And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage.
The battle on Mount Gilboa is over, and Israel's first king lies dead. A stranger walks into David's camp at Ziklag, dressed head to foot in grief. Everything turns on whether David reads those signs right.
The Look of a Mourner
Torn clothes and dust on the head were the recognised signs of sorrow, and this man wore all of them. One writer notes the timing. The messenger arrives just after David's victory over Amalek, wearing the marks of mourning:
H. L. RossierAmalek has only just been conquered when a messenger comes from Saul's camp "with his clothes torn and dirt on his head." He bore the outward marks of sympathy, mourning, and grief. He was bringing homage to the one he assumed was king. "And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage."
Yet respect can be faked. Another commentator catches how the performance overplayed itself:
Leslie M. GrantDavid evidently sensed there was something about the man that was not genuine. He was trying to make an impression, and the only impression he made was that he was trying to make an impression.
Questions Instead of Conclusions
David does not react to the display. He asks questions, and keeps asking. The details of the man's own story give him away:
H. L. RossierAnyone but the man of God would have been swayed by these marks of respect. But David keeps simple communion with the Lord, and he deals with the world with the shrewdness of a serpent. That keeps him from falling into this trap… Only at David's third question does the liar stand unmasked. David is a spiritual man, and he already suspects the story is unlikely: "I happened by chance to be on Mount Gilboa." What? By chance — while the battle was raging? "Behold, Saul was leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him." Here the Word itself convicts this man of lying. Saul had leaned on his sword, and it was not the horsemen but the archers who had threatened him.
Commentators differ here. Not everyone reads the man as a liar. One takes his words as a true report of finishing off a king who had already fallen on his own sword. The story "has been branded by some as a falsehood, invented to gain favour from David," but it need not be (Arno C. Gaebelein). Either way, the man's own mouth condemned him.
Where the Messenger Came From
The mourner turns out to be an Amalekite. That one fact is the sting of the story, because the war with Amalek was never meant to end:
Samuel RidoutGod also declared that Israel would have war with Amalek from generation to generation. That is, the flesh and its lusts were never to be treated as anything but enemies. Between the people of God and the lusts of the flesh there is to be, not necessarily constant conflict, but absolute hostility… So one who is in the place of king — a picture in that way of Christ — must be a relentless enemy of Amalek.
David had just come from slaughtering Amalekites. Now one of them bows at his feet offering him a crown.
The Crown from the Wrong Hand
Behind the flattery stands a greater enemy with an offer:
H. L. RossierHow could Satan, the wicked one, imagine that David was full of grace and love toward his enemies, that their defeat would fill his heart with genuine sorrow? But above all he was seeking to lure David into receiving Saul's crown, the sign of his investiture with the kingdom, from his hand. His plot is foiled. Later he will take the Messiah, David's Son, to a very high mountain. There he will offer Him all the kingdoms of the world, on condition that He pay homage to him. In this he will suffer a new and supreme defeat.
News on the Third Day
The verse dates the visit. David had already spent two days at Ziklag before the news reached him:
The Bible TreasuryDavid spent two days at Ziklag after his victory before he heard that Saul was dead. It was on the "third day" that an Amalekite told him what had happened, and how. When judgment from God falls on His people, it is always solemn and moving to the godly. That holds even when they deserved it, and even when the faithful had predicted it. At such a moment no true David could think of the benefit the event might bring to himself. The soul enters instead into the reason for God's intervention, and the sense that God is acting silences self.
David's refusal was also a claim. Sentencing the man was "the very first act… of David, after what we may call his accession." It "showed his entire refusal of any share in the removal of his long-time adversary. It was to be the Lord's hand alone" (Samuel Ridout).
Summary
- Costume. Torn clothes and dust on the head are grief's uniform — and a uniform can be borrowed. Outward signs of sympathy are not evidence of a sympathetic heart.
- Caution. David tests the story with three questions before he acts. Patient questions, not a quick read of appearances, exposed the fraud.
- Origin. Ask enough questions and a man names himself. The mourner was an Amalekite — from the nation God had marked for unending war.
- Offer. The crown came with a giver attached. Satan hands God's anointed the right prize by the wrong hand. He made the same offer later, on a mountain, to David's Son.
- Outcome. David wept where the messenger expected applause. He refused a throne bought by another man's crime. The gain that self would grasp, faith waits for God to give.