The Rock of Separation (Sela Hammahlekoth)

People love the word “blessing.” Tell parents that their child has the look of someone who will be richly blessed, and they are overjoyed; they want that child to receive blessing in abundance, whether of the flesh or of the spirit. To obtain it, people pray to stones, trees, and water, and some lift their prayers to the sun and moon hanging in the sky. Some set out a pig’s head and beg it for good fortune, and we often see people put a human being in the place of a god and worship them. We live in an age when science has advanced so far that spacecraft carry us out to explore space, and still people cannot weigh things with spiritual maturity.

People who live in plenty are still quick to say they have no blessing whenever they compare themselves with others and feel their share is smaller. There are spiritual blessings and physical blessings, and the physical ones we can secure to some degree by our own effort. Spiritual blessing, however, is given according to God’s will rather than human will, and that is why it can be received only by living according to the word. People look at their growing riches and conclude that they have been blessed, because the blessing they want is wealth. God’s blessing, on the other hand, cannot be seen, so it is not easy to say, “I have been blessed.” Yet as the years pass, we will come to realize that without the blessing God gives, we cannot enjoy the good things of this life either.

When his people choose the wrong road in life, God turns them around; when they meet a trial too great for them to bear, he holds back the evil; and he is at work even in things we know nothing about. People have no idea how great a blessing this is. Satan is a spirit, and for that reason no human being can ever defeat him. But Satan, too, is a servant at God’s command. God knows his every move in advance, and he guards his people and shields them so that they do not fall into temptation. The world is harsh and full of danger. Still, because God supplies what his people need and leads them, those who believe in Christ are safe.

The name “Sela Hammahlekoth” in verse 28 means “the rock of separation.” When David was in desperate straits and could have been caught by Saul, God created an emergency that left Saul no choice but to turn back, separating him from David. Saul is like a hardship that David’s own strength could not stop. David has strength enough to kill Saul, but he cannot commit the sin of murder and disappoint God, and so he keeps running until the time comes.

As we go through life, we cannot avoid meeting a Saul who holds a king’s power. But as long as we hold to a faith that trusts in God, the God who loves us will separate us from the world. He will help us so that we do not suffer helplessly at Satan’s hands; he will separate us from death, and he will separate us from poverty and sickness. We cannot see Satan’s work with our eyes, and because of that we must believe that God will surely protect us. Only when we live wisely by faith, as though we saw what is unseen, can we escape the suffering and death that Satan brings.

While David was fleeing from Saul, he learned that the Philistines were attacking the town of Keilah, northwest of Hebron. Keilah was an important town of Judah, so David took the six hundred men who were with him and drove off the Philistines. Since he was a hunted man at the time, the town he had rescued became, in return, a place where he could live. But the comfort did not last long. Someone told Saul that David was now staying in Keilah. To Saul, whose one desire was to capture David, it was welcome news. In the same way, the world we live in is so full of men like Doeg that there is no place in it where we can rest at ease. Trouble can arise at any moment, because Satan prowls like a roaring lion, seeking to bring down God’s people. Only when we live knowing that this world offers us no settled home will we depend on God all the more and receive his protection.

When David heard that Saul was coming toward Keilah, he prayed earnestly, asking God whether Saul would really come there. He needed to know, because if Saul came, David would have to either fight or leave. God answered that Saul would come and that the people of Keilah, out of fear, would hand David over to him. The moment the answer came, David left Keilah without a backward glance. He could have resented the people of Keilah who had betrayed him, and resented God too, who knew their evil deeds and yet did not punish them. But David knew that God’s answer, which had laid bare the hearts of the people of Keilah, was grace, and that is why he quietly left the town. Had God not told him that they would betray him, David would have run into Saul. He was grateful, then, to the God who had given him this chance to escape the wicked.

When God has answered, it falls to David to weigh and decide whether he will live by that answer or act on his own thinking. Once David made the right decision to leave Keilah, God would do still more to protect his life; but what must come before God’s work is the obedience of his people. Of course, from David’s point of view, the people of Keilah must have seemed contemptible. He had driven off the Philistines for them under harsh conditions, and still they betrayed him; he would have been angry with them. Still, the first thing to consider was that Saul would certainly come, just as God had answered, and leaving that place had to come before anything else. There is something we must never forget as we do good to others: people are grateful while they are being helped, but as time passes and their gratitude fades, their hearts can turn to betrayal. At such a time we must not be swayed by hurt and resentment, but prepare for what God has told us will happen. Then we can head off suffering, and we will find the strength and the room to help even the one who betrayed us.

If David now holds back his feelings and obeys, then when God sets him on the throne, he will have the opportunity to call the people of Keilah to account. Like David, even when we are wronged for now, if we only restrain a moment’s hot temper, the day will surely come when we can rebuke them with greater authority and power. If we nurse resentment, we are left with the wearisome work of forgiving; but if we never resent in the first place, there is nothing to forgive and no grudge to lay to rest. The wisdom that wins is to leave our enemies to God and get on with our own lives. David did not take their lives; he quietly left the town. Among the things God loved and approved in David was this very thing: the way he endured and obeyed in faith.

Saul had been hurrying toward David, but when he heard that David had left Keilah, he halted and went back to his own city. He had no reason to go to a Keilah without David in it. Anyone may meet hardship in life; but if, trusting in the word, we discern and decide rightly, then, like David, we will not come face to face with Saul. We must obey God’s word as it stands, for it is certain to be fulfilled.

Here, though, is something strange. God’s word must come to pass, and yet, contrary to God’s answer that Saul would come, Saul never came to Keilah. There is neither falsehood nor evil in God, so what he says must happen in reality; but it is through what his people discern and decide that the deep purpose God truly desires comes to light. When God told David that the people of Keilah would betray him, had David simply stayed in the town, Saul really would have come, just as God had said.

But when David believed the word that had not yet come to pass as though he had already seen it, faith was born in him, a faith that could lay aside even his anger at ungrateful Keilah and leave; and Saul no longer had any need to come to a Keilah where David was not. Had David obeyed the welcome word that he would defeat the Philistines but not the word that Saul would come, he would not have kept his life. If the pleasant word about defeating the Philistines came true, we must know that the hard word about Saul’s coming will come true as well. But people make themselves the standard: they obey the words they like to hear and disregard the words they would rather not hear. This is how they come to suffer the hardship of meeting Saul in the course of their lives. If God has told you that you will meet Saul if you stay in Keilah, then you must obey by moving. Only then, when Satan looks, will he fail to find you in the place of sin, and for that very reason he will give up his attack.

Whether the word was pleasant to hear or a word of rebuke and wrath, David believed and obeyed whatever God said. He did not want to leave a town he had won at the risk of his life, and the people who had spurned his kindness and betrayed him galled him; yet because God said he must leave, he put his obedient faith into action without a second thought. Satan, then, either drives misfortune upon God’s children or abandons his evil plans, depending on whether they obey or disobey. This is exactly why God said that to obey is better than sacrifice.

In verses 16-17, Jonathan arose and went to David in the woods of the wilderness of Ziph, and strengthened his hand in God, encouraging him to look to God all the more. Jonathan had come to meet David, who had fled from Saul. He comforted David, telling him that because God was protecting him, Saul’s hand would not find him; that David would be king over Israel and Jonathan next to him; and that his father Saul knew this as well.

Jonathan sought out David, hunted as he was by the king of this world, and told him not to be afraid, since he would be king over Israel. Jonathan believed in God’s unseen work as though he could see it. This is the love and faith God desires of his people. Only those who see, in Jesus bearing the cross in shame and misery, the King of kings who will come again, will enjoy blessing fit for a king. No one can ever act as Jonathan did without being born again. It is possible only for those who have cast off their craving for the world; and only with the conviction that God lives and works can anyone recognize a man of faith like David. The two never met again after this, but they will receive the precious blessing of living forever in God.

In verse 19, the Ziphites told Saul that David was hiding among them in the strongholds in the woods on the hill of Hachilah, and reported that David was very shrewd and would not be easy to catch. Saul then ordered them to watch David’s movements more closely and report back until he came to seize him himself. Just as the Ziphites told Saul where David was hiding, there was also someone who told David that Saul was coming. So that those who belong to him are not overtaken by sudden disaster, God, in ways that are marvelous, makes everything known to them. God knows every human thought, plan, and decision, and he protects the person of faith; so if only, like David, we hold fast to our faith, he will lead us on a safe path. When David heard that Saul was coming, he fled in the opposite direction.

Then why does God, who loves David so dearly, leave him in this endless flight instead of quickly setting him on the throne in comfort? The answer is that hardship reveals what is truly in a person’s heart. In hardship the wise can learn what God wants and what they themselves must decide; and each time trouble comes, they can break down what is evil and lacking in themselves. That is why hardship is necessary.

Had David come straight to the throne, he would not have learned the love and wisdom with which God works for him in even the smallest details. Nor would he have known that, moment by moment, God was holding back attacks from Satan that David could not even perceive, in order to protect his life. Had he become king without any trouble, David would probably have thought he had become king by his own wisdom; he would have lost his fear of God and of the people and taken his seat in pride.

You too, if your life went on comfortable and free of hardship, would think you had no particular need of God. This is the reason God permits the troubles of this life: it is his way of bringing his people to faith. Those who have known no hardship are strangers to the depth of God’s grace, which leaves them easy prey for Satan’s schemes; they are apt to become his slaves. David too, had he not met God in the course of his life, would have attacked Saul in the proud thought that he had been anointed king. But as he endured hardship in faith, he came to grasp the attentive grace of the God who works on our behalf, and because he knew that a life like a mist does not last forever, he could live separated from the world. As a way of protecting David, God used the Philistines to turn back Saul, who had come to seize him. The place from which Saul hurried away on hearing that the Philistines had attacked Jerusalem is Sela Hammahlekoth, “the rock of separation.”

Because God held back the hardships that could have cost David his life, David could later become the great king who united the kingdom. So all we need to do is live each day with a faith that endures and gives thanks, until the day God establishes us and accomplishes it all for us. God separates his people from the world; even as they pass through hardship, he blocks Satan’s one-sided assaults; and he helps those who live by faith to understand his perfect will and to live with their hope set on heaven.

You have already received the love and grace of God that David received. Your calling is to make that love and grace visible through your life. Then God will make your life abundant.

May you forever enjoy the love of God, who separates from the world those who wholeheartedly serve and obey him, and protects them from ever meeting someone like Saul.

1 Samuel 24:8-15

8David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul, saying, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth, and showed respect. 9David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to men’s words, saying, ‘Behold, David seeks to harm you?’ 10Behold, today your eyes have seen how Yahweh had delivered you today into my hand in the cave. Some urged me to kill you; but I spared you; and I said, I will not stretch out my hand against my lord; for he is Yahweh’s anointed. 11Moreover, my father, behold, yes, see the skirt of your robe in my hand; for in that I cut off the skirt of your robe, and didn’t kill you, know and see that there is neither evil nor disobedience in my hand, and I have not sinned against you, though you hunt for my life to take it. 12May Yahweh judge between me and you, and may Yahweh avenge me of you; but my hand will not be on you. 13As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness;’ but my hand will not be on you. 14Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A flea? 15May Yahweh therefore be judge, and give sentence between me and you, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of your hand.”