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Doeg Destroys The Priests - 1 Samuel 22
Doeg Destroys The Priests - 1 Samuel 22
Saul is obviously paranoid. Though David has been faithful in serving, Saul sees his son-in-law as a conspirator. He added to this conspiracy his own son, Jonathan. Now he accuses the priests of being co-conspirators. None of this was true, but truth has never been a requisite for conspiracy theories.
Saul orders his guards to execute these priests, but they refuse to strike the priests of the LORD. Doeg, a descendant of Esau, has no such compulsions and, when ordered by Saul, he killed 85 of them that day. Doeg then, apparently with the permission of, if not a command from Saul, proceeds to slaughter the whole of the priestly city of Nob: men, women, children, infants, and animals!
What I am a bit perplexed about is that no one apparently made any attempt to stop this, even when they knew it was wrong. They personally refused to kill the priests, thus acknowledging such to be wrong, but stood by as Doeg does it. It is this lack of resistance to evil that allows such atrocities to happen.
Could they have done anything? I don't know. Would it have cost them their lives? Probably. Had the army ever withstood a direct order of the king when they understood the order to be wrong? Yes, when they stood up for Jonathan (cp. 1Sam. 14:44-45).
Perhaps I am sensitive to such, as I have read about the atrocities of the 20th century where good people did nothing to stop similar evil. Yet, having seen the greater evil that can come from NOT standing up against such evil, I wonder what I would have done if I was there. What do you think, should people withstand the evil orders of a paranoid king? Hugh DeLong
