The Rock of Escape: God's Crooked Lines Text: 1 Samuel 23:19-29
Introduction: The School of Hard Providence
We are in a section of David's life where God is teaching him what it means to be king. And the curriculum is not what any of us would have designed. It is not a series of stately processions and dignified policy meetings. It is a master class in running for your life. It is an education in betrayal, desperation, and the raw, unvarnished sovereignty of God. David has been anointed, the promise has been made, but between the anointing and the enthronement is the wilderness. And in the wilderness, God forges kings.
We must understand that God is always telling a story. He is the author, and He does not deal in pointless subplots. Every betrayal, every narrow escape, every moment of sheer panic is a sentence in the paragraph, and a paragraph in the chapter. Our problem is that we are reading the story one word at a time, and we are frequently convinced that the author has lost the plot. But He never does. God draws straight with crooked lines. In our passage today, we see some of the crookedest lines imaginable: countrymen who betray their own, a paranoid king who wraps his bloodlust in the language of piety, and a last-minute, jaw-dropping deliverance that has God's fingerprints all over it.
This is not just an exciting episode in David's life. This is a paradigm for the Christian life. We too have been given a promise, an inheritance in Christ. But between the promise and the final possession of it lies the wilderness. And in that wilderness, we will be hunted. We will be betrayed. We will be cornered. And we must learn, as David learned, that our only hope is in the surprising, last-minute, and utterly sovereign interventions of a God who is always, always faithful to His anointed.
The Text
Then Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is David not hiding with us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon? So now, O king, according to all the desire of your soul to come down, come down here; and our part shall be to surrender him into the king’s hand.” And Saul said, “May you be blessed of Yahweh, for you have had compassion on me.” Go now, make more sure, and know and see his place, where his very foot is, and who has seen him there; for I am told that he is very crafty. So see and know about all the hiding places where he hides himself and return to me with certainty, and I will go with you; and if he is in the land, I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah.”
Then they arose and went to Ziph before Saul. Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon. So Saul and his men went to seek him, and they told David, and he came down to the rock and stayed in the wilderness of Maon. And Saul heard it and pursued David in the wilderness of Maon. And Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain; and David was hurrying to get away from Saul, but Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men to seize them. But a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid on the land.” So Saul returned from pursuing David and went to meet the Philistines; therefore they called that place the Rock of Escape. Then David went up from there and stayed in the strongholds of Engedi.
(1 Samuel 23:19-29 LSB)
The Treachery of Kinsmen (vv. 19-21)
The trouble begins, as it so often does, with betrayal from those who should have been allies.
"Then Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, 'Is David not hiding with us in the strongholds at Horesh... our part shall be to surrender him into the king’s hand.'" (1 Samuel 23:19-20)
The Ziphites are men of Judah. They are David's own tribesmen. This is not some foreign enemy; this is a snake in his own house. They volunteer this information. They go to Saul, who is miles away in Gibeah, and offer up David on a platter. Their motive is simple, grubby self-preservation and political calculation. They see which way the wind is blowing, or so they think. Saul is on the throne, he has the army, and David is a fugitive. They are making a pragmatic choice to back the current winner. They are time-servers, sycophants, men without a backbone, willing to sell out the Lord's anointed for a little temporary favor from a mad king.
This kind of betrayal is a constant feature of God's story. Joseph was sold by his brothers. Jesus was sold by His disciple. And the Church, throughout her history, has been wounded most deeply not by the roaring lions outside, but by the treacherous Judases within. We should not be surprised when it happens. David certainly wasn't. He wrote Psalm 54 in response to this very event: "Save me, O God, by Your name... For strangers have risen against me and violent men have sought my life; They have not set God before them." He calls his own kinsmen "strangers" because their actions have made them alien to the covenant.
Now, look at Saul’s response. It is a masterpiece of profane piety.
"And Saul said, 'May you be blessed of Yahweh, for you have had compassion on me.'" (1 Samuel 23:21)
Saul invokes the covenant name of God, Yahweh, to bless an act of treachery. He cloaks his murderous envy in the language of a benediction. And notice the breathtaking narcissism: "you have had compassion on me." Saul, the king, in his palace, with his army, is the victim. David, hiding in a cave, running for his life, is the oppressor. This is the classic maneuver of the abuser. He flips the script. He paints himself as the aggrieved party to justify his own wickedness. Saul is not just a bad king; he is a prototype of every corrupt leader who uses religious language to sanctify his own lust for power. He is a man who has learned to talk like a believer while his heart is full of hell. He is a whited sepulcher.
The Cunning of the Hunter (vv. 22-25)
Saul, for all his madness, is not a fool. He knows David is not an easy target.
"Go now, make more sure, and know and see his place, where his very foot is... for I am told that he is very crafty." (1 Samuel 23:22)
Saul gives them detailed instructions for intelligence gathering. He wants coordinates. He wants to know David's patterns, his routines, his hiding places. He pays David a backhanded compliment: "he is very crafty." This is true. David is shrewd, but his craftiness is born of a desperate reliance on God. Saul's craftiness is the cunning of a predator. He is methodical in his malice. He is not going to be caught off guard. He wants "certainty" before he commits his forces.
And so the trap is set. The Ziphites return to their territory to act as scouts, and Saul follows with his men. David, meanwhile, gets word of this betrayal and moves from the wilderness of Ziph to the wilderness of Maon. The chess pieces are moving across the board. The net is tightening. From a purely human perspective, David's situation is becoming more and more hopeless. He is being hunted by the state, with all its resources, and his own people are collaborating with the enemy.
The Divine Interruption (vv. 26-29)
What follows is one of the most dramatic scenes in all of Scripture. It is a moment of sheer, nail-biting tension, followed by a deliverance so sudden and so unexpected that it can only be the hand of God.
"And Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain; and David was hurrying to get away from Saul, but Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men to seize them." (1 Samuel 23:26)
This is the moment of crisis. Imagine the scene. A literal mountain separates them, but it is not enough. Saul's forces are fanning out, encircling the base. David can probably hear their calls, see their movements. He is trapped. The pincer is closing. The word for "surrounding" here is a military term for a complete envelopment. There is no way out. David is hurrying, scrambling, but human effort has reached its limit. He is checkmated.
And it is precisely at this moment, when all human hope is extinguished, that God acts. He does not send an earthquake or a legion of angels. He uses a means that is, on the surface, entirely ordinary and yet timed with supernatural precision.
"But a messenger came to Saul, saying, 'Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid on the land.'" (1 Samuel 23:27)
A messenger arrives, breathless, with news of a national emergency. The Philistines, the sworn enemies of Israel, have invaded. Notice the irony. God uses the pagan enemies of His people to save His anointed from the "believing" king of His people. This is the glorious and unpredictable nature of divine providence. God can use anyone and anything to accomplish His purposes. He can use a lying Ziphite, a paranoid king, and a raiding party of Philistines, and weave their sinful and chaotic actions into a tapestry of deliverance for His servant.
Saul is forced to make a choice. As king, his primary duty is to protect the nation. He cannot ignore a Philistine invasion to settle a personal vendetta, not without revealing his corruption to everyone. Reluctantly, he breaks off the pursuit. "So Saul returned from pursuing David and went to meet the Philistines."
The place is given a name to commemorate the event.
"...therefore they called that place the Rock of Escape." (1 Samuel 23:28)
The Hebrew is Sela-hammahlekoth, which can mean Rock of Escape, or Rock of Divisions, or Rock of Separation. It was the place where God drove a wedge between the hunter and the hunted. It was a monument to a deliverance that was entirely of God. David did not fight his way out. He did not outsmart Saul. He was simply rescued. He was cornered, and God opened a door where there was no door.
David then moves on to the strongholds of Engedi, a place of caves and cliffs by the Dead Sea. He is safe, for now. The immediate crisis is over, but the wilderness education continues. He has been given another powerful lesson in the school of hard providence. He has learned that God's deliverance often arrives at one minute past midnight, when all seems lost.
The God of the Philistine Invasion
So what do we take from this? We must see that the God of David is our God. The principles of His dealings with His people have not changed. He has anointed us in Christ. He has given us a kingdom. But He has also told us that in this world we will have tribulation.
There will be Ziphites in your life. There will be people, sometimes people in the church, sometimes people in your own family, who will betray you for their own advantage. They will smile to your face and sell you out behind your back. When this happens, you must do as David did, and flee to God as your only vindicator.
There will be Sauls in your life. There will be authorities, bosses, or leaders who are consumed with their own ego, who will hunt you and slander you, all while using the language of piety and victimhood. They will call your faithfulness "craftiness" and their own malice "compassion." You must not be deceived by their words, but you must also not take up the sword against them. You must, like David, wait for God to deal with them in His time.
And most importantly, there will be moments when you are on one side of the mountain, and the enemy is on the other, and the net is closing. You will be surrounded. Your business will be failing, your marriage will be on the rocks, your health will be collapsing, your reputation will be in tatters. You will have hurried and scrambled and done everything you can, and it will not be enough. You will be at the Rock of Divisions, with no escape in sight.
It is in that moment that you must remember this story. Our God is the God who sends the Philistine invasion at the last possible second. He has a thousand messengers on a thousand roads, and He can dispatch any one of them to divert your enemy. His timing is perfect. He lets the situation get to the point of impossibility so that when the deliverance comes, there is no question as to who gets the glory. It is not our craftiness, not our strength, but His sovereign, surprising grace.
This is the Rock of our escape, and His name is Jesus. He was hunted, betrayed, and surrounded. On the cross, the net closed completely. He was on the mountain, and His enemies had Him. There was no last-minute messenger, no Philistine raid to save Him. He was not delivered from death, but He went through death and out the other side, securing an eternal deliverance for us. Because He was not spared, we are. Because He was captured, we go free. He is our Sela-hammahlekoth, our Rock of Escape, and if we are hiding in Him, though the Ziphites betray and the Sauls pursue, we are eternally secure.