They Found an Egyptian in a Field

Thoughts on 1 Samuel 30

Our church in Ho Chi Minh City was about to embark on a new series exploring the Life of David. As I prepared, I stumbled upon a curious episode in chapter 30.

If you remember the story, David and his men are living in a town called Ziklag. They leave town for a few days to take up a battle, helping a king named Achish. When they return to Ziklag, they discover that the town has been ransacked and all of their wives and children have been taken away. David and his men weep with anguish “until they had no more strength to weep.” David asks God what to do, and God tells him to pursue the bad guys, so they set off in search of the Amalekites.

As they attempt to find this band of raiders, the storyteller includes this detail in the text. The men “came across an Egyptian in a field”. We go on to learn that this Egyptian was enslaved. His owner was a part of the raiding party that burned Ziklag. He had gotten sick, so he was abandoned beside the road and hadn’t eaten in three days. Then, in exchange for a vow not to kill him or give him back to his master, he promises to lead David’s gang to the bad guys – which he does.

I can’t quite put my finger on why this story grabbed me, but that offhand phrase lingered in my mind. One commentator puts it this way: “someone stumbled upon an Egyptian in a field.” What are the odds? Here is a man, born to Egyptian parents, sold into slavery, winding up in Philistine territory. He joins a raiding party, falls ill, and is left for dead by the roadside. Then, a group of grieving, furious soldiers finds him—not to finish him off, but to offer him a meal. And, as if by design, he holds the very clue they desperately need.

If this were a novel, we might call it a plot twist. But in the Bible, such details invite us to recognize the hand of providence at work.

What is the providence of God? The Westminster Catechism says: God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures; ordering them, and all their actions, to his own glory.

In other words, (and this is a painfully condensed summary) “nothing just happens”. The universe is not governed by fate, nor luck, nor coincidence - but by a personal God.  Every detail.

Every twist in the 1 Samuel story was known and woven together by the God David served, fulfilling His purposes for both His people and David himself. And then, consider this: the Egyptian’s story was preserved, translated, and handed down through centuries until it landed in my hands, on a day I needed it most, reminding me to breathe easy—God is attending to the details of my life too.

God’s hand shapes every moment of my day, weaving all things together for my good and His glory. Most of the time, I only catch fleeting glimpses of how the pieces fit, but they always do. If I can truly grasp this, I will trust God more, and frustration, anxiety, anger, or discouragement will lose their grip on me.

Those of you who know me well know that I do not enjoy ambiguity. But it seems that one of the cardinal virtues for a missionary in a “creative access country” is a high tolerance for uncertainty. Ambiguity fills the atmosphere here like mist on a Manitoba morning. There are times (frankly) when it drives me up the wall! Then I come across a little throw-away phrase in an ancient story in a far-away corner of the Bible.  And I am reminded that, with God, there is no ambiguity. He sees. He knows. He has a tightly detailed plan – a plan that sometimes includes stumbling across a sick Egyptian with just the word to send His people exactly where they needed to go.

So how should I understand things like motorbike crashes, broken promises, days waiting to accomplish a task that should take minutes, power failures, email hackers, tire-consuming potholes masquerading as innocent rain puddles? From the magnificent to the minute, none of them is beyond God’s notice and escape His control. All of them are a part of His toolbox to shape history and deconstruct and reconstruct my character so that it bears more of a resemblance to Christ’s. Complex coincidences are simply the providential pivot points that God is using to get me to where I need to be – and teach me to trust Him more along the way.