y seclusion to beat back invasion, summoned a
hasty muster, in the hope of catching David in the little city, like a
fox in his earth: and the cowardly citizens meditated saving their homes
by surrendering their champion. David and his six hundred saved
themselves by a rapid flight, and, as it would appear, by breaking up
into detachments. "They went whithersoever they could go" (1 Sam. xxiii.
13); whilst David, with some handful, made his way to the inhospitable
wilderness which stretches from the hills of Judah to the shores of the
Dead Sea, and skulked there in "lurking places" among the crags and
tangled underwood. With fierce perseverance "Saul sought him every day,
but God delivered him not into his hand." One breath of love, fragrant
and strength-giving, was wafted to his fainting heart, when Jonathan
found his way where Saul could not come, and the two friends met once
more. In the woodland solitudes they plighted their faith again, and the
beautiful unselfishness of Jonathan is wonderfully set forth in his
words, "Thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee;"
while an awful glimpse is given into that mystery of a godless will
consciously resisting the inevitable, when there is added, "and that
also Saul, my father, knoweth." In such resistance the king's son has no
part, for it is pointedly noticed that he returned to his house.
Treachery, and that from the men of his own tribe, again dogs David's
steps. The people of Ziph, a small place on the edge of the southern
desert, betray his haunt to Saul. The king receives the intelligence
with a burst of thanks, in which furious jealousy and perverted
religion, and a sense of utter loneliness and misery, and a strange
self-pity, are mingled most pathetically and terribly: "Blessed be ye of
the Lord, for ye have compassion on me!" He sends them away to mark down
his prey; and when they have tracked him to his lair, he follows with
his force and posts them round the hill where David and his handful
lurk. The little band try to escape, but they are surrounded and
apparently lost. At the very moment when the trap is just going to
close, a sudden messenger, "fiery red with haste," rushes into Saul's
army with news of a formidable invasion: "Haste thee and come; for the
Philistines have spread themselves upon the land!" So the eager hand,
ready to smite and crush, is plucked back; and the hour of deepest
distress is the hour of deliverance.

At some perio