When Achish and his Philistines go next to fight against the Jews, Achish asks David and his men to go with him and his army. And then begins a very dark story. What David meant to do we are not told; but one thing is clear, that whatever he did, he must have disgraced himself for ever, if God had not had mercy on him. He is forced to go. For he can give no reason why he should not. So he goes; and in the rear with the Philistine king, in the post of honour, as his bodyguard. What is he to do? If he fights against his own people, he covers himself with eternal shame, and loses his chance of ever being king. If he turns against Achish and his Philistines in the battle he covers himself with eternal shame likewise, for they had helped him in his distress, and given him a home. But God has mercy on him. The lords of the Philistines take offence at his being there, and say that he will play traitor to them in the battle (which was but too likely), and force king Achish to send him home to Ziklag, and so God delivers him out of the trap which he has set for himself, by lying. But God punishes him on the spot. When he comes back to his town, it is burnt with fire, utterly desolate, a heap of blackened ruins, without a living soul therein. And now the end is coming, though David thinks not of it. He had committed his cause to God. He had said, when Saul lay sleeping at his feet, and Abishai would have smitten him through, "Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed. As the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him, or he shall come to die, or he shall go down into battle and perish." And on the third day a man--a heathen Amalekite--comes to Ziklag to David with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head. Israel has been defeated in Mount Gilboa with a great slaughter. The people far and wide have fled from Hermon across the plain, and the Philistines have taken possession, cutting the land of Israel in two. And Saul and Jonathan, his son, are dead. The Amalekite has proof of it. There is the crown which was on Saul's head, and the bracelet that was on his arm. He has brought them to David to curry favour with him. Saul, he says, was wounded, and asked him to kill him (2 Sam. i. 6-10). It is a lie. Saul had killed himself, falling on his own sword, to escape torture and insult from the Philistines, and the Amalekite is caught in his own trap. Out of his own mouth will David judge him. How dare he stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed? Let one of the young men fall on him, and kill him. And so the wretch dies.