Page 62 - The Road from Babylon to Zion

I Samuel 22:3-4
And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab; and he said to the king
of Moab, "Please let my father and my mother come and stay with you
until I know what God will do for me." Then he left them with the king
of Moab; and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the
stronghold.”

Do you think that even then David’s parents acknowledged that he was God’s
anointed and that he was righteous in his actions? I think not. I suspect that they
blamed David for having to flee from the land of their inheritance. We have these
words of David in Psalm 27:

Psalms 27:9-10
Do not hide Your face from me,do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help; do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of
my salvation! For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but
Yahweh will take me up.

What bitterness it must have been to David for his family to forsake him and to not
understand that he was suffering unjustly. I suspect David came to a point where he
no longer tried to convince them of his faithfulness to God. I believe he came to a
point of accepting that his obedience would only be known to Yahweh.

For many years David walked in wilderness places where he was humiliated time and
again. At his lowest point, the very men who attached themselves to him spoke of
stoning him. On another occasion when David and his men had faithfully guarded
a wealthy man’s flocks and kept all of his shepherds from harm, this man acted
despitefully toward David and spoke false and insulting words about David’s
character and motives.

I Samuel 25:10-11
But Nabal answered David's servants and said, "Who is David? And
who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each
breaking away from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my
water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it
to men whose origin I do not know?"

Nabal accused David of being an unfaithful servant to King Saul when David had
been the most faithful of servants. Nabal accused David of having rebelliously broken
off from Saul when the truth was that Saul was seeking to kill David without a
reason. In great anger and exasperation, David responded from his soul and he and
his men went forth with the intent to kill every member of Nabal’s household. Yet
God sent an intercessor in the form of Nabal’s wife Abigail to keep David from taking