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1 Samuel 23:19

Then came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah, saying, Does not David hide himself with us in strongholds in the forest, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon?

All Commentaries on 1 Samuel 23:19 Go To 1 Samuel 23

Bede

AD 735

Often false brothers abandon the budding and flowering of their virtues and instead arise and go to the arrogant enemies of the faith. They go to them to help the enemies destroy the church. They despise the simplicity of the faithful and in a manner of speaking they say to the persecutors, “Does not Christ dwell among us in the very safe hearts of the people?” It is not without meaning that it was said, “on the hill of Hachilah,” that is, “the hill of one who takes hold of her.” For where is it more pleasing for the spirit of Christ to dwell than in the heights of a mind which takes hold of the faith firmly? Such a mind is “on the favorable side of the desert” because of the many favorable things belonging to eternal life and so abandons the joys of the world and all its ostentation. For whoever resists the enticements of this world for merely temporal or earthly gain ought not to be said to have turned to the favorable side of the desert, but to the unfavorable side, where our desirable king is not wont to live, but rather our detestable enemy. And the residents of Ziph tell Saul all these things whenever those feigning faith betray to the open persecutors of the church either the mysteries of the faith or those who worship them. Through their perverse mind they differ from the persecutors in acknowledging the faith, but they are one at heart with them in their hatred of the faith. The more profoundly they know the mysteries of Christ (just as the men of Ziph knew the hiding places of David), the more wickedly they aid those who attempt to besiege the church from without.

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20