What Does II Samuel 15:18 Mean?

The narrator catalogs the military forces that accompany David: "all his servants passed on beside him; and all the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites, six hundred men which came after him from Gath, passed on before the king." The Cherethites and Pelethites were David's personal bodyguard, a professional military unit loyal to the king rather than to Israel as a nation. The six hundred Gittites from Gath represent a Philistine contingent that had attached itself to David during his earlier career, a foreign force whose loyalty is to the person of the king rather than to the institution of the monarchy.

The composition of David's escort is theologically significant: the king who is abandoned by Israel is accompanied by foreigners and professional soldiers whose allegiance is personal rather than national. The irony is sharp: the shepherd of Israel is guarded by Philistines while the sheep of Israel follow the wolf. The Gittites from Gath, the city of Goliath, now protect the man who once slew their champion, and the loyalty that the covenant nation should have provided is supplied instead by those who stand outside the covenant.

The kingdom of Christ is similarly built from unexpected loyalists. The centurion whose faith exceeded anything found in Israel, the Syrophoenician woman who claimed the crumbs from the master's table, and the thief on the cross who entered paradise before the Pharisees, all demonstrate that the loyalty God honors is not defined by national origin but by the faith that recognizes the true King. "Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."