1 Samuel 20-21: David's Antic Disposition

David has fled.  The peaceful coexistence of both him and Saul was bound to come undone at some point.  But what follows seems to be a frenetic escape on David's part with no rhyme or reason to his actions.  He goes into hiding, shows up at the tabernacle, eats of the holy bread, leaves with Goliath's sword, heads to the city of his enemies, then acts crazy in order to escape the very same city.  It's all very bizarre behavior at first glance.  From the very beginning of David's story, there seems to be a sort of exceptional or even aberrant quality to his actions.  He is clearly a figure set apart.  Saul may have been the first king of the Israelites, but David's ascension makes the former's seem pretty mundane.  And it all points towards One to come.  Jesus Christ came to essentially turn the world upside down.  His actions baffled men.  Some thought Him a fool.  Mark 3:21 says, "...when his friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold of him: for they said: He is become mad."  David's kingship prefigured the divine kingship of Christ, and we know Christ came to fulfill the law in a way entirely unexpected by men.  When David shows up at Nob, to the tabernacle, he is desperate for food and is given the bread reserved for sacred purposes.  To a legalist, this would seem sacrilegious; just as to the Pharisees, many of Christ's actions seemed dismissive of the law.  But those Pharisees didn't realize that Christ was not rejecting the law, but showing it in its proper light, its fullest sense.  So David as well appears to shed new light on the law.  For David proceeds to usher in a new era for the Israelites; he is come to upend many things and establish an unprecedented kingdom on earth -- a kingdom meant to illuminate the words of Christ.  We may be baffled by David's madness in 1 Samuel 21, but it helps us to detach from legalism and understand that God's ways aren't entirely bound by letters, nor can they be understood entirely by man.  Many of the saints were thought to be fools by men because they adhered to God's mysterious ways to a degree that is unfathomable to most men attached to the world.  And David appears to be one who knows God on a unique level.