The Plishtim are gathering for war (as we saw 2 chapters ago, and was the reason that Shaul had gone to consult with the ba`alat ‘ov in last week’s chapter). As they gather in their multitudes, David and his men are with Achish, in the back of the camp. The other Plishti leaders, not having been taken in by David, protest his presence, saying, first, that this is the David about whom the singers note the myriads he has killed, and, second, that David serving as a fifth column in the Plishti camp would be the perfect way to get back in Shaul’s good graces.

CAN A LEOPARD CHANGE ITS SPOTS?

Achish, of course, does not agree, but cannot stand up to all of them. He calls David over, informs him of the other Plishtim’s problems with his presence, and sends him home. Before we get to David’s response, let us just note the difference between the two reactions of Plishtim. Achish seems ready to believe that people can change, in this case their political allegiances. He can believe that David would reject the Jewish people and join him fully and wholeheartedly, to the extent that he would be happy to fight and kill his former compatriots—and certainly there have been people in history willing to do that, such as Benedict Arnold.

The other Plishtim, I suspect, realize how rare that is; even people who feel the need to leave one way of life or country often retain positive feelings towards their land, religion, or whatever of origin. They are therefore suspicious of David’s presence at a war against Jews and insist he leave.

There may not be a right or wrong answer to this question—how we can know when someone has fully changed or not?—but we should remember that many of the worst opponents that medieval Jews had to confront in Christian disputations were Jewish converts, whose zeal led them to try to destroy their former religion. Even there, their motives are unclear—were they convinced of the truth of Christianity, trying to prove themselves to the authorities, or trying to get ahead in the Christian world? Probably there were some of each.

In addition, the Torah’s prohibitions against reminding a convert of where he has come from also suggest an element of this issue. Without being suspicious of a convert’s attachment to Judaism, the Torah nonetheless understood that people do not completely change overnight—there is a process of assimilation, acculturation, and separation that must occur before the connections to a former life are completely severed.

Perhaps finally, I would note Radak’s interpretation of Yirmiyahu 13;23, "Can a Negro change his skin, can a leopard change its spots?" Radak points out that each of these are natural elements of the person/animal involved, and so cannot be changed. Here, too, the question Achish and the Plishtim are facing is the extent to which David’s attachment to the Jewish people was natural and essential to his being (as was the case, proving the Plishti leaders right) or was not, and easily changed.

WHY PROTEST?

David does not take advantage of the situation right away; he protests to Achish, pointing out that he has not done anything wrong and should not therefore be excluded from joining with Achish’s other servants in this fight.

The obvious question is why David bothers to do this, since Achish has already made clear that he is simply acceding to the other leader’s wishes. Four possibilities present themselves: Malbim suggests that Achish had only offered to have David go home, but the rest of David’s men were expected to stay. That assumes that the other leaders were only worried about David, but not his men, which I personally find unlikely.

The best possibility is that David wanted to be absolutely sure that Achish trusted him, since he did not know how long he would have to stay with Achish (he, after all, had not visited the witch). While he knows that Achish is sending him home, he may have worried that the other Plishti leaders had planted seeds of doubt in Achish’s head. To emphasize his fidelity, and forestall those seeds, he argues for a bit with Achish.

Two other less likely options also occur to me. David may have honestly wanted to stay at the war, since he already felt that Shaul’s time was ending. If so, he may have seen the next day as a chance to do exactly what the Plishtim were worried about him doing, and thought that by pushing Achish he might win the right to stay. Lastly, David may have protested for its psychological effect on Achish. By reacting vigorously, he would firm up Achish’s confidence in his fidelity, which would, perhaps, stoke Achish’s resentment against the other Plishti leaders for making him send David home. That resentment might help the Jewish side at least a little, by lessening Plishti unity in the battle.

CHAPTER 30

Whatever the reason, David gets sent home. When he and his men arrive, they find that Tsiklag had been sacked and burned, with all of their wives and children taken into captivity. I find it interesting that the pasuk notes that the wives, sons, and daughters were taken into captivity, since it could have gotten away with more general terms (their families, for example). It suggests that the loss of the wives, sons, and daughters were each on their own saddening and tragic. In our tendency to assume that people of the past were completely sexist, this serves as some counterpoint—the loss of members of their family, regardless of gender, was a deeply felt hurt.

Their allegiance to David was, we find out, less secure than we might have imagined. Faced with this loss, David feels that they are just about ready to stone him, and he consults with Hashem. It is not clear to me whether he always tended to consult with Hashem, or if, in this case, David was particularly concerned about what course of action would be productive. In any case, Hashem greenlights "Operation Recover Wife and Family," and David heads off with his 600 men.

KEEPING THE NATION TOGETHER

As they head off to war, only 400 of them actually go with David; the other 200 were too weak. It is not clear in the verse whether they were actually too weak, or were just unwilling to go along, but that will not matter for the story. David and his band find a wandering Egyptian, near death from starvation, and they give him food and drink, enough to revive himself. Upon questioning him, they discover that he was a slave of an Amaleki man, abandoned by his owner because he had taken ill, and had been part of the raid on Tsiklag and other towns. David asks him to show them where the group is, and the slave agrees, as long as David swears neither to kill him nor give him back to his owner.

The end of the story is that the slave shows them where to go, they find the Amalekis celebrating and promptly defeat them, recovering all of their lost property and relatives. Before moving on, though, we should wonder why the navi told us this Egyptian story (is it vital that we know how David found the Amalekites?). A couple of issues within the story seem to make it worth the navi’s while. First, it shows that David’s finding Amalek for revenge did not rely solely on God’s promise; he used human means to track them as well, suggesting that in general our successes should mix Divine aid with human effort and means.

Second, the story of the slave shows a perspective on weakness that we should take to heart. If this guy was starving, David could have gotten the information out of him before feeding him. Afterwards, he could have forced the slave to show him where the Amalekis were even without swearing not to kill him. That he ceded so much control to this slave also has worthwhile lessons for us to learn.

When they come back from the war, though, David teaches us a clearer and more important lesson. The negative people in the camp wanted to retain the booty for themselves, cutting those who had stayed behind out of the profits. David insists on giving them a full share, since the bounty wasn’t really theirs anyway (it had come from God’s assistance). While this position would need to be nuanced (I don’t think David was promoting a completely socialist society), it stresses the need to set up our social welfare ideals while holding firmly in mind the belief that God provides for us as much as we provide for ourselves.

This became a rule in the Jewish people generally, from that day on, the verse tells us. In addition, it calls those who had opposed the idea originally ra and benei beliya`al. This could be because this idea is elementary to maintaining social cohesion among the members of a nation, but I suspect it is at least as much because the assumption that money one earns/finds/ wins is one’s own incorporates a lack of belief in God. David’s idea should not have been revolutionary for people who already had absorbed the message of God’s providence. That it was, at least for those people, shows that they had beliefs and ideas that qualified them as ra and benei beliya`al.

David also sends some of the booty to his friends and family in the tribe of Yehudah, apparently as a way to maintain the connection between his former life and current one (and, we assume, to smooth the way to his eventual accession to the kingship).

This, too, gives the impression that David was not aware that his time as king had come, since he was still in the mode of the outsider maintaining his ties to those on the inside.