Grains of Sand

Horeasabau's Blog Google Images David’s efforts to avoid Saul took him to some unlikely places. By the time we come to the end of 1 Samuel, David is living among the Philistines. Hardly a comfortable spot to be in considering that he had been responsible for their defeat against Israel when he killed Goliath. The relations between the Israelites and the Philistines had never been cordial and many among the Philistine leaders would have been happy to put David’s head on the end of a pole and display it from the walls of Gath. However, this was where the Lord sent David and it was here that God protected David from Saul’s plots to kill him. When we get to 1 Samuel 29 we find David faced with a case of conflicted loyalties. Achish and the Philistines are preparing to go into battle against the Israelites. David, as a subject of Achish, would be expected to support the Philistine king in this effort. But some of Achish’s key men were not happy about the prospects, feeling that Da...

Google Images Most people who are familiar with the stories of the Bible know about Gideon and his three hundred (Judges 7). In yesterday’s post I revisited Gideon’s call to lead God’s army against the Midianites (Judges 6). The reluctant warrior might have been encouraged by the thirty-two thousand men he had command of—though the Midianites are described in the chapter as “t hick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore " (7:12). After Gideon got finished counting to, say, sixty-three thousand four hundred and fifty-two, he may have had second thoughts about just how big his army really was! And then God said: “ You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength had saved her, announce to the people… ” (7:2, 3). Anyone who was afraid got to go home and Gideon was left with 10,000 men. Logically we would have thought that ten thousand men beating a much sup...