1 Samuel 29:1-11 — “All Means All

     I want to share a deeply encouraging snippet of Dale Davis’s commentary on 1 Samuel to help prepare your heart for this Sunday’s study:

     “Now one can see how Yahweh’s mercy still pursues his servants even in their follies and fainting fits. How strong, tenacious, and un-let-go-able Yahweh’s mercy is! Yahweh is not short-tempered with his people. His mercy and patience are not exhausted when we choose our foolish Philistias. Some of us have a tendency to construct and to believe a god made in our own image, who, when once one of his children has botched a section of life, goes into a huff (as we would) and out of holy glee abandons him to fry in his own juice…Oh no, Yahweh’s mercy can find David even in Philistia. The God who saved him from Saul again and again will surely save him from himself. Inexhaustible mercy does not dry up easily.”

     “Christians should take heart from this text. As some believers look back on the time line of their lives they have no trouble picking out the occasion (or occasions) when they were depending on their own cleverness, sure of their own ability to assess and handle their situation, confident they already knew the right way. And it proved disastrous, nearly destroyed them. And they fear God’s mercy has withered. After all, their mercy would have done so. There is some glad news for all Yahweh’s servants in this fainting fit of the chosen king. God does not cast you off in your foolishness. Our bungling does not evaporate his mercy. It is yet full and warm–and stubborn, so stubborn it insisted on pursuing David into Philistia. He really did know something of goodness and mercy pursuing him all the days of his life (“follow” is too weak for the verb in Ps. 23:6)…”

     “The reader well remembers how the last line of chapter 28 breathed despair as it told how Saul and companions trudged off into darkness (28:25). But it is not night at the end of chapter 29. David walks away in the morning (29:11), saved by the Philistines who would destroy Saul.”

 

See y’all Sunday! All means ALL!