Now part of Adullam Park, an area of 20 square miles (50 sq km), this cave can still be visited.
Saul had done terrible damage to the fabric of the nation. Imagine trading Doeg the Edomite for David! Most of those who gathered around Saul were called on to fight against the Lord who had chosen David to be His king. It may seem strange that men would chose a fugitive’s cave over a king’s court, but we know that, down the centuries, God’s people, in choosing to identify with David’s Greater Son, have rejected the world’s palaces and playgrounds to “go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb 13:13). Thus we read, “David…escaped to the cave of Adullam. So when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him” (1 Sam 22:1-2). The cave, one of many limestone caverns in the region 12 miles southwest of Bethlehem, overlooks the Elah Valley, site of the victory over Goliath. The meaning of its name, probably from the verb “to turn aside,” is given as “refuge.” In the two psalms he penned after his spiritual recovery—Psalms 57 and 142—he wrote, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by” (Ps 57:1). And, “I cried out to You, O Lord: I said, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living’” (142:5). Clearly it was not in the cave where he found refuge, but in the Lord Himself. How often, in times of turmoil, we look for some place of refuge down here, but we can only really find it where David did—in the Lord. And that retreat can be found just where we are!