, by Ezekiel and Daniel; and in the era of the Restoration by Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Now, if we think out this subject a little more fully, we shall see that in the life of David a distinct forward step was taken in the education of the people of God, from the first rudiments of external symbolism, on toward that system of spiritual simplicity under which we now live in the Gospel dispensation.… The call for faith was increased when the Urim and Thummin ceased, and the prophets came speaking in God’s name, giving gradually fewer and fewer specific directions as to particular matters, and more and more proclaiming great spiritual principles. And now there is, more than ever, a demand for faith, when, under the New Testament economy, the way into the holiest is made manifest to every believer, and the answers to the soul’s inquiries are given not by any objective oracle, but by the Christian’s study of God’s Word, as that is interpreted by the providences that are without him, and the Spirit of God that is dwelling within him. Hence, when we read the history of David’s sojourn in the cave, or of his wanderings in the wilderness, and see the priest Abiathar on his right hand, and the prophet Gad on his left, we feel that we are standing on one of the great landing-places of that stairway of education, up which God led His people from the childhood of walking by sight, to the glorious liberty, and graceful movement, of that spiritual manhood which walks continually by faith.—Dr. W. M. Taylor.
The Lord will never permit any prince who is heartily disposed to conduct the affairs of his government in his name, to be at any time altogether without some such Gad among his soldiers or officers around him—some man who, because he seeks not his own, unites the most incorruptible fidelity with his allegiance, and by whose mouth the Lord, as often as the foot of the prince is like to slip, will by his warnings and his counsel show to him the right and safe way. Woe to the land on the steps of whose throne there is not found, in the circle of dignified officers surrounding the ruler, at least one man who bears not only in his profession, but at the same time also in his entire consecrated personality, the stamp of a man of God, and who knows at the right time to throw the weight of the divine word and commandment into the balance-scales of the government! Krummacher.