If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
1 April. 1 Samuel chapters 21-24
Throughout these chapters, the paranoid King Saul is pursuing David and his followers from one desert place to another, with a view to killing him. One person who supports David is the priest Ahimelech, who provides food for David’s troops and lets him take Goliath’s sword for his own protection. When this angers Saul, Ahimelech pays for this generosity with not his own life but that of all his priests and the people and animals of their town. Standing up for justice is often costly.
But when eventually David and Saul end up (by chance, and unbeknown to Saul) in the same cave, David puts into practice the ‘golden rule’ of doing to others as you would have them do to you; or as Jesus put it, loving your enemies. So he does not take revenge by killing Saul while there is an easy opportunity to do so, but merely cuts off part of his cloak as a trophy. He is then able to persuade Saul that he is no danger to him. In this he proves himself to be a good leader.
These stories of David are perhaps in the same genre as folk stories of heroes such as Robin Hood, who was probably not as selfless as his reputation would suggest. It is very difficult to struggle against a corrupt or violent regime without committing violence, or to take a principled stand without compromising your principles somewhere.