David's Years as a Fugitive from Saul

The event

David's growing popularity — the women's song crediting him with 'ten thousands' to Saul's 'thousands' — curdled the king's heart, and what followed was nearly a decade of David running for his life. Saul hurled a spear at him in his own house, sent assassins to watch his home, and pursued him relentlessly through the wilderness of Judah, even while David repeatedly refused chances to kill Saul himself, most memorably in a cave at En-gedi and again in Saul's own camp near Hachilah, sparing 'the LORD's anointed' both times.

These years produced some of Scripture's most personal writing. Many of David's psalms are set explicitly against this backdrop — the fear, the isolation, the temptation to take justice into his own hands — and they show a man clinging to God's promises while everything visible said the promise had failed. His friendship with Saul's son Jonathan, who loved David 'as his own soul' and helped him escape more than once, is one of the Bible's great pictures of loyal love holding firm even when it cost Jonathan his own claim to the throne.

David spent part of this period among the Philistines themselves, serving the king of Gath while carefully avoiding fighting against Israel, a risky strategy that kept him alive but also away from Saul's reach. By around 1010 BC, with Saul's death at hand, David's fugitive years were nearly over — though the throne, when it finally came, would bring troubles of its own kind.

Scripture references

• 1 Samuel 19:1-24
• 1 Samuel 24:1-22
• 1 Samuel 27:1-28:2