Not killing Doeg backfired.

Hey guys, this will be a pretty quick one. I was meditating on 1 Samuel 22 the other day. It’s kind of an interesting story in the whole David saga. So, when we start the chapter, David has now fled from Saul. That happened back in 1 Sam 20. I talked about it a bit while I was exploring David and Jonathan’s relationship. The first destination on David’s flight was Nob.

There, he meets up with Ahimelek, the priest. David lies to the priest and tells him that he’s on a special mission for Saul. He asks Ahimelek for supplies, so the priest gives David consecrated bread. At this point in the text, it notes that Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief shepherd, was detained before the Lord, and present for these events. David gets Ahimelek to give him the sword of Goliath, whom David killed years ago at this point in the story. As an aside, I find it amusing that this particular sword just happened to be lying around.

With the bread and the sword in hand, David departs Nob and heads to Gath. There, he pretends to be insane for a while so as to avoid being killed by the locals. David was afraid that Achish, king of Gath, would kill him otherwise. Presumably realizing that acting like a madman isn’t a long-term viable solution, David eventually flees Gath and heads out to the cave of Adullam. There his brothers and his father meet up with him. Incidentally, the text notes that those who were in distress or in debt or discontented also gathered around David. So essentially, he scraped together a merry band of misfits. After that point, David sets out to “learn what God will do for me”.

While David is off finding himself, things at Nob aren’t going so hot. Saul happens to be hanging out with his officials when he gets news that David and his men have been discovered. This ticks Saul off, so he tells his men that David won’t give them cool stuff like he has so they better get it together and help him kill the runt.

Doeg takes this opportunity to speak up. He rats out Ahimelek for giving David food and the sword of Goliath. With that news, Saul then summons Ahimelek and all the men of Ahimelek’s family. When Ahimelek shows up, Saul accuses Ahimelek of conspiring against him.

To this, Ahimelek gets offended. He points out that he knew nothing of any conspiracies. He also mentions how David has been nothing but loyal to Saul. To this, Saul doesn’t exactly respond like a responsible adult.

Instead, he says, “You will surely die, Ahimelek, you and your whole family.”

Saul then orders his officials to strike down Doeg and his family. To their credit, none of the officials were willing to raise a hand to strike the priests. Note the use of the word priests. Ahimelek and all of his family served as the priests of Nob.

Seeing that no one is doing the killing, Saul then orders Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests.”

Doeg listens. That day he killed 85 men. He also apparently, “…put to the sword Nob, the town of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its cattle, donkeys, and sheep.” It’s another Biblical massacre.

One of Ahimelek’s sons, Abiathar, managed to escape. He fled to join David. Abiathar told David about what happened. To this David says, “That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your whole family. Stay with me; don’t be afraid. The man who wants to kill you is trying to kill me too. You will be safe with me.”

Abiathar pops up a few more times but not much comes of it. So, there you have it. This little story is so delightfully filled with story tropes that it’s just about dripping. We have the exiled hero trying to escape the evil king. We have a legendary named sword. We have a village massacre that leaves a lone survivor. We have the evil king not wanting to get his own hands dirty. To top it all off, we have a fateful encounter that could have changed everything.

Had David killed Doeg, the village of Nob probably wouldn’t have been massacred. Yet had David killed Doeg, David would be even less of a hero than he already ends up being. At the point when the opportunity to silence Doeg presented itself, Doeg was still guilt-free. Doeg hadn’t yet set into motion the decisions that would result in the destruction of Nob.

Overall, it’s a classic literary dilemma. Kill Doeg so the secrets die with him. Let Doeg live and risk whatever consequences may shake out. Another option would have been taking Doeg prisoner. However, that would present a number of logistical challenges David didn’t seem to be up to. After all, he was taking consecrated bread from the priest. I don’t know what the right move would have been here. David has killed a lot more people than I have. If he didn’t feel like taking Doeg’s life, then I doubt I would have the stomach for it myself. It’s a shame that sparing Doeg resulted in the deaths of a whole village. The whole story brings into question the notion of killing someone to prevent future evil. David decided not to do it and there was a cost as a consequence. However, I’m not sure that the cost was high enough to justify living in a society where pre-emptive murder is a thing. That seems like it would get messy pretty quickly. At any rate, it’s an interesting story, nevertheless.