It is to be assumed that David experienced several of Saul's uncontrolled violent outbreaks at close hand. Perhaps it was this first-hand knowledge which later, when he was fleeing from Saul, having fallen into disfavour, made David fake an epileptic seizure in order to make his enemies think that he was mad: |
"So he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and made marks on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle run down his beard." This is probably the first time the symptoms of a simulated seizure were ever written down - and King Saul's epileptic seizures were possibly the 'model' for this hysterical seizure. |