I Samuel 22:3 “And David went thence from Mizpeh of Moab and he said unto the king of Moab. Let my father and mother, I pray thee, come forth and be with you until I know what God will do for me.”
David was now a fugitive running for his life from Saul who sought to kill him. Yet, David had a promise from God that he would be the next king. That promise seemed pretty far off and remote at this stage of the game. He was now forced to seek the help of the king of Moab who hated Saul, but had no fight with David. After all, it was David’s great great grandmother who came from a prominent family in Moab. Her name was Ruth. So David was sort of a kin to the Moabites. Still he planned to park his parents with this King of Moab while he waited around in the fortress at Moab to find out what God was going to do for him.
That phrase for me (what God will do for me) raises a question. The word contains the preposition Lamed which could be rendered as to or as for. In this case it makes a big difference which preposition we use here. If you ever find yourself in an exile situation, you will find this preposition to be very important. Like David you are sitting back waiting for the next move from God. David was in one of those situations where he was not getting that response from God that he once knew or had hoped. So while waiting for God to reveal his next move, David hid away in a tsod or a place of refuge, a fortress, a secure place. Saul did not know where he was at and David could find some measure of comfort or security.
Then along comes a prophet, Gad, who tells David to leave his tsod (place of security) and go to Judah. You’ve got to be kidding? At least in his tsod he was flying below the radar. To move into Judah he would sudden put himself right in the cross hairs, which is exactly what happened. Once he left his comfortable tsod and went into Judah, almost immediately he was spotted and his whereabouts were reported to Saul. The end result is that Saul orders the priests who sought to protect David be put to death for giving aid to David.
Go figure. You are in a nice comfortable position, obeying God and serving him. Suddenly you lose your nice position of comfort, you are a fugitive, running for your life. Thankfully God gets you to a tsod (place of security) where you can rest and not live in fear. But then he tells you,. “No, no you must not be in a tsod (place of security)” you must go to Judah, get out of this zone of comfort and back into the cross hairs. Scripture gives no indication that Gad was a false prophet. If I were David I probably would have decided he was a false prophet. Thanks to his prophecy David finds himself again living one day to the next, not knowing if he will live to the next day. On top of that because he listened to the prophet Gad, all these priest got killed. Now can that be God’s will?
Actually, it was God’s will. It doesn’t make much sense, but God ordered this so that David could eventually reach God’s perfect will and become king. In this case I would suspect that the preposition in I Samuel 22:3 should be to rather than for, that is what God will do to me rather than for me.
There is an old song written by Andre Crouch called “My Tribute.” It starts off by saying: “How can I say thanks for the things you have done for me.” As I look back over my life I find myself saying: “How can I say thanks for the things you have done to me.”
Can you imagine a testimony service where the preacher says: “Can anyone give a testimony as to what the Lord has done to you?” Rather than saying: “for you.” All testimony services seem to focus on what God has done for us. “Oh, he has given me a new job, new house, new car….” But if we were to ask for testimonies on what God has done to us, we might get responses like: “Well, I lost my job, my house is in foreclosure, I am suffering from an incurable illness etc…..” You will not hear too many “Praise the Lords” or “Amens” for those testimonies. Yet when God seeks to work His perfect will in your life, he may just do things to you as well as for you.
If I were to translate that last part of I Samuel 22:3 I would consider the ambiguity of the Hebrew language and render it as “…until I know what God will do for (to) me.” I believe David had both prepositions in mind and when Gad gave his prophecy for David to go to Judah, David probably said to himself: “Well, I guess God is going to do something to me, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
You may be living in a ’tsod (place of security) right now. That may be God’s will, but it also may be just a rest until He puts you back in the cross hairs.
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