But David tarried in the strongholds of the desert and stayed in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. After Christ dismisses those who had nominally accepted the faith, he tarries instead in the strongholds of the hearts of those who for the mighty and living God [exist] amid the aridness of this present age. He tarries with them when they come and appear before the face of God. He gladly remains in them whose heart, raised on high and removed from the allurements of the world and hidden in blessed solitude, rejoices in the unfailing budding and flowering of the virtues. For Ziph means flower or bud.

Often false brothers abandon the budding and flowering of their virtues and instead arise and go to the arrogant enemies of the faith. They go to them to help the enemies destroy the church. They despise the simplicity of the faithful and in a manner of speaking they say to the persecutors, Does not Christ dwell among us in the very safe hearts of the people? It is not without meaning that it was said, on the hill of Hachilah, that is, the hill of one who takes hold of her. For where is it more pleasing for the spirit of Christ to dwell than in the heights of a mind which takes hold of the faith firmly? Such a mind is on the favorable side^[1] of the desert because of the many favorable things belonging to eternal life and so abandons the joys of the world and all its ostentation. For whoever resists the enticements of this world for merely temporal or earthly gain ought not to be said to have turned to the favorable side of the desert, but to the unfavorable side, where our desirable king is not wont to live, but rather our detestable enemy. And the residents of Ziph tell Saul all these things whenever those feigning faith betray to the open persecutors of the church either the mysteries of the faith or those who worship them. Through their perverse mind they differ from the persecutors in acknowledging the faith, but they are one at heart with them in their hatred of the faith. The more profoundly they know the mysteries of Christ (just as the men of Ziph knew the hiding places of David), the more wickedly they aid those who attempt to besiege the church from without.

This is what happened to Paul.^[1] For the potency of the light suddenly surprised his feeble eyes and injured them. But the greatness of the voice brought low his strength and entered his ears and opened them. . . . For the voice did not plough up the ears, as the light injured the eyeballs. Why? But because it was necessary that he should hear but not see. Therefore the doors of hearing were opened by the voice as by a key: but the doors of sight were shut by the light that should open them. Why then was it necessary that he should hear? Clearly because by that voice our Lord was able to reveal himself as being persecuted by Saul. For he was not able to show himself by sight as being persecuted; for there was no way whereby this should be, that the son of David should be seen fleeing and Saul pursuing after him. For this happened in very deed with that first Saul and with the first David. The one was pursuing; the other was being persecuted; they both of them saw and were seen, each by the other. But here the ear alone could hear of the persecution of the Son of David; the eye could not see that he was being persecuted.