Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Chapter Twenty-two. Synopsis of the Chapter
David flees into the cave of Odollam; thence, verse 5, at the warning of the prophet Gad, he returns to the land of Juda. Saul hears of it and stirs up his men to pursue him and to betray and deliver him to him. Soon, verse 9, Doeg accuses Achimelech the Pontiff of having given David loaves and the sword of Goliath. Wherefore, verse 18, he kills him with eighty-five of his companions at Saul’s command.
1. David therefore departed from thence, and fled into the cave of Odollam. And when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down to him thither. 2. And all that were in distress, and oppressed with debt, and bitter in soul, gathered themselves unto him; and he became their prince, and there were with him about four hundred men. 3. And David went from thence to Maspha, which is in Moab; and he said to the king of Moab: Let my father and my mother, I beseech thee, abide with you, till I know what God will do with me. 4. And he left them before the face of the king of Moab; and they stayed with him all the days that David was in the stronghold. 5. And Gad the prophet said to David: Stay not in the stronghold, depart, and go into the land of Juda. And David departed, and came into the forest of Haret. 6. And Saul heard that David was seen, and the men that were with him. Now Saul, when he abode in Gabaa, and was in the grove that is in Rama, holding a spear in his hand, and all his servants stood about him, 7. said to his servants that stood about him: Hear me now, ye sons of Jemini: will the son of Isai give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all tribunes and centurions? 8. that you have all conspired against me, and there is no one to inform me, especially when even my son hath made a league with the son of Isai. There is none of you that pitieth my case, or that giveth me notice; for my son hath stirred up my servant against me, lying in wait for me to this day. 9. Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who stood by, and was the chief among the servants of Saul: I saw the son of Isai in Nobe, with Achimelech the son of Achitob the priest. 10. And he consulted the Lord for him, and gave him victuals; he gave him also the sword of Goliath the Philistine. 11. The king therefore sent to call for Achimelech the priest, the son of Achitob, and all his father’s house, the priests that were in Nobe; and they all came to the king. 12. And Saul said to Achimelech: Hear, thou son of Achitob. He answered: Here I am, my lord. 13. And Saul said to him: Why have you conspired against me, thou and the son of Isai, and thou gavest him bread and a sword, and hast consulted God for him, that he should rise against me, lying in wait for me to this day? 14. And Achimelech answering the king, said: And who among all thy servants is so faithful as David, and the king’s son-in-law, and who goeth forth at thy command, and is honourable in thy house? 15. Have I begun today to consult God for him? far be this from me; let not the king suspect any such thing against his servant, in all the house of my father; for thy servant knew nothing of this matter, either little or much. 16. And the king said: Thou shalt die the death, Achimelech, thou and all thy father’s house. 17. And the king said to the messengers that stood about him: Turn and kill the priests of the Lord; for their hand is with David, knowing that he fled, and they told it not to me. But the king’s servants would not put forth their hands against the priests of the Lord. 18. And the king said to Doeg: Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and fell upon the priests, and slew in that day eighty-five men that wore the linen ephod. 19. And Nobe, the city of the priests, he smote with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and ox and ass and sheep, with the edge of the sword. 20. But one of the sons of Achimelech, the son of Achitob, escaped, whose name was Abiathar, and fled to David. 21. And he told him that Saul had slain the priests of the Lord. 22. And David said to Abiathar: I knew that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that without doubt he would tell Saul: I am guilty of all the souls of thy father’s house. 23. Stay with me, fear not; whosoever shall seek my life shall seek thy life also, and with me thou shalt be saved.
1. AND DAVID DEPARTED THENCE, AND FLED INTO THE CAVE OF ODOLLAM.—“Odollam” was a village in the tribe of Juda, on the right hand of those going from Jerusalem to Hebron. Hear Adrichomius, from St. Jerome, William of Tyre and the Destripalii, in the tribe of Juda, no. 201: “The cave Odollam, in the very rock, was a place by nature Odollam, made and fortified, into which when David had fled from the face of Saul, and there received many who fled to him oppressed by distress and debt, he became prince of four hundred men. This cave had the same use in the time of the Christians: for when the Turks came to those places to plunder, the inhabitants of the neighbouring places fled and betook themselves hither with their wives, children, herds and flocks.” Whence fittingly “Odollam,” or as it is in Hebrew Adullam, is the same as the gathering, passage or prey of them, says Pagninus in the Hebrew Names. Symbolically Angelomus and Eucherius: This cave, they say, represents the flesh of Christ, in which, as in a cave, the divinity of Christ lay hidden; or the sepulchre of Christ, which was the testimony (for this is what Odollam signifies in Hebrew, says Bede) that Christ is God, since on the third day he raised from it his body alive again and glorious.
2. AND ALL THAT WERE IN DISTRESS, AND OPPRESSED WITH DEBT, GATHERED THEMSELVES UNTO HIM.—You will say: How did David admit them to the prejudice of their creditors, so that they could not compel them to pay what was owed them? Cajetan answers that they had surrendered their goods, or were unable to pay: so that by that very inability they were excused from paying until they should come to a better fortune, which was to come about through the fellowship and prudence of David, who with the spoils of enemies enriched all his men. That David trained all who fled to him excellently in all justice and honesty is plain from Psalm 33, which he then composed. For this psalm literally contains the teaching which David there gave to his companions and soldiers; whence, addressing them, verse 12, he says: “Come, children, hearken to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” It is also plain from the fact that David had with him Gad the prophet, a holy man.
Allegorically, David was a type of Christ, to whom all the sick, afflicted and penitent fled; whence he himself, calling them, says: “Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you,” Matthew chapter 11. So Angelomus.
3. AND DAVID WENT FROM THENCE TO MASPHA, WHICH IS IN MOAB,—that is, which is a city of the region of Moab, belonging to the Moabites, not to the Jews. For David fled from Judea, as subject to Saul, into the land of Moab, into which Saul could do nothing. There was, however, another “Maspha” in Judea, where Samuel held the assembly of the people, chapter 7, verse 6.