1 Samuel, Chapter 30 - From The Ashes | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Hello friends and welcome to the Prophets of Israel daily. This is the first book of Samuel chapter 30. We're approaching the end of Samuel 1. My name is Ari Abramowitz. I'm here with Jeremy Gimpel, my rebbe, my friend, my commander in the IDF. And it's great to be here, Jeremy. Your camera just went off. >> You know, the farm electricity's just out. I had to get on the road. I'm broadcasting from a random place. That's why the scenery behind me is blurred. But this is good practice because soon I'm going to be on the road in the United States and I am not going to miss a chapter a day every day for the Prophets of Israel daily. And so this is just good practice of what it's like broadcasting the Torah on the road. >> That's good to be here. He is right. It is good practice, but it is also important to say God willing you're not going to miss because it is not fully in your hands whether you're going to miss or not. And if you do miss, we're going to do it anyways. We're going a chapter a day whether you're here or not, whether I'm here or not. This is bigger than me or you, Jeremy. Anyways, shalom everybody. I want you all to picture this moment with me. Right, David and his 600 men have been marching for 3 days. They've just been rejected by the Philistine commanders, sent away from a battle they never wanted to fight in the first place. They're exhausted, they're raw, and all they want, all any soldier wants, is to come home. And as they ascend the final hill on the way back to their families, they see smoke. Ziklag, Ziklag, their refuge, the one place on earth that was theirs, is burned to the ground and the ashes are still smoldering. Their wives are gone, their sons and daughters gone. I mean, for us in Israel, this is hitting closer to home than we would want we would want to believe. But but that's what they're facing. The Amalekites raided while they were away and they took everything. David's own two wives among the captives. And we get to a a heartbreaking verse. And it's hard not to visualize this as you read it. I'm a visual thinker, so I'm like I'm visualizing verse four. Vayichazek David And David and the people with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. Until they had no more strength to weep. Have you ever cried like that? Jeremy, have you ever cried like that? >> I haven't actually where my body just gives out where I just don't even have the strength to weep anymore. I actually haven't cried. I've cried quite a lot and pretty powerfully, but that's unbelievable. >> Yeah. Well, I actually think that there was maybe a time or two after October 7th that that's actually what happened to me. Um even when my father passed away, you know, he was Anyways, that I the two tragedies are paralleled and it is that in which I've expe- until the body just gives out. You know, if you if you haven't cried like that, my friends, I bless you that you should never have to. But, it gets worse because the men broken, grieving, desperate for someone to blame turned to David. The the the what They even spoke about stoning David. His own men. His brothers-in-arms. At the lowest moment of his entire life, David stands utterly alone. And then, in that very same breath, comes the verse that I believe is the beating heart of this entire chapter and in some ways the entire essence of David himself. Verse six. Vayichazek David b'Hashem Elohav. But, David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. >> You know, Ari, I just want to pause here cuz this is one of my favorite verses in all of King David's life. I mean, now he's facing the unbridled darkness of Amalek, an encounter with pure evil. And now he has no one. I mean, David's lost everything. His city is burned, his family's taken captive, he's been betrayed before, you know, by Saul, he you know, tried to heal him with his music, was so loving and loyal by the people of Keilah who he risked his life to try to save, and now his only friends, his mighty men, his own people are turning against him and actually want to kill him. I mean, his own men were talking about stoning him, and there was just no earthly source of comfort anywhere around him. And the verse doesn't say David strengthened himself. It says that David strengthened himself in his God. Not in the Lord, not in It's like in his God, Hashem Elohav. In the midst of that chaos, David turns to the master of the universe in his own personal relationship. It's like God is still my God, even when everything else is falling apart. And you know, the contrast is just so stark. The night before Saul's final battle, he's terrified, abandoned, his soldiers are leaving him, heaven's silent. You know, he's like, "What is he going to do?" And he's like searching in the dark for a medium in Ain Dor, he reached down into necromancy, into despair, and here David, in a pit just as deep, I think deeper, and he reaches up. And that right there, that is the dividing line between the kingship that crumbles and the kingship that's eternal. And it was never about how David fell, it's how he rose up. And it's when you're at the bottom, always remembering to aim up. And that's exactly what David did when he hit rock bottom here. >> Yeah, that's exactly it. You know, because look at what David does next. He doesn't launch a blind revenge raid from an emotional, visceral, reactive place. He He doesn't let the rage drive the wheel. He calls for Evyatar the priest and for the ephod, right, the priestly garment that was used to seek Hashem's guidance. And he asks, in in verse eight, "Vayishal David Bashem." "Vayomer lo, radaf." And David inquired of the Lord, and he answered him, "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake, and you shall surely rescue." "Pursue. You will overtake. You will rescue. Not maybe, surely." So, David does it. He runs. 600 men race to the Brook Besor, and 200 of them are simply just too spent by the time they get there to cross. If I was one of his men at this stage of my life, if I'm going to be honest, I probably would have been out of gas right there. But, um, they just have nothing left in the tank. So, David says, "Stay back with the gear." And 400 men press on. And here the story does something really beautiful. Out in the open field, they find a man collapsed in the dirt. An Egyptian, right, a slave who hasn't had bread or water in three days and three nights. And before he's of any use to anyone, before they even know who he is, they give him bread, they give him water, figs and raisin cakes, and they revive him. And he turns out to be a servant of the Amalekites, abandoned by his own master the moment he fell sick. And, uh, he was just left there in the field to die. And this discarded, thrown-away man becomes the exact key that leads David straight into the enemy camp. >> Can you just hold on? I just don't want to rush by that Ari because I think that that seemingly little event, it's the turning point of the chapter. I mean, look at the contrast. Amalek had this man, tossed him aside the second he stopped being useful. I mean, that's the entire philosophy of Amalek compressed into one image. The weak, they're disposable. And David's men find the same men while they're in the middle of pursuing their enemy. They feed him before he's worth anything to them and before they knew that he was going to be valuable. I mean, that's the contrast of Israel and Amalek in one image. I mean, what do you do with the broken person lying in the field? It's like love and compassion first. Israel stops for him. Amalek steps over him. It's like precisely that mercy, not the military genius, that's what unlocks the entire victory for Israel. >> Yeah, totally. And and the mercy opens the door to everything because the man tells him everything that they need to know. David attacks at twilight and fights through the night into the next evening. And what does he recover? Listen to this. Everything. Every captive, every child, both his wives, all the flocks and the herds. The text says plainly, "Nothing was missing from the smallest to the greatest. He brought it all back." But then comes the test that reveals what kind of King David is going to be. Because as the victorious 400 men return to the 200 who'd stayed at the Brook Besor, some of the men, who the text calls "wicked and worthless men" from David's own ranks, they say, "These men didn't fight. So, they get nothing back except for their wives and their children. Send them off." And David will not hear of it. First, he re- reframes the whole thing. This spoil, he says, is what Hashem gave us. It was never ours to hoard. And then he lays down the law, verse 24. For the share of him who goes down to the battle, so shall be the share of him who stays by the baggage. Together they shall share. Right, the one who guards the gear and the one who swings the sword alike. And the text tells us that David made his this a chok u'mishpat, a statute and an ordinance for all Israel for all time from that day forward. >> You know, Ari, I really think this is one of those moments where David, on his journey, stops being a fugitive and starts really being a king. I mean, because look what he does with the spoils right after. He sends portions of it to the elders of Yehudah, to town after town across the south with a note, "It's a gift from the spoils of the enemies of the Lord." I mean, he's not enriching himself, he's building a nation slowly but surely. He's planting the seeds of the kingdom of Judea and ultimately the kingdom of David, the Messianic dynasty. And how's all through generosity and appreciation. And the founding principle he sets in stone is unity. I mean, in Israel, the soldier and the supply guard, the front line and the home front, they're one people with one reward. No one is whole when the other's left out. >> Yeah, I really love that, Jeremy, because we're living in that principle to a large degree, I think, right now. Right, think about this past war, the soldier in Gaza and the family running to the shelter in the north, the reservist at the front and the volunteer packing the supplies. Right, the the praying throughout the night. right, David's law codified 3,000 years ago in the dust of Ziklag declares that they all share in the victory. You know, we were in combat unit. You're my commander in the army. There are those that worked in an office on a typewriter or on communications. We didn't get paid more than them. We don't get more credit than them. We are all each doing our job. They're We're all Israel. And maybe the deepest message of this chapter is for for for anyone that's listening who feels like they're standing in the ashes of their own Ziklag right now because here's David betrayed, grieving, alone, his own men ready to stone him, and the turning point wasn't a strategy or an army. It was four Hebrew words. Vayithazeik David b'Hashem Elohav. Vayithazeik David, he strengthened himself in Hashem his God. He refused to let the lowest moment of his life have the final word. That is teshuvah. That is what it means to return. Not that we never fall. David fell hard in this chapter, but that when we hit bottom, we reach up instead of down. And from that pit, he didn't just survive, he recovered everything and walked straight towards the throne stronger than he was before. And I really think the same is true for us and for the nation of Israel. You know, we returned to this land after our own long exile in the ashes and we rose out of the smoke. We strengthen our shell ourselves in Hashem and and we keep walking home. So, friends, if you are moved by this journey, by what we're experiencing, if it strengthens you like it strengthens me, then come and consider joining our global family in the Land of Israel Fellowship. Whatever tier it is, come to the network and see where you find that you connect. It's like nothing else on Earth. You can find out more at the landofisrael.com. Chazak u'matz my friends. Be'ezrat Hashem we'll see you tomorrow as we close out the first book of Samuel chapter 31 alongside Jeremy. [music] It's a big chapter Jeremy. Don't let us down.