He stays there for a while, but eventually asks Achish for permission to take a town of his own, instead of living off the king's bounty, and Achish agrees to give him Tsiklag, which is why that town was permanently held by the Judean kings. David stays with Achish yamim (which usually means a year) and four months, during which time David amassed a great fortune in an unusual way. He and his band would go out and raid towns, during which they would kill all of the inhabitants, so there would be no survivors, and then tell Achish that they had raided Jewish settlements.

At the beginning of Chapter 28 (I apologize for breaking chapter structure, but there is little material in this chapter, and the rest of Chapter 28 is the story of the Witch of En-Dor, which is certainly worth a week of its own), Pelishtim are ready to go to war, and Achish informs David that he is to come with him. David readily agrees, and Achish declares that he will be the front of his guard, since Achish now fully assumes that David has abandoned the Jewish people and joined him and Pelishtim.

KEEP YOUR ENEMIES FAR

I noted it briefly last week, but it is worth remarking again at David’s lack of confidence in Shaul’s promises. Although Shaul had invited him back and promised not to harm him, David not only does not go, but assumes that Shaul will one day return to the chase. If David was right, it is a mark of how far into obsession and insanity Shaul has descended. By this point it is not even clear to what extent Shaul was still in control of his faculties, an issue that has some relevance to how we judge his consulting a witch in next week’s selection. Leaving the question of judging Shaul aside, marking his tragedy is also worthwhile.

David was certainly correct in his assessment of Shaul’s willingness to chase him even to Pelishtim (we could have imagined, for example, that Shaul would send emissaries to Achish, offering some kind of trade in order to secure David’s return). Perhaps Shaul’s enmity for Pelishtim—fighting them was, after all, the central task of his kingship, a task to which we have previously seen that he was dedicated even at the cost of not capturing David when he could—prevented him from so doing, in which case it was astute of David to go specifically there.

Those who recall that David had, at one point, been hiding in fortified places, and been told to go back to the Judean desert, might wonder why he was now allowed to go to Pelishtim (where he would be safe from Shaul). If, as we surmised back then, David was supposed to bear this danger, and, as we noted, to begin performing some kingly duties, such as saving Keilah, protecting flocks of the people’s sheep (as with Naval), what has changed now that allows him to go to Pelishtim?

Recognizing the poor relationship between Pelishtim only strengthens that question. In going there, David had to pretend to Achish that he had switched sides; indeed, at the end of this week’s selection, David has consented to be at the forefront of the battle against his own people. He would eventually not be, but watching him acquiesce to Achish’s request underlines the tenuous position into which he has placed himself by fleeing to Achish.

DAVID’S COMPLICATED TASK

I have not seen specific sources that deal with the question, but I would like to share a few guesses with you. First, Shaul’s invitation to David to rejoin him, while not one that David could trust, might have been sufficient to qualify as an end to David’s obligated period to flee. That is, if David needed to spend some time fleeing from Shaul as part of his training for being the eventual king, perhaps Shaul’s declaration, even if practically untrustworthy, nonetheless ended that period of his life.

Alternatively, David’s realization of Shaul’s precipitous mental decline might have also convinced him that this was not the same king that God had ordered him to deal with. It is also possible that David consulted the Urim ve-Tumim and the navi decided that we had no need to know.

A final option, which does not contradict the ones we have already discussed, might be that David recognized that he needed other kinds of training in order to be king as well. Whatever the lessons of fleeing Shaul—learning the hills of Judea very well, assembling an army of men who followed him for his charisma, not because of his position, building a reputation among the people as their protector and savior—David may have realized that he had fully absorbed those, and then sought other lessons to round out his monarchic education (an education, I would add, that Shaul never had).

His moving to Pelishtim, in that view, would have been not only to flee Shaul (since, after all, even Shaul recognized, in his more lucid moments, that he would never catch David), but to further his own understanding of what it would mean to be king. This might be similar to a person who has decided he wants to be the CEO of a company one day, and consciously moves from one type of job to another, so as to gain the experience and talents needed to have a broad vision of the company as a whole.

So, too, David might be going to Achish to learn how to deal with other rulers, to learn how to develop their trust (although in this case he would betray it), to further his skills at information management, and so on. If that is correct, then the navi’s noting that David went there so as to fully avoid Shaul is only partially accurate; that might have been his main reason, or excuse, but other factors might have been firmly in his mind as well.

ROBBING THE RICH

David's practice of wiping out various towns and then pretending to Achish that it was Jews he had looted is itself worth considering. First, we have to assume that the people he was wiping out were worthy of death (which isn't that hard, as long as they were either from Amalek or from the 7 nations that controlled the Land before the Jews got there; in addition, if they were idol worshipers, there is an argument to be made for killing them as well, at least at that time and place). Again, however, this smacks of David acting in his kingly role, since it is not at all clear that private citizens had the right to execute such activities (the general consensus, I believe, is that wiping out Amalek is a task for the people under the leadership of a king). David also seems pretty confident of his ability to keep the news from getting back to Achish, a testament to his understanding of how leaks work and ways to avoid them. So his education while with Achish seems to be continuing apace.

WATCHING EVENTS UNFOLD, NERVOUSLY