into a very great strait--as all men
who tell lies are sure to do.

When Achish and his Philistines go next to fight against the Jews, Achish
asks David and his men to go with him and his army. And then begins a
very dark story. What David meant to do we are not told; but one thing
is clear, that whatever he did, he must have disgraced himself for ever,
if God had not had mercy on him. He is forced to go. For he can give no
reason why he should not. So he goes; and in the rear with the
Philistine king, in the post of honour, as his bodyguard. What is he to
do? If he fights against his own people, he covers himself with eternal
shame, and loses his chance of ever being king. If he turns against
Achish and his Philistines in the battle he covers himself with eternal
shame likewise, for they had helped him in his distress, and given him a
home.

But God has mercy on him. The lords of the Philistines take offence at
his being there, and say that he will play traitor to them in the battle
(which was but too likely), and force king Achish to send him home to
Ziklag, and so God delivers him out of the trap which he has set for
himself, by lying.

But God punishes him on the spot. When he comes back to his town, it is
burnt with fire, utterly desolate, a heap of blackened ruins, without a
living soul therein. And now the end is coming, though David thinks not
of it. He had committed his cause to God. He had said, when Saul lay
sleeping at his feet, and Abishai would have smitten him through, "Who
can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed. As the Lord
liveth, the Lord shall smite him, or he shall come to die, or he shall go
down into battle and perish."

And on the third day a man--a heathen Amalekite--comes to Ziklag to David
with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head. Israel has been defeated
in Mount Gilboa with a great slaughter. The people far and wide have
fled from Hermon across the plain, and the Philistines have taken
possession, cutting the land of Israel in two. And Saul and Jonathan,
his son, are dead. The Amalekite has proof of it. There is the crown
which was on Saul's head, and the bracelet that was on his arm. He has
brought them to David to curry favour with him. Saul, he says, was
wounded, and asked him to kill him (2 Sam. i. 6-10). It is a lie. Saul
had killed himself, falling on his own sword, to escape torture and
insult from the Philistines, and the Amalekite is