John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Samuel 24:1



INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 24



Saul being returned from following the Philistines, renews his pursuit after David, 1Sa 24:1; and they meeting in a cave, where David had the opportunity of taking away the life of Saul, which his men pressed him to, yet only cut off the skirt of his robe, 1Sa 24:3; which, calling after him, he held up to him to convince him he had his life in his hands, but spared it, 1Sa 24:9; upon which he very pathetically reasons with him about the unreasonableness and unrighteousness of his pursuit after him, to take away his life, 1Sa 24:11; which so affected Saul, that he confessed he was more righteous than he, and owned that the kingdom would be his, and only desired him to swear to him not to cut off his offspring, which David did, and so they parted, 1Sa 24:16.



Ver. 1. And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines,.... Having, as it should seem, got the victory over them, and driven them out of his country, and pursued them to their own:



that it was told him, saying, behold, David [is] in the wilderness of Engedi; in the strong holds of it, the high rocks and mountains in it, 1Sa 23:29.





1 Samuel 24:2



Ver. 2. Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel,.... Out of his army, with which he had been pursuing the Philistines:



and went to seek David, and his men, upon the rocks of the wild goats; which were in the wilderness of Engedi; those rocks were exceeding high and terrible to look at, full of precipices, and so prominent, that to travellers they seemed as if they would fall into the adjacent valleys, that it even struck terror into them to look at them {x}; called the rocks of wild goats, because these creatures, called from hence "rupicaprae", or rock goats, see Job 39:1; delighted to be there; and are, as Pliny {y} says, of such prodigious swiftness, that they will leap from mountain to mountain, and back again at pleasure; these mountains David and his men chose for safety, and the height and craggedness of them did not deter Saul and his men from seeking him there.



{x} Adrichom Theatrum Terrae Sanct. p. 47. & Brocard. in ib. {y} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 53.





1 Samuel 24:3



Ver. 3. And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where [was] a cave,.... For the sheep to be led into at noon, to shelter them from the heat: such was the cave of Polyphemus, observed by Bochart {z}, in which sheep and goats lay down and slept; See Gill on "Zep 2:6";



and Saul went in to cover his feet; the Targum is, to do his necessaries; and so Josephus {a}; and the Jewish commentators generally understand it of easing nature; and as the eastern people used to wear long and loose garments, these, when they performed such an action, they used in modesty to gather them close about them, that no part of the body, their feet, and especially the parts of nature which should be concealed, might be seen; but the Syriac and Arabic versions render it, "and there he lay" or "slept"; which suggest, that his going into the cave was in order to take some sleep and rest, when it was usual to cover the feet, both to prevent taking cold, and the private parts of the body being exposed to view; and this accounts better for Saul not hearing David's men in the cave, and for his being insensible of David's cuttings off the skirt of his garment, and best agrees with the use of the phrase in Jud 3:24; the only place besides this in which it is used; See Gill on "Jud 3:24";



and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave; unseen and unobserved by Saul, even six hundred of them; nor need this seem strange, since in those parts of the world there were caves exceeding large, made so either by nature or art. Vansleb {b} speaks of a cave in Egypt so extraordinary large, that, without hyperbole, a thousand horses might there draw up in battle array, and of another larger than that; and Strabo says {c}, that towards Arabia and Iturea are mountains difficult to be passed, and in which are deep caves, one of which would hold four thousand men: and as the mouths of these caves were generally narrow, and the further parts of them large, and also dark, persons at the entrance of them could be seen, when those in the more remote parts could not; and this cave is said to be extremely dark {d}; which accounts for Saul's being seen when he came into the cave, whereas David and his men could not be seen by him.



{z} Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 45. col. 467, 468. {a} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 4. {b} Relation of a Voyage, p. 227. {c} Geograph. l. 16. p. 520. {d} Le Bruyn's Voyage to the Levant, ch. 51. p. 199.





1 Samuel 24:4



Ver. 4. And the men of David said unto him,.... Some of his principal men, who were about him, and near him, such as Joab and Abishai:



behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee: now the time was come that he spoke of to him by Samuel, or Gad, or to himself directly:



behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand; and such was Saul, as appeared by his seeking to take away his life; and now he was in the hand of David to take away his life, if he pleased:



that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee; an opportunity of this kind now offered:



then David arose; from that part of the cave in which he was, the further part of it:



and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily; unawares to him, and unobserved by him, which might be easily done, if Saul was asleep, and it is probable he was; and by the same way it may be accounted for that he did not hear the discourse that passed between David and his men.





1 Samuel 24:5



Ver. 5. And it came to pass afterward, that David's heart smote him,.... His conscience accused him, and he repented of what he had done:



because he had cut off Saul's skirt; which though less than what his servants put him upon, and he might have thoughts of doing, yet was considered by him as a great indignity to his sovereign, and therefore sat uneasy on his mind.





1 Samuel 24:6



Ver. 6. And he said unto his men,.... When he returned and brought the skirt of Saul's garment in his hand; or else he said this before that, though here mentioned, when they moved it to him to dispatch him, as he had a fair opportunity of doing it:



God forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed; and which he could not think of but with detestation and abhorrence, since he was his sovereign lord and master, and he a subject of his, and was anointed by the order of God, and his person sacred:



to stretch forth my hand against him; to take away his life; to cut off the skirt of his garment gave him uneasiness; but to slay him, the thought of it was shocking to him:



seeing he [is] the anointed of the Lord; anointed by Samuel to be king, 1Sa 10:1, by order of the Lord, 1Sa 9:17.





1 Samuel 24:7



Ver. 7. So David stayed his servants with these words,.... Or pacified them, as the Targum, and made them quiet and easy in that he had not slain him, and reconciled their minds to his conduct, and restrained them from laying hands on him, by observing to them, that he was the anointed of the Lord:



and suffered them not to rise against Saul; to take away his life; he not only argued with them, but laid his commands on them that they should not slay him:



but Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on [his] way; he rose from his sleep, and went out of the cave unhurt, and proceeded on in the way he came to the sheepcotes, and which led on further, 1Sa 24:3.





1 Samuel 24:8



Ver. 8. David also arose afterward,.... After Saul was gone:



and went out of the cave; where he had been all the time that Saul had been in it:



and cried after Saul: with a loud voice: my lord the king; by which titles Saul would know that he was called unto:



and when Saul looked behind him; to see who it was that called unto him:



David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed himself: giving reverence and honour to him as a king; See Gill on "1Sa 20:41".





1 Samuel 24:9



Ver. 9. And David said to Saul, wherefore hearest thou men's words,.... The false charges and accusations, that some of Saul's courtiers brought against David, as Doeg the Edomite, and such like sycophants and flatterers, to whom Saul hearkened, and believed what they said, and acted upon it. David chose rather to lay the blame on Saul's courtiers than on himself; and he began with him in this way, the rather to reconcile him to him, and cause him to listen to what he had to say: and represents them as



saying to him,



behold, David seeketh thy hurt? seeks to take away thy life, and seize upon thy crown and throne; than which nothing was more foreign from him.





1 Samuel 24:10



Ver. 10. Behold, this day thine eyes have seen,.... Or may see; there is full proof and evidence of it, and which will be presently shown:



how that the Lord had delivered thee today into mine hand in the cave; from whence they were both just come:



and [some] bade [me] kill thee; some of the men that were with David, some of his officers or principal friends put him upon it, having a fair opportunity, and thinking it no evil, since he was his enemy, and sought his life; or "it said, kill thee"; my heart prompted me to it, that said so at first, as Ben Gersom interprets it; some refer it to God, who in his providence said so, or so it might be understood by David, as if Providence directed him to it, by giving film such an opportunity of doing it:



but [mine eye] spared thee; had pity on him, and notwithstanding the suggestions of friends, and of his own heart at first, or the seeming direction of Providence, yet he had mercy on him, and forbore slaying him:



and I said, I will not put forth my hand against my lord; and king, whose subject I am:



for he [is] the Lord's anointed; the Lord has raised him to this dignity; invested him with the office of a king, and as such I regard him, and therefore have refrained mine hand from him, from hurting him,





1 Samuel 24:11



Ver. 11. Moreover, my father,.... So he was in a natural sense, as having married his daughter; and in a civil sense, as he was a king, and was, or ought to have been, the father of his country, and to treat his subjects as his children, and David among the rest:



see, yea see, the skirt of thy robe in my hand; look on it again and again; view it with the eyes of thy body intently, that thou mayest be satisfied of it, and behold with the eyes of thy mind and understanding, and consider that I could as easily have had thine head in my hand as the skirt of thy robe; and here see an instance and proof of the integrity and sincerity of my heart, and cordial affections to thee, and an evidence against all the charges and accusations of my enemies, and that I have no ill design upon thy person and life, and am far from seeking thy hurt, as they say:



for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not; not only did that to show that he was in his power, but did not cut off his head, as he could:



know thou, and see, that [there is] neither evil nor transgression in mine hand; this might be a full conviction to him that he had no ill, neither in his heart nor hand, to do unto him:



and I have not sinned against thee; done nothing to offend him, never acted against his will, nor disobeyed any of his commands, or had been guilty of one overt act of treason or rebellion, but all the reverse:



yet thou huntest my soul to take it; pursued him from place to place, hunted him in the wildernesses of Ziph and Maon, and upon the rocks of Engedi, as a partridge on the mountains, 1Sa 26:20; and lay in wait for him to kill him, as the Targum: he may be thought to have penned the "seventh" psalm at this time, or on this occasion; at least there are some passages in it, which seem to refer to his present circumstances, Ps 7:1.





1 Samuel 24:12



Ver. 12. The Lord judge between me and thee,.... And make it appear who is in the right, and who in the wrong:



and the Lord avenge me of thee; if he continued thus to persecute him:



but mine hand shall not be upon thee; to kill thee, though it may be in my power again to do it, as it has been; but this I am determined upon, let me suffer what I will, I will not lay hands on thee to do thee any hurt, but leave thee with God to requite all the evil done to me by thee.





1 Samuel 24:13



Ver. 13. As saith the proverb of the ancients,.... It is an old saying, has been long in use, and may be applied to the present case; or the "proverb of the ancient one"; of the oldest man, the first man Adam, and of all others after him, so Kimchi; or of the Ancient One of the world, the Ancient of days, the Lord himself; so in the Talmud {d}:



wickedness proceedeth from the wicked; as is a man, so are his actions; if he is a wicked man, he will do wicked things; a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruits, an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things; and as if David should say, if I had been the wicked man as I am represented, I should have committed wickedness; I should have made no conscience of taking away thy life when it was in my power; but my heart would not suffer me to do it:



but, or "and"



my hand shall not be upon thee; as it has not been upon thee, because of the fear of God in me, so neither shall it be hereafter: or the sense of the proverb may be, the wickedness that comes from a wicked man, that will kill him, or be the cause of his ruin, or he will be slain by wicked men such as himself; and this may be thy case, O king, unless thou repentest: but be that as it may, which I leave with the righteous Judge, this I am determined on, "mine hand shall not be upon thee"; to take away thy life.



{d} T. Bab. Maccot, fol. 10. 2.





1 Samuel 24:14



Ver. 14. After whom is the king of Israel come out?.... From his court and palace, with an army of men, and at the head of them:



after whom dost thou pursue? with such eagerness and fury:



after a dead dog; as David was in the opinion, and according to the representation of his enemies, a dog, vile, mean, worthless, of no account; a dead dog, whose name was made to stink through the calumnies cast upon him; and if a dead dog, then as he was an useless person, and could do no good, so neither could he do any hurt, not so much as bark, much less bite; and therefore it was unworthy of so great a prince, a lessening, a degrading of himself, as well as a vain and impertinent thing, to pursue after such an one, that was not worthy of his notice, and could do him neither good nor harm:



after a flea? a little contemptible animal, not easily caught, as it is observed by some, and when caught good for nothing. David, by this simile, fitly represents not only his weakness and impotence, his being worthless, and of no account, and beneath the notice of such a prince as Saul; but the circumstances he was in, being obliged to move from place to place, as a flea leaps from one place to another, and is not easily taken, and when it is, of no worth and value; signifying, that as it was not worth his pains to seek after him, so it would be to no purpose, he should not be able to take him.





1 Samuel 24:15



Ver. 15. The Lord therefore be Judge, and judge between me and thee,.... Signifying he did not desire to be judge in his own cause, but leave it with God to determine it for him in his providence:



and see, and plead my cause; look with pity upon him, take his cause in his hand, plead it, and do him justice:



and deliver me out of thine hand: which was a prayer of faith, believing he would do it in due time, see Ps 7:6.





1 Samuel 24:16



Ver. 16. And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul,.... And wonderful it is that Saul, so full of wrath and fury, and so eager of David's life, should stand still and hear him out, and not fall upon him; this must be owing to the restraining providence of God, and to the surprise Saul was in at the sight of David coming out of the cave, whom he expected not; and especially what awed and quieted him was the sight of the skirt of his robe in his hand, which was a sure token he had his life in his hand, and spared it, which made him listen attentively to all he said:



that Saul said, [is] this thy voice, my son David? he changes his language; before, when he spoke of David, it was only the so of Jesse now my son David, as he was by marriage to his daughter, and as appeared by his filial affection to him; and though he was at such a distance from him, that he was not able to discern his countenance, yet he knew his voice, at least supposed it to be his, as his question implies, and which he might conclude fro in the whole of his discourse:



and Saul lifted up his voice and wept; being affected with the kindness of David to him, and with his deliverance from the danger he was in, and yet without true repentance of his sins; for there may be many tears shed where there is no real repentance, as in the case of Esau.





1 Samuel 24:17



Ver. 17. And he said to David, thou [art] more righteous than I,.... By which it appears he thought himself righteous, though David was more so; the righteousness of David was so glaring, that his enemy himself being judge acknowledges it, but will not confess his own wickedness, having no true sense of sin, nor real sorrow for it:



for thou hast rewarded me good; in times past, and now; heretofore in killing Goliath, fighting his battles for him against the Philistines, driving the evil spirit from him, by playing on the harp before him, and now by sparing his life, only cutting off the skirt of his garment, when he could with equal ease have cut off his head:



whereas I have rewarded thee evil: in seeking to take away his life at various times, by casting a javelin at him more than once, sending messengers to kill him, and hunting after him from place to place, to take him and slay him.





1 Samuel 24:18



Ver. 18. And thou hast showed this day how that thou hast dealt well with me,.... The cutting off of the skirt of his robe only, when his life was in his hand, was a clear proof and full demonstration of his dealing well with him, and might sufficiently convince him he had no ill design upon him:



forasmuch as when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand, thou killedst me not; this was a plain proof and evidence of his kindness to him, which he owns, and also the providence of God in this affair, which had delivered him into the hands of David; by which he might see the Lord was for David, and against him, and might have deterred him from seeking David's hurt hereafter; but it did not.





1 Samuel 24:19



Ver. 19. For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away?.... Or "in a good way" {e}, in peace and safety, without doing him any hurt; this is not usual among men, and yet this was the present case; David had found his enemy Saul, which Saul tacitly owns, and yet had let him go well away from him, without hurting him:



wherefore the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day; he does not promise to reward him himself, but prays the Lord to reward him; and had he been sincere in it, he could not have done better for him. Some connect the former clause with this, after this manner, "if a man find his enemy, and let him go away, the Lord will reward him, the Lord reward thee", &c. so the Syriac and Arabic versions.



{e} hbwj Krdb "in via bona", Pagninus, Montanus.





1 Samuel 24:20



Ver. 20. And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king,.... Not merely by the common report, that he was anointed by Samuel, to which yet he might give credit; but by the providence of God prospering and preserving him, and by his princely spirit and behaviour, and by calling to mind what Samuel had said to him, that his kingdom should be given to a neighbour of his better than he, and so David was by his own confession, 1Sa 24:17; and the cutting off the skirt of his garment might put him in remembrance of the rending of the skirt of Samuel's mantle, upon which he told Saul his kingdom should be rent from him; though some think that was Saul's skirt, and so now he knew thereby, when David cut off his skirt, that the kingdom would be his; and it is a tradition of the Jews {f}, that Samuel said to him at that time, that he that cut off the skirt of his garment should reign after him:



and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand; and not be rent from him; and yet notwithstanding after this he sought to destroy him.



{f} Midrash Tillim apud Abarbinel. in loc.





1 Samuel 24:21



Ver. 21. Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord,.... By the Word of the Lord, as the, Targum:



that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me; as was usually done in despotic governments in the eastern countries, and is at this day, when one is advanced to the throne of another, by whom issue is left, who may be rivals and competitors with him:



and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house; by cutting off his seed, the same thing in different words repeated, for the confirmation of it; children bear the names of their fathers, and by them their memory is perpetuated, and cutting off them is destroying the name of their parents.





1 Samuel 24:22



Ver. 22. And David sware unto Saul,.... That he would not cut, off his posterity; which oath he religiously observed, in sparing Mephibosheth, 2Sa 21:7, and in punishing the murderers of Ishbosheth, 2Sa 4:12; and as for the seven sons of Saul, delivered up to the Gibeonites, 2Sa 21:6, it may be questioned whether they were his genuine legitimate offspring; and if they were, it was by the appointment and command of God, and according to his will and pleasure they were executed, who is not bound by the oaths of men, and to whom they must be submitted, 2Sa 21:1;



and Saul went home; to his palace in Gibeah:



but David and his men got them up unto the hold; in Engedi, 1Sa 23:29; not trusting to Saul, whose inconstancy, perfidy, cruel hatred, and malice, David full well knew; and therefore thought it not safe to return to his own house, nor to dwell in the open country, but in the wilderness, and among the rocks, and in the caves there, such as were in the wilderness of Engedi; and here, and at this time, he penned the fifty seventh psalm, see Ps 57:1.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Samuel 25:1



INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 25



This chapter gives an account of the death of Samuel, and of the ill treatment David met with from Nabal; it begins with the death of Samuel, which was greatly lamented in Israel, 1Sa 25:1; it draws the character of Nabal, and his wife, 1Sa 25:2; records a message of David to him, by his young men, desiring he would send him some of his provisions made for his sheep shearers, 1Sa 25:4; and Nabal's ill-natured answer to him reported by the young men, which provoked David to arm against him, 1Sa 25:10; and this being told Abigail, the wife of Nabal, and a good character given of David and his men, and of the advantage Nabal's shepherds had received from them, and the danger his family was in through his ingratitude, 1Sa 25:14; she prepared a present to pacify David, went with it herself, and addressed him in a very handsome, affectionate, and prudent manner, 1Sa 25:18; and met with a kind reception, 1Sa 25:32; and the chapter is closed with an account of the death of Nabal, and of the marriage of Abigail to David, 1Sa 25:32.



Ver. 1. And Samuel died,.... In the interval, when Saul and David were parted, and before they saw each other again; according to the Jewish chronology {g}, Samuel died four months before Saul; but other Jewish writers say {h} he died seven months before; Abarbinel thinks it was a year or two before; which is most likely and indeed certain, since David was in the country of the Philistines after this a full year and four months, if the true sense of the phrase is expressed in 1Sa 27:7; and Saul was not then dead; and so another Jewish chronologer {i} says, that Saul died two years after Samuel, to which agrees Clemens of Alexandria {k}; and according to the Jews {l}, he died the twentieth of Ijar, for which a fast was kept on that day:



and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him; his death being a public loss, not only to the college of the prophets, over which he presided, but to the whole nation; and they had reason to lament his death, when they called to mind, the many good offices he had done them from his youth upwards; and when the government was in his hands, which was administered in the most prudent and faithful manner; and after that they had his wise counsel and advice, his good wishes and prayers for them; and the rather they had reason to lament him, since Saul their king proved so bad as he did, and at this time a difference was subsisting between David and him:



and buried him in his house at Ramah; where he lived and died; not that he was buried in his house, properly so called, or within the walls of that building wherein he dwelt; though the Greeks {m} and Romans {n} used to bury in their own dwelling houses; hence sprung the idolatrous worship of the Lares, or household gods; but not the Hebrews, which their laws about uncleanness by graves would not admit of, see

Nu 19:15; but the meaning is, that they buried him in the place where his house was, as Ben Gersom interprets it, at Ramah, in some field or garden belonging to it. The author of the Cippi Hebraici says {o}, that here his father Elkanah, and his mother Hannah, and her two sons, were buried in a vault shut up, with, monuments over it; and here, some say {p}, Samuel's bones remained, until removed by Arcadius the emperor into Thrace; Benjamin of Tudela reports {q}, that when the Christians took Ramlah, which is Ramah, from the Mahometans, they found the grave of Samuel at Ramah by a synagogue of the Jews, and they took him out of the grave, and carried him to Shiloh, and there built a large temple, which is called the Samuel of Shiloh to this day:



and David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran; on hearing of the death of Samuel, there to indulge his mourning for him; or rather that he might be in greater safety from Saul, being further off, this wilderness lying on the south of the tribe of Judah, and inhabited by Arabs, and these called Kedarenes; and now it was that he dwelt in the tents of Kedar, Ps 120:5.



{g} Seder Olam Rabba, c. 13. p. 37. {h} In Kimchi & Abarbinel in loc. {i} Juchasin, fol. 11. 1. {k} Stromat. l. 1. p. 325. {l} Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 580. sect. 2. {m} Plato in Mino‰. {n} Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 6. p. mihi, (?) 1011. {o} P. 30. {p} Heldman apud Hottinger in ib. {q} Itinerar. p. 52.





1 Samuel 25:2



Ver. 2. And [there was] a man in Maon,.... A city of the tribe of Judah, from whence the wilderness had its name before mentioned; of which place, see Jos 15:55; though Ben Gersom takes it to signify a dwelling place; and that this is observed to show, that he did not dwell in a city, but had his habitation where his business lay, which was in Carmel, where his fields, gardens, and vineyards were: wherefore it follows,



whose possessions [were] in Carmel; not Carmel in the tribe of Issachar, but in the tribe of Judah, not far from Maon, and are mentioned together, See Gill on "Jos 15:55"; his cattle were there, his sheep particularly, for they are afterwards said to be shorn there; or "his work" {r}; his agriculture, his farming, where he was employed, or employed others in sowing seed, and planting trees:



and the man [was] very great; in worldly substance, though not in natural wisdom and knowledge, and especially in true religion and piety:



and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats; so the substance of men in those times was generally described by the cattle they had, whether of the herd or flock, in which it chiefly lay:



and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel; which was the custom in Judea and Syria, and was a very ancient one, as early as the times of Judah, yea, of Laban, see Ge 31:19; though the old Romans used to pluck off the wool from the sheep's backs; hence a fleece of wool was called "vellus [a] vellendo", from the plucking it off; and Pliny says {s}, in his time, that sheep were not shorn everywhere, but in some places the custom of plucking off the wool continued; and who elsewhere observes {t}, that the time of shearing was in June or July, or thereabouts; at which times a feast was made, and it is for the sake of that this is observed.



{r} whvem "opus ejus", Montanus, Vatablus; "eujus opus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. {s} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 48. {t} Ibid. l. 18. c. 27.





1 Samuel 25:3



Ver. 3. Now the name of the man [was] Nabal,.... Which signifies a "fool"; one would think his parents should not give him this name, though it is a name proper enough to men in common; and Kimchi thinks this was a nickname, which men gave him agreeably to his genius and conduct, and which is not improbable:



and the name of his wife Abigail; which signifies "my father's joy", he delighting in her for her wit and beauty, as follows:



and [she was] a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance; she was not only of a good understanding in things natural, civil, and domestic, but in things spiritual, as her speech to David shows, and which, with her external form, completed her character, and greatly recommended her; which is the character Aelianus {u} gives of Aspasia, wise and fair:



but the man [was] churlish and evil in his doings; morose and ill natured in the temper and disposition of his mind, and wicked in his conversation, and fraudulent and oppressive in his dealings with men:



and he [was] of the house of Caleb; or he was a Calebite {w}, a descendant of that great and good man Caleb the son of Jephunneh; which was an aggravation of his wickedness, that he should be the degenerate plant of such a noble vine: some interpret it, he was as his heart, as his heart was bad, so was he; some men, their outside is better than their inside; but this man was no hypocrite, he was as bad outwardly as he was inwardly: the word "Caleb" sometimes signifies a dog; hence the Septuagint version renders it, a doggish man, a cynic; and to the same purpose are the Syriac and Arabic versions; and so some Jewish writers interpret it; but the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, supply it as we do, that he was of the house or family of Caleb, and so of the tribe of Judah, as David was.



{u} Var. Hist. l. 12. c. 1. {w} wblk "keri" yblk "Calibita", Pagninus, Montanus; "Calebita" Tigurine version, Junius & Tremcilius, Piscator.





1 Samuel 25:4



Ver. 4. And David heard in the wilderness,.... In the wilderness of Paran, where he was, and a wilderness it was to him, being in want of food, as the following relation shows:



that Nabal did shear his sheep; when there was generally good living, and so a proper person, and a proper time, for David to apply for the relief of his wants.





1 Samuel 25:5



Ver. 5. And David sent out ten young men,.... Such persons, and such a number of them, he sent to show honour and reverence to Nabal:



and David said, unto the young men, get ye up to Carmel; which lay higher than the wilderness, in which he was:



and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name; ask him of his peace and welfare, as the Targum; wish all health and happiness in my name, present my service and best respects to him.





1 Samuel 25:6



Ver. 6. And thus shall ye say to him that liveth [in prosperity],.... That lives, while others, as David and his men, might be rather said to starve than live; they lived in great meanness, but he in great abundance, and therefore in a capacity to give to others, and particularly to relieve them: or the sense is, they should say to him, "thus" shall it be, or may it be "for life": for the time of life, for the year to come; at this time next year, at next sheep shearing, mayest thou be in as great prosperity then as now, and even all the days of thy life:



peace [be] both to thee, and peace [be] to thine house, and peace [be] unto all that thou hast; that is, all prosperity to thy person in soul and body, to thy family, wife, children and servants, and let the same attend thy estate, cattle, farms, fields, vineyards, and all that belong to thee; and wish for a blessing on him, and his, and all that were his, or he had; a more extensive one could not well be made.





1 Samuel 25:7



Ver. 7. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers,.... Men employed in shearing his sheep, which was a time of feasting and gladness, and therefore David sent his young men to him at this time with his compliments upon it; and in order to obtain what he intended by this message to him, he observes the favours he and his men had done to his servants, and the advantages which they had received from them:



now thy shepherds which were with us; feeding their sheep near the wilderness of Paran, which was not far from Carmel and Maon:



we hurt them not; by taking any of their sheep and lambs from them, or by abusing, beating them, or giving them ill language; or "did not put them to shame" {x}, by denying them anything they asked of them, which was in their power to grant, nor mocked and scoffed at them, and jeered them on account of their occupation:



neither was there ought missing unto them; they did not steal a sheep or lamb from them, as was common for soldiers to do; nor did they suffer any of the Arabs, that dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, to rob them, who lived upon plunder, or any of the wild beasts to hurt them, as much as in them lay; so careful were they of them, and were a wall unto them by night and day, as Nabal's servants owned, 1Sa 25:16; and this was the case,



all the while they were in Carmel; or in the fields, 1Sa 25:15; which were joining to the wilderness of Paran.



{x} Mwnmlkh al "non affecimus verccundia eos", Montanus; so some in Vatablus.





1 Samuel 25:8



Ver. 8. Ask thy young men, and they will show thee,.... The shepherds before mentioned, who kept their flocks hard by them:



wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes; the ten young men David sent to Nabal:



for we are come in a good day; a day in which Nabal made a feast for his shearers, as was usual then, and still is, see 2Sa 13:23; and at such times as persons are generally cheerful and merry, so free and liberal, and as there were plenty of provisions, not only enough for the guests and shearers, but to spare, and there was no need for an increase of expense, it might upon the whole be concluded it was a proper time for David to apply for accommodations for himself and his men:



give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants,

and to thy son David; he did not request anything extraordinary of him, or to put him to any expense, but what was at hand, and he could spare, he prayed him to deliver to the young men he sent, for their use, and the use of other his servants, and particularly David, who styled himself his son, being of the same tribe with Nabal, and Nabal his senior.





1 Samuel 25:9



Ver. 9. And when David's young men came,.... To Carmel:



they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David; they delivered their message punctually and exactly, in the very words, or however according to the purport of them, in David's name, as he enjoined them:



and ceased: from speaking, waiting for Nabal's answer; or "they rested" {y}, from the fatigues of their journey; which they did not until they had delivered their message to Nabal, and then they took the liberty to sit down and rest themselves; but the former sense seems best, and is preferred by Maimonides {z}.



{y} wxwnyw "et quieverunt", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster. {z} Moreh Nevochim par. 1. c. 67.





1 Samuel 25:10



Ver. 10. And Nabal answered David's servants, and said,.... In a very haughty manner, in great wrath, just as churlish covetous persons do, when they do not care to give what is asked of them:



who [is] David? and who [is] the son of Jesse; his two questions, which relate to the same person, do not well agree together, since by both he would suggest as if he knew not the person they came from, and whose name they made use of: had he stopped at the first question, it might have gone so, but his second question betrays him, and plainly shows he did know him, though he speaks with contempt of him, calling him "the son of Jesse", as Saul often did, 1Sa 20:27. Abarbinel, of all interpreters, is of opinion only, that Nabal did not say this disrespectfully of David, and to his dishonour; he knew he was the Lord's anointed, and the king's son-in-law; but the sense, according to him, is, "who [is] David? and who [is] the son of Jesse?" are they not one man? but though he is the son of Jesse, and prides himself saying, I shall be king, I should not regard that, but would send him corn, and bread, and food, as much as is needful for his own use; but what can I do when there are so many servants? for they are six hundred of them, and they are too many to relieve:



there be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master; which words also the same writer thinks have no reference to David, only to his men; but they seem plainly to strike at David himself, and suggest that he had revolted from and rebelled against Saul his master, as well as received and protected fugitives and renegades, such as fled from their masters and from their creditors; see 1Sa 22:2.





1 Samuel 25:11



Ver. 11. Shall I then take my bread, and my water,.... Which include all food and liquors, everything eatable and drinkable; and "water" may be particularly mentioned, because very scarce in the wilderness, and so precious; though the Septuagint version has "wine" instead of "water":



and my flesh which I have killed for my shearers; whether oxen, or sheep, or lambs, as there might be of each sort, for an entertainment made on such an occasion:



and give [it] unto men whom I know not whence they [be]? which is another argument Abarbinel makes use of that he meant not David, but his men only, because he did not know who and from whence they were.





1 Samuel 25:12



Ver. 12. So David's young men turned their way,.... Their backs on him, without making any reply; and though they did not return railing for railing, they treated him with silent contempt; and though they did not offer to do any injury to his person, nor to take anything away by force, yet they were determined to report this usage to David, who they doubted not would avenge the affront put on him and them:



and went again; to the wilderness from whence they came:



and came and told him all these sayings; rude and reproachful ones, just as they were delivered.





1 Samuel 25:13



Ver. 13. And David said unto his men,.... Provoked to the last degree to have such a rude churlish answer returned to such a civil and humble message as he had sent:



gird you on every man his sword; and prepare to march and chastise Nabal for his insolence:



and they girded on every man his sword; in obedience to David, and in vindication of his honour and their own:



and David also girded on his sword; in order to march at the head of them, fired with indignation at the affront given him:



and there went up after David about four hundred men; out of the six hundred he had with him, 1Sa 23:13;



and two hundred abode by the stuff; the baggage in their camp; the Targum is, they



"were left to watch the vessels;''



the things necessary for their use, for the dressing of their food, their bedding, &c.





1 Samuel 25:14



Ver. 14. But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife,.... Not one of David's young men, as what follows shows, but one of Nabal's young men or servants, one of those David directs him to for the truth of what he said, 1Sa 25:8; this was one of those that had been employed in feeding sheep in the wilderness, where David was, and knew him, but was now at Carmel, and was present when David's messengers came to Nabal, and was privy to what passed:



saying, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; in a very kind and handsome manner, to ask of his peace and welfare, and to wish him all happiness and prosperity; or "masters" {y} master and mistress, including both Nabal and Abigail:



and he railed on them; gave them very abusive language, represented David and his men as a parcel of scoundrels, fugitives, and runaway servants, 1Sa 25:10; or "he flew at them" {z}; or "upon" them, in great wrath and fury, calling them hard names, bidding them begone about their business; the allusion is to a ravenous bird, which will fly at persons when it apprehends its young in any danger.



{y} wnynda "dominus nostros", Malvenda. {z} Mhb jeyw "et involavit in eos", Coccei Lex. col. 607.





1 Samuel 25:15



Ver. 15. But the men [were] very good unto us,.... Very kind and civil, yea, very useful and serviceable, even all the messengers David sent and Nabal railed on, yea, all David's men, and therefore deserved better treatment than they met with from Nabal:



and we were not hurt; neither by them nor others:



neither missed we anything: of our flocks, or anything belonging to us; they neither robbed us themselves, nor suffered others to rob us:



as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields; feeding the sheep by them: thus he confirms everything that David said of himself and his men, See Gill on "1Sa 25:7": and says even more of them to their commendation, as follows.





1 Samuel 25:16



Ver. 16. They were a wall unto us both by night and day,.... Protecting and defending them against the Philistines, who, as they robbed the threshing floors of Keilah, would have plundered the flocks of Nabal; or it may be rather against the incursions of the Arabs in the wilderness of Paran, the posterity of Ishmael, who lived by plunder, and against the wild beasts of the desert, who otherwise would have carried off many of their sheep and lambs, by night or by day:



all the while we were with them keeping the sheep; all which showed how reasonable it was that Nabal should have used them well, and given them a portion of his entertainment at his sheep shearing; for had it not been for them, he would not have had so many sheep to shear as he had.





1 Samuel 25:17



Ver. 17. Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do,.... For the preservation of her family:



for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household; which he concluded, either from something that dropped from David's messengers, as they turned away from Nabal; or from the martial spirit of David himself, who would never put up such an affront and indignity cast upon him; or from some intelligence he had of David's arming his men, and marching to take vengeance:



for he [is such] a son of Belial, that [a man] cannot speak to him; meaning Nabal, who was such a worthless, passionate, and ill natured man, such a lawless and imperious one, that he would not suffer a man to speak to him about anything; and it was to no purpose to attempt it, which was a reason this servant did not choose to speak to him about this affair, but to Abigail; and suggests, that it would signify nothing for her to speak to him about it, but it would be most advisable for her to consider with herself what was to be done immediately, without consulting him: the words may be rendered, "for he is a son of Belial that speaks unto him" {a}; or when "he speaks unto him", or it is told him; meaning not the servant that reported to David what Nabal said; for Abarbinel observes there were ten of them, and therefore it could not be said of them, he is a son of Belial; but rather David himself, as he and Kimchi observe it may be interpreted of; that though he was so good and upright a man, yet when it should be told him how Nabal had treated him, he would be so provoked at it, that he would become and act like a son of Belial; storm and rage, and vow destruction to Nabal and his family, and come out with his whole army to destroy them; but the first sense is best.



{a} wyla rbdm "loquens ad cum".





1 Samuel 25:18



Ver. 18. Then Abigail made haste,.... As the case required, her family being in imminent danger:



and took two hundred loaves; of bread; of what size or weight they were is not said; though it may be reasonably concluded they were pretty large, since they are not called cakes, but loaves, and since they were to be a present to David and his men, who were numerous:



and two bottles of wine; not such as ours are, which would have borne no proportion to the rest of the provision; but these were leathern bags which held a large quantity, in which they put and carried wine in those times and countries; the Septuagint version is, two vessels or casks of wine:



and five sheep ready dressed; killed and dressed by the butcher, or made ready by the cook, boiled or roasted; the word which the Targum uses, according to the interpretation of Jarchi, from one of their Rabbins, signifies such as were stuffed with small pieces of meat, and eggs in them, or, as it should seem, made into pastries:



and five measures of parched [corn]; or five seahs, a measure which held, according to Bishop Cumberland {b}, two wine gallons, four bottles, and a little more; of this parched corn, See Gill on "1Sa 17:17"; where mention is made of an ephah of it; and the Septuagint version has the same measure here, and calls them five ephahs of flour:



and an hundred clusters of raisins; or dried grapes, as the Targum; the Septuagint is, one omer of them, which was the tenth part of an ephah:



and two hundred cakes of figs; which were dried, and pressed, and made into lumps, and she took two hundred of these; or, as the Targum, two hundred pound weight of them:



and laid [them] on asses; one not being sufficient to carry all this provision.



{b} Of Scripture Weights and Measures, ch. 3. p. 86.





1 Samuel 25:19



Ver. 19. And she said to her servants, go on before me,.... With the present, the sight of which she wisely considered would in a great measure pacify David, and prepare him to hear patiently what she had to say to him:



behold, I come after you; signifying it would not be long before she came up to them, and overtook them:



but she told not her husband Nabal; neither the danger he and his family were in through his conduct, nor the preparations she had made to prevent it; knowing his perverse and obstinate disposition, that it would take up too much time to reason with him, and persuade him, and bring him into proper measures; and which may be observed to excuse the conduct of Abigail in doing what she did, and taking and disposing of her husband's gods, without his knowledge and leave; the case required haste, and it was done to preserve him and his family from imminent ruin; and besides, he might not be in a fit condition to be spoken to, being drunk with passion, or with wine, or both, see 1Sa 25:36; and no doubt she was directed by the Spirit of God to do what she did; and this being an extraordinary case, is not to be drawn into an example.





1 Samuel 25:20



Ver. 20. And it was [so, as] she rode on the ass,.... After her servants:



that she came down, by the covert of the hill; by the side of it, which was covered with bushes, and she rode among them, in a way that led through them, and so was not seen by David and his men; or by the shadow of the hill, toward the bottom of it, where by reason of that, and the opposite hill, it was darkish, and they could not see each other:



and, behold, David and his men came down against her; came down a hill opposite to that she came down:



and she met them; in the valley between two hills.





1 Samuel 25:21



Ver. 21. Now David had said,.... When the messengers returned and told him how they had been used by Nabal; or he "said" {c}, or was saying within himself, or to his men, what follows, just as Abigail met him:



surely in vain have I kept all that this [fellow] hath in the wilderness; which shows that lie was in a violent passion, and had Nabal in the utmost contempt and indignation, in that he mentions not his name, only says "this", this man or follow; leaving a blank to be filled up with the most ignominious name and character that could be thought of; and repents that he had taken so much care of his flocks when they were feeding by him in the wilderness:



so that nothing was missed of all that [pertained] unto him; and seems to have wished he had suffered his flocks to have been robbed by the Arabs, or worried by wild beasts, since he had been such an ungrateful wretch to him:



and he hath requited me evil for good; he had requited evil to him by denying to send him any of his provisions, and by abusing him and his men with opprobrious language; and this was done in return for the good deeds he had done in protecting his servants and his flocks in the wilderness, and for the good words and respectful message he had sent unto him.



{c} rma "ait", V. L. "dixit", Pagninus, Montanus; "dicebat", Vatablus.





1 Samuel 25:22



Ver. 22. So and more also do God unto the enemies of David,.... Give them as much health and prosperity, as much wealth and riches, as Nabal has, and much more:



if I leave of all that [pertain] to him, by the morning light, any that pisseth against the wall; which is generally understood of a dog, that he, would not leave him so much as a dog: but it is better, with Ben Gersom, to interpret it of the males in his house, himself, his sons, and servants; and so the Targum paraphrases it of reasonable creatures, of such



"that know knowledge,''



or are knowing and understanding creatures; it seems to have been towards the evening; of the day when David was marching towards Nabal's house, designing to fall upon him and his, amidst their jollity that night, and cut them all off before morning. This must be imputed to the sudden and violent passion David was thrown into when off his guard, through the necessity he was in, the disappointment he met with, and the opprobrious language he was treated with; but in this his conduct was not as it used to be, and as it was towards Saul his enemy. Nor is his rage and passion to be vindicated, or the rash vow he made to destroy Nabal and his family; his crime, though great, yet not to be published with death; his ingratitude and insolence deserved resentment, but were not capital crimes worthy of death, and especially of the destruction of his whole family; the Jews indeed make him to be guilty of treason, in that he knew that David was anointed king, and yet both abused him, and disobeyed his commands, and therefore being guilty of overt acts of treason, he and his were deserving of death; but David was not yet king.





1 Samuel 25:23



Ver. 23. And when Abigail saw David,.... Whom she either knew personally, or rather supposed who he was by the number of men that followed him:



she hasted, and alighted off the ass; on which she rode:



and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground; in respect to, and reverence of, so great a person as David was.





1 Samuel 25:24



Ver. 24. And fell at his feet,.... As an humble supplicant, having a favour to ask of him; it is very probable David was on foot:



and said, upon me, my lord, [upon] me [let] this iniquity [be]; which her husband had been guilty of; she desires it might be transferred from him to her, and be reckoned as if done by her; she would have it imputed to herself, and all the blame lie upon her, and the punishment for it be inflicted on her; for iniquity may be put for the punishment of iniquity: this was very artfully said, as well as expressed great affection for her husband, and care of his life; for she knew, if she could get the fault removed from him to her, she would be able to vindicate herself, and her innocence would soon appear; nor would this strong affection for her husband fail of answering some good purpose, as she full well knew:



and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience and hear the words of thine handmaid: as it was but reasonable she should be heard, since she stood now as the criminal, taking all the blame of her husband's conduct on herself.





1 Samuel 25:25



Ver. 25. Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial,

[even] Nabal,.... He is a worthless man, it must be owned, a weak foolish man, rather to be despised than regarded by him; what either he says or does is unworthy of the notice of any, and much less of so great a person as David was:



for as his name [is], so [is] he; his natural disposition, genius, and conduct, agree with his name; when anyone knows his name, he may judge what is to be expected from him:



Nabal [is] his name: which signifies a fool:



and folly, in Hebrew, "Nebalah",



[is] with him; attends all, his words and actions. This character of her husband, though no doubt a just one, yet it would not have been right in her to have given it, whose folly she should rather have concealed, but that it was his well known character; and she observes it not to reproach him with it, but to excuse his sin, his rudeness and ingratitude and preserve his life; and suggests that what he had done was not to be imputed to malice in his heart, but to his stupidity and folly, and so not to be regarded, and was not a peculiar single action of his, but what he was daily more or less guilty of; his folly was with him wherever he went and appeared in everything he said or did, and therefore to be overlooked and despised:



but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send: as she had taken the blame upon herself, now she answers for herself, and pleads ignorance of his messengers, and their message; she had not so much as seen them with her eyes, and much less heard their message when reported; had she, she would have taken care, she intimates, that it should have been attended to; having so much interest in her husband, that she could have prevailed on him to have used them with civility, and granted their request.





1 Samuel 25:26



Ver. 26. Now therefore, my lord, [as] the Lord liveth, and [as] thy soul liveth,.... Which is an oath, and respects either what goes before, that she never saw the young men that were sent to Nabal, or to what follows, the providence of God in preventing David from shedding blood, which she was sure of by an impulse on her own mind, and by observing a change in David's countenance:



seeing the Lord hath withholden thee from coming to [shed] blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand; she does not impute this to her prudence, and the provision she made to appease David, and prevent him from shedding the blood he intended, and taking the vengeance he had resolved on; but to the Lord, and the interposition of his providence, which she knew would have its weight on the mind of so good a man as David was; who upon reflection would be thankful that he had been prevented from shedding innocent blood, as the Targum calls it:



now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal; meaning Saul and those with him, wishing they might be as inconsiderable as Nabal; as unable, as weak, and impotent as he to do him any hurt, and as short lived, and cut off by the hand God, as he would be; for, according to Jarchi, she prophesied under the direction of the Holy Spirit. It may be observed that in 1Sa 25:24, she frequently gives David the title of "my lord", in reverence of him, and to atone for the rudeness and insolence of her husband, in speaking of him as a runaway servant, 1Sa 25:10.





1 Samuel 25:27



Ver. 27. And now this blessing, which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord,.... The present, consisting of the things mentioned in

1Sa 25:18; which came as a blessing from God, and with good will from her:



let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord; the servants of David: in the original it is, "that walk at the feet of my lord": and which the Targum paraphrases, "who minister before my lord"; and so Abigail's damsels are called "pedissequae", or "that walked at her feet", 1Sa 25:42; and with the Romans, in later times, servants were called a "pedibus" and "pedissequi" {d}. This also is very artfully said, as if the present was not good enough for David, and worthy of his acceptance; might be agreeable to his men, and of service to them.



{d} Vid. Pignorium de Servis, p. 140, 248, 293.





1 Samuel 25:28



Ver. 28. I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid,.... The trespasses, as the Targum, either the sin of her husband, she had taken upon herself, or her boldness in troubling him with her petitions and solicitations, and even with the present she had brought:



for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house; or a firm kingdom, as the Targum; would raise him to the kingdom of Israel, and establish it in his posterity, that it should not be taken from him, as it would be from Saul:



because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord; the battles of the people of the Lord, as the Targum, of the people of Israel against the Philistines; which he had often done with success, the Lord being with him, and prospering him and therefore would firmly settle him on the throne, and continue the kingdom in his posterity:



and evil hath not been found in thee [all] thy days; no unjust action had been committed by him against his king and country, however he had been reproached and calumniated; and she hoped that therefore none would be done by him now to stain so fair a character.





1 Samuel 25:29



Ver. 29. Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul,.... His life, to take it away, meaning Saul, whom she chose not to name, because he was king:



but the soul of my lord shall be bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; should be dear unto the Lord, precious in his esteem, and be carefully preserved by him, among other his chosen ones, and should be safe with him, in his hands, and under his care and keeping; the Jews refer this to eternal life in the world to come, and the safety and security of his soul hereafter; so the Targum,



"the soul of my lord shall be treasured up in the treasury of eternal life, before the Lord thy God:''



hence they speak of the souls of the righteous being laid up under the throne of glory {e}, in proof of which they produce this text; and so Maimonides {f} understands it of what should be after death, see Re 6:9;



and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, [as out] of the middle of a sling; that is, remove them swiftly and suddenly, and with force, out of the world, as a stone is slung out of the middle of a sling; see Jer 10:18.



{e} T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 152. 2. {f} Moreh Nevochim, par. 1. c. 41.





1 Samuel 25:30



Ver. 30. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee,.... Performed his promise, especially with respect to his kingdom, as follows:



and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel; that is, actually raised him to be, and settled him as king upon the throne of Israel; for he was both appointed and anointed already; and this Abigail knew, and was now well known in Israel, and the common talk of the people.





1 Samuel 25:31



Ver. 31. This shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord,.... It would give him no trouble, nor distress of mind, or sit uneasy on his conscience:



either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself; which she suggests it might do, if he had shed the blood of Nabal's family, his children and servants, who were no ways concerned with him in his rudeness and ingratitude; or had avenged himself on him for the same, by taking away his life, which such crimes, however great and aggravated, did not deserve; but, on the contrary, it would be a satisfaction and pleasure to him to reflect upon it, that he had passed over such an offence, and shed no blood on account of it:



but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord; by delivering him out of the hands of all his enemies, and have raised him to, and settled him on the throne of Israel, of which she made no doubt:



then remember thine handmaid; the advice she gave not to shed blood, and take vengeance, for which he would then be thankful, and gratefully remember: some, as Ben Gersom, think she said this under a spirit of prophecy, that Nabal should die quickly, and she should be David's wife; but rather her meaning is, that when he should be king, and she should apply to him on any account, to have justice done her, and to be assisted and relieved when oppressed, that he would then remember her, and show her favour.





1 Samuel 25:32



Ver. 32. And David said to Abigail,.... Having heard her out, and being overcome with her rhetoric and powerful arguments:



blessed [be] the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; who put it into her heart to come out and meet him, and endeavour to avert him from his bad design, which his heart was set upon; he saw plainly the hand of God in it, and in the first place acknowledges the goodness of divine Providence, in directing her to take the step she did.





1 Samuel 25:33



Ver. 33. And blessed [be] thy advice,.... Thanks be to God, and to thee for it, being wise, good, and seasonable; or "thy taste" {g}, thy good sense, knowledge, as the Targum, discretion, prudence, and understanding:



and blessed [be] thou which hast kept me this day from coming to [shed] blood; he came out with a full resolution to shed the blood of Nabal, and of all the males in his house, but was stopped by Abigail; who by her arguments so prevailed upon him as to cause him to desist from his design, and thankful he was to God for it; for though he had vowed he would destroy Nabal and his family, yet being a rash sinful vow, he saw it was better to break it than to keep it:



and from avenging myself with mine own hand; which to do would have been sinful, vengeance only belonging to God; and now he leaves it to him, and is very thankful that he was prevented doing it himself.



{g} Kmej "sapor tuus", Piscator; "discretio tua", Montanus.





1 Samuel 25:34



Ver. 34. For in very deed, [as] the Lord God of Israel liveth,.... An oath for the confirmation of what he was about to say:



which hath kept me back from hurting thee: from doing any ill to her family, as he intended, though not to her person, his resolution being only to slay the males; but that would have been an hurt, an evil, an affliction to Abigail, from which the Lord in his providence restrained him, and that through her good advice:



except thou hadst hasted, and come to meet me: if she had not made quick dispatch in preparing her present, or had stayed to persuade her husband into her measures; if she had delayed a little longer, David would have been at Nabal's house, executing his vengeance on him and his:



surely there had not been left unto Nabal, by the morning light, any that pisseth against the wall: See Gill on "1Sa 25:22".





1 Samuel 25:35



Ver. 35. So David received of her hand [that] which she had brought him,.... Her present, 1Sa 25:18; and which he kindly took for his own use, as well as for his men; for it was a present for a prince:



and said to her, go up in peace to thine house; in peace of mind, having her request granted, and nothing to fear from David and his men, and so might return home with the greatest safety in her own person, with those that were with her, and be under no apprehensions of danger and destruction to Nabal and his family:



see, I have hearkened to thy voice; to her arguments and reasonings, which were powerful; to her petitions, which were granted; and to her good counsel and advice, which he took:



and have accepted thy person: done as she desired, forgave the offence, and so lifted her up, as the word signifies, and made her countenance cheerful; received her present kindly, and took well all she said and did; and promised to grant her, for the future, anything that lay in his power, whenever she should apply to him, see Job 42:8.





1 Samuel 25:36



Ver. 36. And Abigail came to Nabal,.... Having sped with David, and taken her leave of him, she returned home to her husband Nabal:



and, behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king; both for the number of dishes on his table and of guests at it though only on the account of sheep shearing; but very probably there were others that were invited to this entertainment besides the shearers; covetous men are generally very profuse when they make feasts:



and Nabal's heart [was] merry within him, for he [was] very drunken: which was a very ill example for the master of the feast to set, and was one instance among others of his folly, and of his conduct answering to his name:



wherefore she told him nothing less or more until the morning light; where she had been, and what she had been about, the danger that he and the whole family were in through his rude and churlish behaviour towards David and his men, and how she had prevented it by a timely application to David, meeting him when in full march, and in a great passion, and with a firm resolution to destroy him and his; but finding Nabal in such a condition, bereaved of his reason, and incapable of attending to what she should say, said not one word about it till the next morning.





1 Samuel 25:37



Ver. 37. But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal,.... When he had slept, and was become sober, and so capable of attending to and understanding what might be related to him:



and his wife had told him these things; recorded in this chapter, before observed:



that his heart died within him, and he became [as] a stone; he swooned away, became as cold as a stone, and remained as senseless, spoke not a word, but lay in a stupor; the Jewish writers generally say this was occasioned by the distress and uneasiness the present his wife carried to David gave him; but it is more likely the sense of the danger that was impressed upon his mind, which he had been exposed to through his carriage to David and his men; who, he feared, notwithstanding all his wife said would return and take vengeance on him.





1 Samuel 25:38



Ver. 38. And it came to pass, about ten days [after],.... After he had lain in this stupid and senseless manner for ten days:



that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died; with some disease or increased the grief of his heart, and the fears of his mind that he died therewith.





1 Samuel 25:39



Ver. 39. And when David heard that Nabal was dead,.... As he soon might, Maon and Carmel not being far from the wilderness where David was:



he said, blessed [be] the Lord, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal; not that he rejoiced at the death of Nabal, simply considered, or from a private spirit of revenge; but because of the glory of divine justice, which he had shown to him in vindicating him from the reproach Nabal had cast upon him, and particularly was thankful for what follows;



and hath kept his servant from evil; from slaying Nabal with his own hand, and doing hurt to his family:



for the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head; and upon no other, none of his family suffered but himself, and which was another cause of thankfulness to David; had he been suffered to have done as he in his wrath determined, not only Nabal, but all the males in his house, had been cut off; but now, through the righteous judgment of God, only Nabal suffered, and not any of his family:



and David sent and communed with Abigail; by his messengers to her; or "concerning" her {h}, about marrying her:



to take her to him to wife; for being both a beautiful and wise woman, he thought her a proper person to be his wife; which she might lawfully become, Nabal being dead, and Michal, David's wife, being taken from him, and given to another man, with whom she lived in adultery; or as divorced by David, as the Jews say, David by the law of God was free from her. These messengers were sent by David at a convenient time, at a proper distance from the death of Nabal; and he chose rather to send messengers than to go himself, lest being denied he should be put to shame, she being a rich widow, and he a poor persecuted man, and that her answer might be entirely free and unawed by him, and that it might appear that she was not taken to him by force; and besides, such a method has been always reckoned most honourable with great personages.



{h} lygybab peri abigaiav, Sept. "de Abigail", Vatabulus.





1 Samuel 25:40



Ver. 40. And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel,.... For though Nabal lived in Maon, yet having possessions in Camel, he had no doubt an house there also; and here Abigail was, and perhaps chose to be after his death, rather than at Maon:



they spake unto her; delivered the message to her they were sent with by David:



saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife; that is, to treat with her about his marriage to her, to propose it to her, and, if they could prevail upon her, to bring her with them, that David might espouse her.





1 Samuel 25:41



Ver. 41. And she arose, and bowed herself on [her] face to the earth,.... As she did before David, 1Sa 25:23; and did as she would have done had he been present, considering his messengers as representing him and therefore showed the same respect and reverence and did the same honour, as if he had been there in person:



and said; expressed herself in such language as if David had been before her:



behold, [let] thine handmaid [be] a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord; which she said through her great humility, this being one of the meanest services she could be put to; intimating, that she was so far from being worthy to be the wife of such a man that she was only fit and it would be honour enough to her to perform the meanest services to those that waited upon him; or her sense is that it would be enough for her to be the wife of one of David's servants, and not his; it being the business of a wife, as Ben Gersom observes to wash the feet of her husband.





1 Samuel 25:42



Ver. 42. And Abigail hasted and arose,.... She had no objection nor hesitation in her mind about marrying David but at once consented, and immediately prepared for her journey, having as high an opinion, and as great an esteem of David, as he of her; and though she was rich and he peer this was no obstacle in the way, she knew and believed he would be king of Israel, 1Sa 25:30; and though he could not support her, she had enough to support herself, and supply him, till he came to the throne: and



rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; whom she took with her, partly to wait upon her, and partly for her honour, and the honour of David, whom she was going to marry:



and she went after the messengers of David: not following them directly, but some time after they were gone; partly for the sake of decency, and partly that they going before might acquaint David with the success of their message, and he might prepare to receive Abigail when she came:



and became his wife; he espoused and married her according to the custom of the times.





1 Samuel 25:43



Ver. 43. And David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel,.... A city in the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:56; that is, he took her to wife, and as it seems before Abigail became his wife; see 2Sa 3:2;



and they were also both of them his wives; polygamy, though not agreeably to the law of nature, nor the law of God, was a custom which prevailed in those times, which good men gave into, though not to be commended for it.





1 Samuel 25:44



Ver. 44. But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti the son of Laish,.... Or "for Saul", &c. {i}; which is a reason for his marrying again, but no reason for marrying more wives than one. Michal was his first wife, and they lived lovingly together, until David was obliged to flee from Saul, and then he gave her to another; partly to vex David, and partly if he could to break the relation between him and David, that he might not be thought to be his son in law, and he to persecute one in such a relation to him; and that this might not give David any show of claim, or be the means of his rising to the throne. This Phalti, to whom he gave her, is called Phaltiel, 2Sa 3:15;



which [was] of Gallim; which very probably was a city in the tribe of Benjamin, since it is mentioned with several cities of that tribe, and as near Gibeah of Saul, Isa 10:29.



{i} lwavw "Saul enim", Tigurine version; "nam Saul", Junius & Tremcillius, Piscator; so Pool and Patrick.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Samuel 26:1



INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 26



This chapter relates that Saul, upon the information of the Ziphites, went out again with an armed force to seek David, 1Sa 26:1; of which David having intelligence, and of the place where he pitched, came with one of his men and reconnoitred his camp, and finding Saul and his men asleep, took away his spear, and the cruse of water at his head, and departed, without taking away his life, though solicited to it by his servant, 1Sa 26:4; which spear and cruse of water he produced to the reproach of Abner, Saul's general, and as a testimony of his sincere regard to Saul, and that he had no design upon his life, 1Sa 26:13; of which Saul being convinced, blessed David, and returned home again, 1Sa 26:21.



Ver. 1. And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah,.... Of Benjamin, called sometimes Gibeah of Saul, because it was the place of his birth and residence; hither Saul had returned after his last interview with David; whether, notwithstanding what had passed between him and David, he had privately encouraged the Ziphites to watch David, and give him information of him where he was, and when it was a proper opportunity to seize him; or whether the Ziphites were so officious as of themselves to acquaint him with it, is not certain; the latter is probable, since having attempted to betray David, they might fear, that should he come to the throne, he would remember it, and therefore they might be desirous of having him cut off by the hand of Saul:



saying, doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, [which is] before Jeshimon? the same place where he was when the Ziphites before gave information of him, 1Sa 23:10; here he might choose to be, supposing that the Ziphites now would not meditate anything against him, since Saul had declared he would be king after him, and had made him swear that he would not cut off his posterity; and as he thought it his wisdom to provide against the worst, knowing the inconstancy of Saul, he might judge this the most proper place of safety, and from whence he could, on occasion, easily retreat into the wilderness; and it may be also, because it was near to Abigail's estate and possessions, which were now a good resource for him.





1 Samuel 26:2



Ver. 2. Then Saul arose,.... Immediately, glad of an opportunity to seize on David, having the same disposition towards him as ever; and perhaps had repented he had not laid hold on him when he followed him out of the cave:



and went down to the wilderness of Ziph: or towards it:



having three thousand chosen men of Israel; young men, so called, because usually chosen for business, and for war particularly, rather than old men; the same number he took with him when he sought him at Engedi, 1Sa 24:2;



to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph; where or whereabouts he was informed by the Ziphites he was.





1 Samuel 26:3



Ver. 3. And Saul pitched in the hill of Hachilah, which [is] before Jeshimon, by the way,.... To the wilderness; the very same place where the Ziphites suggested David was:



but David abode in the wilderness; not in the hill of Hachilah, but in the wilderness of Ziph itself:



and he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness; he understood, by some information he had, that Saul had set out from Gibeah, and was coming to seek for him in the wilderness of Ziph; perhaps Jonathan had given him intelligence; however, he was not quite certain, as appears by what follows.





1 Samuel 26:4



Ver. 4. David therefore sent out spies,.... To observe if he was coming or come, and where he was, that he might not be surprised by him; for though David knew the Lord was and would be his protection, he thought proper to be upon his guard, and to make use of means for his safety:



and understood that Saul was come in very deed; that he was most certainly come, and come to some certain place; which he himself went to reconnoitre, as in 1Sa 26:5.





1 Samuel 26:5



Ver. 5. And David arose, and came to the place where Saul had pitched,.... Came near it, within sight of it; so that he could take a view of it with his naked eye, and observe where and in what manner he was encamped:



and David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner,

the captain of his host; where he and his general had their quarters in the camp:



and Saul lay in the trench; or circuit; not in the foss or ditch thrown up, in which an army sometimes lies entrenched; but this is to be understood either of the camp itself, so called, as Ben Gersom, Abarbinel, and Ben Melech think, because it lay in a circular form, that all comers to it on every side might be seen; or else a sort of fortress all around the camp, made of carriages joined together; and as the word signifies a carriage, cart or chariot, it may design the chariot in which Saul slept, as kings have been used to do when not in their houses; and to this the Septuagint agrees, which uses a word that Procopius Gazaeus says signifies one kind of a chariot, and is used of a chariot drawn by mules, in the Greek version of Isa 66:20; Grotius observes, kings used to sleep in chariots where there were no houses;

See Gill on "1Sa 17:20"; though he rather seems to have slept, "sub die", in the open air:



and the people pitched round about him; both for the sake of honour, and for his greater security; this shows it could not be the loss he laid in, for then they could not pitch around him.





1 Samuel 26:6



Ver. 6. Then answered David,.... Or addressed himself to the two following persons:



and said to Ahimelech the Hittite; who was either an Hittite by birth, but was become a proselyte, or he was an Israelite that had dwelt among the Hittites, and so had this name given him; the former seems most probable; some say {k} this was Uriah the Hittite:



and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab; Zeruiah was the sister of David, 1Ch 2:15; and these were two sons of hers, who very probably joined David at the cave of Adullam, 1Sa 22:1;



saying, who will go down with me to Saul to the camp? that is, which of you two?



and Abishai said, I will go down with thee; the other being timorous, or Abishai being most forward spoke first.



{k} Hieron. Trad. Heb. in lib. Reg. fol. 76. M.





1 Samuel 26:7



Ver. 7. So David and Abishai came to the people by night,.... Josephus {l} wrongly says, that he took with him both Abishai and Ahimelech; he chose to have but one, for the greater secrecy. This was a bold enterprise, for two men to go into a camp of three thousand men, though it was in the night; when though they might suppose the greater part of them were asleep, yet they could not well suppose this of all, and especially of the guards or sentinels; but no doubt David was moved to this, not merely by the dint of his natural courage, but by the Spirit of God, by whom he might be assured of protection, and that Saul and the people were cast into a deep sleep by the Lord, as they were, 1Sa 26:12; and this the Lord moved him to, that he might have an opportunity a second time to convince Saul of his innocence, and that he had no design upon his life:



and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench;

See Gill on "1Sa 26:5";



and his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster; ready to take up and defend himself, should he be surprised; or this was his sceptre, which he always carried about with him, as an ensign of royalty, and by which very probably David knew which was Saul's tent or couch, where he slept:



but Abner and the people lay round about him; as in 1Sa 26:5.



{l} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 9.





1 Samuel 26:8



Ver. 8. Then said Abishai to David,.... Seeing Saul fast asleep, and a spear so near him:



God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day: or at this time, properly it was night:



now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear; with Saul's own spear, which was stuck in the ground at his bolster. He remembered that David would not put forth his hand to stay him before, when he had an opportunity; and since now another offered, he did not move it to him to do it, but begged leave to do it himself; which he might think would be granted, since there was such a remarkable hand of Providence in it, which seemed to direct to such a step:



even to the earth at once, and I will not [smite] him the second time; signifying, that he would give such a home blow or thrust, that the spear should pierce through him, and fasten him to the ground, that there would be no need to repeat it.





1 Samuel 26:9



Ver. 9. And David said to Abishai, destroy him not,.... He laid his commands upon him not to hurt him:



for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless? since Saul was king, and appointed to that office by the Lord, and was anointed by his order for it, and invested with it by him, his person was sacred, and not to be touched; nor could his life be taken away by any without being guilty of a very great crime indeed, which it might be justly expected the Lord would resent and punish.





1 Samuel 26:10



Ver. 10. And David said furthermore,.... In order to make Abishai easy, and prevent his doing what he proposed:



[as] the Lord liveth; which was the form of an oath, made to assure Abishai of the truth of what follows, and therefore he need not be hasty to put Saul to death, since it would not be long before he should die, in one or other of the three following ways: either



the Lord shall smite him; suddenly, which the Jews call cutting off, or death by the hand of heaven, by the immediate hand of God:



or his day shall come to die; the time appointed for him to die a natural death, of some disease common to men:



or he shall descend into battle, and perish; which was commonly reckoned death, casual or accidental, and in which last way Saul did die, 1Sa 31:3.





1 Samuel 26:11



Ver. 11. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed,.... Or suffer any about him to do it; he speaks of it with the utmost detestation and abhorrence:



but, I pray thee, take thou now the spear that [is] at his bolster; not to smite him with, as he desired, but to carry off, and was no other than his sceptre; See Gill on "1Sa 20:33";



and the cruse of water; which stood in the same place, as appears by

1Sa 26:12. Some take this to be a pot to make water in; others an hourglass, to know the time of night, in which not sand, but water, flowed for that purpose: but rather this was for his refreshment should he be hot and thirsty in the night, or to purify him from any nocturnal pollution that might happen; for, according to Clemens of Alexandria {m}, it was a custom of the Jews often to purify themselves in bed: though Fortunatus Scacchus {n} thinks Saul had this pot or cup for a religious use; which he had with him, and with it gave thanks to God, the author of all good, whenever he sat down to a meal; such as the golden cup Philip king of Macedon always had under his pillow when he slept {o}:



and let us go; and do nothing more; which would be sufficient to convince they had been there, and to show what was in their power to do, had they been so inclined.



{m} Stromat. l. 4. p. 531. {n} Elaeochrism. Myrothec. l. I. c. 44. col. 224. {o} Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 33. c. 3.





1 Samuel 26:12



Ver. 12. So David took the spear, and the cruse of water, from Saul's bolster,.... Abishai either refusing to take them, since he might not take away his life; or it may be rather David thought better of it, and took them himself, lest Abishai should be tempted, when so near to Saul, and his spear in his hand, and should thrust him with it; though David may be said to take them by the hands of Abishai:



and they gat them away; with the above things along with them:



and no man saw [it], nor knew [it]; saw them in the camp, or knew what they did:



neither awaked; at their talking together, at the motion of their feet, and taking away the spear and cruse:



for they [were] all asleep; which was very extraordinary, that among three thousand men none should be awake, not even the sentinels; which might seem impossible in a natural way, but it is accounted for by what follows:



because a deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon them; or "a sleep of the Lord" {p}; a very great one, an uncommon one; so great trees, mountains, &c. are called trees and mountains of God; or, according to our supplement, it was from the Lord, he was the cause and author of it; he cast them into this sleep, or caused it to fall upon them, and locked them up in it, that they might not hear David and his servant when they came among them.



{p} hwhy tmdrt, "sopor Domini", V. L. Montanus, Munsterus "altus sopor Jehovae", Junias & Tremellius, Piscator.





1 Samuel 26:13



Ver. 13. Then David went over to the other side,.... To a hill on the other side, opposite to Hachilah, where Saul lay encamped; or "passed over the passage" {q}, the valley that lay between the two hills, and perhaps passed over a brook that ran in the valley, which is not unusual; so Josephus {r} says, that he went over a brook and came to the top of a mountain:



and stood on the top of an hill afar off; he chose the top of an hill, that his voice might be heard at a distance, as it might in a clear air, and still night; and to be afar off, that he might the better make his escape, should an attempt be made to pursue him:



a great space [being] between them; a large valley lying between the two hills.



{q} rbeh rbeyw "et transivit transitum", Montanus. {r} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 9.





1 Samuel 26:14



Ver. 14. And David cried unto the people,.... To the army of Saul with a loud voice, that he might be heard:



and to Abner the son of Ner; particularly to him, because he was general of the army:



saying, answerest thou not, Abner? it seems he had called to him more than once, and he had returned no answer; perhaps not being thoroughly awake, or not knowing whose voice it was, and from whence it came:



then Abner answered and said, who [art] thou [that] criest to the king? but it does not appear that David called to the king, only to the people, and to Abner their general, and therefore may be better rendered, "by the king" {s}; that is, near him, or "before him" {t}, in his presence. Kimchi and Ben Melech explain it, upon the king, or over him; and the Targum is, at the head of the king; the meaning is, how he could act such a part as to call so loud within the king's hearing, as to disturb the king's rest, and awake him out of his sleep.



{s} Klmh la "juxta regem", Vatablus {t} Ceram rege, Nodlus, p. 58. No. 284.





1 Samuel 26:15



Ver. 15. And David said to Abner, [art] not thou a [valiant] man?.... Or a man {u}, a man of great fame for courage and valour, a man of great authority, who had the next post in the army under Saul, but had not behaved like a man, worthy of his character and office:



and who [is] like to thee in Israel? none that bare so great a name, or was in so high an office, who therefore should have been careful to have acted according to both:



wherefore then hast thou not kept thy lord the king? took care to have set a guard about his person while he slept; which perhaps was neglected through a contempt of David and his men, as being in no fear of them:



for there came one of the people in to destroy the king thy lord; that is, there had been one in the camp that night, who had entered there with that view to have destroyed him, had he an opportunity, and which did offer; this was true of Abishai, who no doubt went down with David into the camp with that intent, though David did not, and therefore he says, "one of the people", not more; for though two went in, only one with that view: David observes to them the danger the king was in, his carefulness of him to preserve his life, to whom only it was owing, and the negligence of Abner, and those under his command.



{u} vya "vir", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Piscator.





1 Samuel 26:16



Ver. 16. This thing [is] not good that thou hast done,.... Yea, it was very bad, a great fault, and very blameworthy, if he had neglected to set a watch over the king, whose business it was as a general; the words are expressed in a figure called "meiosis", in which less is said than was intended:



[as] the Lord liveth, ye [are] worthy to die, because ye have not kept your master, the Lord's anointed; if a watch was set, and these had fallen asleep, and neglected their duty, or had deserted their post; which to do was a capital crime, and deserving of death; wherefore he does not say this of Abner, but of the watch:



and now see where the king's spear [is], and the cruse of water that [was] at his bolster; which he then held up as proofs and evidences of the truth of what be said, that one had been in the camp and had carried off these, and who could as easily have destroyed the king as to have taken these away; and as he came hither with an intent to destroy him, would have done it, had he not been prevented by David; all which likewise plainly proved the negligence of Abner, in not setting a watch about his master, or the negligence of the watch that was set.





1 Samuel 26:17



Ver. 17. And Saul knew David's voice,.... Though Abner at first did not, as appears by his words, but Saul did, by being this time thoroughly awake through the discourse that passed between David and Abner:



and said, [is] this thy voice, my son David? the same question he put before, when he followed him out of the cave, See Gill on "1Sa 24:16":



and David said, [it is] my voice, my lord, O king; he not only owns him to be king, whom he sought not to depose, but his own liege lord and sovereign, whose commands he was ready to obey.





1 Samuel 26:18



Ver. 18. And he said, wherefore doth my lord thus pursue after his servant?.... Suggesting that it was both below him to do it, and against his interest; for David was his servant, and he would gladly have continued in his service, and done his business, but he drove him from it, and pursued him as a traitor, when he had not been guilty of any offence to his knowledge: and therefore puts the following questions:



for what have I done? or what evil [is] in mine hand? what crime had he committed, that he was pursued after this manner, and his life sought for? what had he done worthy of death? having a clear conscience, he could boldly ask these questions.





1 Samuel 26:19



Ver. 19. Now therefore, I pray thee, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant,.... Whether David waited for an answer to his question is not certain; probably he did, and observing none returned, desired audience of what he had further to say:



if the Lord have stirred thee up against me; if he had put it into his heart to persecute him after this manner, for some sin he had committed against him, though not against Saul: did that appear to be the case,



let him accept an offering; my offering, as the Targum; or my prayer, as Jarchi; I would offer a sin offering according to the law, to make atonement for my offence, and might hope it would be accepted; or I would make my supplication to God, and entreat him to forgive mine iniquity, and so an issue be put to these troubles; or should it be a capital crime deserving of death he was guilty of, he was content to die, and satisfy for his fault in that way; or if both of them had sinned, in any respect, he proposed to join in an acceptable sacrifice to God, and so reconciliation be made, and matters adjusted in such a religious way; if it was the evil spirit from the Lord that had entered into Saul, or God had suffered a melancholy disorder to seize him, which had put him upon those measures, let an offering agreeable to the will of God be offered, or supplication made for the removal of it:



but if [they be] the children of men; that incited him to such violent methods, as Abner his general, or Doeg the Edomite, and others:



cursed [be] they before the Lord; an imprecation of the vengeance of God upon them:



for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord; meaning not from his own house and fatally, nor from the palace of Saul, but from the land of Canaan the Lord had given to his people Israel for an inheritance, and from the worship of God in it, which made it dear and precious to him; he knew if Saul went on pursuing him in this manner, he mast be obliged to quit the land, and go into a foreign country, as he quickly did; so the Targum renders it the inheritance of the people of the Lord: by being driven out of the land which was their inheritance, he should be deprived of their company and conversation, and of all social worship; the consideration of which was cutting to him, and caused the above imprecation from him on those who were concerned in it, and who in effect by their actions were



saying, go, serve other gods; for by being forced to go into an idolatrous country, he would be in the way of temptation, and be liable to be corrupted by ill examples, and to be persuaded and enticed into idolatrous practices; and if he was kept from them it would be no thanks to them, they did all they could to lead him into them; and if he was preserved, it would be owing to the power and grace of God; the Targum is,



"go David among the people that worship idols;''



the Jews have a saying, that he that dwells without the land of Israel, it is as if he had no God and as if he served an idol {q}.



{q} T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 110. 2.





1 Samuel 26:20



Ver. 20. Now therefore let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of the Lord,.... For should it be spilled, God, who is omniscient, will see it, and take notice of it; and being righteous, and to whom vengeance belongs, he will avenge it: some render it, "my blood shall not fall to the earth before the face of the Lord" {r}; I am continually under his eye and care, and he will protect and defend me; and in vain is it for thee to pursue after me; I shall never fall into thine hands, though I may be obliged to quit my country, and go into an idolatrous nation, against my will:



for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea; which leaps from place to place and is not easily taken: or this may denote what a mean, poor, weak, insignificant person David was; and how much it was below Saul to come out with an army of chosen men in pursuit of him; so the Targum,



"the king of Israel is come out to seek one that is weak or feeble:''



as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains; as kings for their delight used to do, as Abarbinel observes; but this being a business of pleasure, and this a bird of worth, some other is thought to be here intended. Indeed the is represented as worth no more than an "obolus", or five farthings, though fifty drachmas or drachms were ordered to be paid for one {s}; the Septuagint renders the word an "owl": the word is "kore", and from the etymology of it one would think it was the raven or crow. Jarchi on Jer 17:11 takes it to be the cuckoo, though here the partridge as others; Bochart {t} will have it to be the woodcock, snipe, or snite {u}. Some choose to read the words,



"as the kore or partridge on the mountains hunts;''



which, it is said, hunts and seeks after the nests of other birds, and sits on their eggs {v}: see Jer 17:11; so Saul hunted after David, though he could not take him; several naturalists {w} observe, that the partridge is very difficult to be taken by the hunter.



{r} wmd lpy la "non effundetur", Martyr. and to this sense are Syr. Ar. vers. {s} Laert. l. 2. in Vita Aristippi. {t} Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 1. c. 12. col. 81. {u} (A snite is like a snipe, yet a different species of lark-like bird. Oxford English Dictionary. Editor) {v} T. Bab. Cholin, fol. 140. 2. Jarchi & Abarbinel in loc. {w} Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 8. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 33. Aelian. Hist. Animal. l. 3. c. 16.





1 Samuel 26:21



Ver. 21. Then said Saul, I have sinned,.... Which is more than he acknowledged before, and yet, it is to be feared he had no true sense of his sin, and real repentance for it; but, like Pharaoh, his guilty conscience for the present forced this confession from him; see Ex 9:27;



return, my son David: meaning to his own house, or rather to his palace, since he had disposed of his wife to another man:



for I will no more do thee harm: or seek to do it by pursuing him from place to place, as he had done, which had given him a great deal of trouble and fatigue:



because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day; and therefore spared, when he could have taken it away; which showed that his life was dear to him, of great worth and value in his account; and therefore he would neither take it away himself, nor suffer another to do it:



behold, I have played the fool, and erred exceedingly: in seeking after his life, and pursuing him again, when he had such a convincing proof of his sincerity and faithfulness, and of his cordial affection for him, when he only cut off the skirts of his garment in the cave, and spared his life.





1 Samuel 26:22



Ver. 22. And David answered and said, behold the king's spear!.... And which perhaps was his sceptre, and which David therefore would not keep, lest it should be thought or said that he had deprived him of an ensign of his royalty, and be interpreted as a token of his design to seize his crown and throne:



and let one of the young men come over and fetch it; for notwithstanding the acknowledgment Saul had made of his sin and folly, David did not choose to carry the spear to him; not caring to trust him, and put himself into his hands, lest the evil spirit should return and come upon him suddenly, and alter his disposition and carriage; nor would he send any of his men with it, whose lives were dear to him, lest they should be seized as traitors, but desires one of Saul's men might be sent for it.





1 Samuel 26:23



Ver. 23. The Lord render to every man his righteousness, and his faithfulness,.... Or recompense every man that deals justly and faithfully with others, as he had done with Saul; or the Lord, who is just and faithful to his promises, reward the men that act the good and upright part; and this was a prayer of faith; for David doubted not that, though Saul might fail, yet God could not;



for the Lord delivered thee into [my] hand this day; or, "into an hand" {x} into the hand of Abishai, who had it in his power to slay him, when he went and took the spear that was at his bolster, and would have done it, but David suffered him not:



but I would not stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed; nor suffer another to stretch forth his hand against him; so careful and tender was he of his life.



{x} dyb "in manum", Pagninus, Montanus.





1 Samuel 26:24



Ver. 24. And, behold, as thy life was much set by this day in mine eyes,.... Or "magnified" {y}; and made great account of, as being the life of the king of Israel, and the Lord's anointed, and so spared:



so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord; he does not say in the eyes of Saul, as it should have been by way of retaliation, and as it might have been expected he would have said; but he had no dependence on Saul, nor expected justice to be done him by him; but he prays that his life might be precious in the sight of Lord, and taken care of, and protected by him, as he believed it would:



and let him deliver me out of all tribulation; for as yet he did not think himself quite out of it, notwithstanding all that Saul had said, but believed the Lord would deliver him in due time; from him alone he looked for it, and on him he depended.



{y} hldg "magnificata est", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus.





1 Samuel 26:25



Ver. 25. Then Saul said to David, blessed [be] thou, my son David,.... He desired God to bless him, and pronounced him blessed himself, believing he would be a happy and prosperous man:



thou shall both do great [things]; he had done great things already, in slaying Goliath, obtaining victories over the Philistines, and escaping the hands of Saul, and keeping out of them with so small a force; and he should do greater things yet:



and also shalt still prevail; against Saul and all his enemies; the Targum is,



"even in reigning thou shalt reign, and even in prospering thou shalt prosper;''



he believed he would be king, so he had said before, 1Sa 24:20;



so David went on his way: to the wilderness again very probably, putting no trust and confidence in Saul, knowing how fickle and unstable he was:



and Saul returned to his place; to Gibeah, where his palace was.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Samuel 27:1



INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 27



David, fearing he should perish by the hand of Saul at one time or another, went into the land of the Philistines, which Saul hearing of, sought no more after him, 1Sa 27:1; and finding favour in the eyes of the king of Gath, desired a place in his country might be given him to reside in; and accordingly Ziklag was given him, 1Sa 27:5; from whence he made excursions into the land of the Amalekites, and others, and utterly destroyed them; but imposed on the king of Gath, pretending he had made his road into the southern parts of Judah, 1Sa 27:8.



Ver. 1. And David said in his heart,.... Within himself, and to himself; while he was pondering things in his own mind, and considering the circumstances in which he was, and things appearing, very gloomy to him, he falls into a fit of unbelief and thus addresses himself:



I shall now one day perish by the hand of Saul; for though he was returned to his place, he knew he was restless and uneasy, very inconstant and unstable, and not at all to be depended on; yea, he might conclude that Saul, observing that God was with him in protecting and defending him, and by delivering him into his hands once and again, he would be the more jealous of him, and envious at him, and seek all opportunities and advantages against him; and he feared that one time or another such would offer, and would be taken, and so he should perish by him: this was a strange fit of unbelief he was sunk into, and very unaccountable and unreasonable it was, had he but considered his being anointed king by the Lord, the promise of God to him, which could not fail, and the providence of God that watched over him from time to time:



[there is] nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; which may seem strange, when he was advised by the Prophet Gad to depart from the land of Moab, and go into the land of Judah, 1Sa 22:5, and where he had been so wonderfully preserved; and when he was in so much danger, when in the land of the Philistines before, insomuch that he was obliged to feign himself mad, 1Sa 21:13; and seeing this also was the very thing he lately dreaded, and cursed the men that should be the cause of his going out of his own land into an idolatrous one:



and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel; hearing that he was gone into a foreign country, would seek for him no more in any part of the land of israel, and so despair of ever getting him into his hands, would lay aside all thoughts about him for the future:



so shall I escape out of his hand; and be for ever safe: these were the carnal reasonings of his mind, under the prevalence of unbelief; and shows what poor weak creatures the best of men are, and how low their graces may sink as to exercise, when left to themselves.





1 Samuel 27:2



Ver. 2. And David arose,.... From the place where he was:



and he passed over; the borders of land of Canaan:



with the six hundred men that [were] with him; having neither lost any, nor had any added to him, since he was at Keilah, 1Sa 23:13;



unto Achish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath; whether this was the same Achish David was with before, 1Sa 21:10, is not certain; it seems as if he was not the same, since he is described as the son of Maoch, as if it was to distinguish him from him; though it is not improbable that he was the same person. Some think {a} that he is described not from his father, but from his mother, whose name was Maacha. The circumstances of David were now very much altered from what they were when he went to Gath before; then he went secretly, now openly; then as a person unknown, now as well known; then alone, now with six hundred men; then when discovered he was seized by the princes of Gath, and brought before the king, and was driven from his presence; but now he came either at the invitation of Achish, hearing how he had been treated by Saul, and thinking to attach him to his interest, and make him more and more the enemy of Saul, and so free himself from a very powerful one, and of whose wisdom and prudence, and military skill, and courage, and valour, he might hope to avail himself; or David sent an embassy to him, to treat with him about his coming into his country, and settlement in it, and terms to mutual satisfaction were agreed upon.



{a} Hieron. Trad. Heb, in 2 Reg. fol. 78. E.





1 Samuel 27:3



Ver. 3. And David dwelt with Achish at Gath,.... The metropolis of his kingdom, called, 1Sa 27:5, the royal city:



he and his men, every man with his household; or family; which they brought with them, to secure them from the malice of Saul; who in their absence might have destroyed them, as being the families of traitors and fugitives, and might be the more readily received by Achish, as he might hope for some advantage front them; and besides were pledges of their fidelity to him, and of their design to continue with him:



[even] David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's wife; who had been the wife of Nabal; of these

See Gill on "1Sa 25:43".





1 Samuel 27:4



Ver. 4. And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath,.... Who very probably had his spies out to watch his motions, and report to him where he was, and what he was doing:



and he sought no more again for him; by which it seems as if he would have sought after him again, had he continued in the land of Israel; but now being gone, and in an enemy's country, and having nothing to fear from him while there, he laid aside all thoughts of seeking after him.





1 Samuel 27:5



Ver. 5. And David said unto Achish,.... After he had been some time with him:



if I have now found grace in thine eyes; or was in favour, as he thought himself to be, by various instances of respect shown him:



let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell there: he does not ask for a city or town, but a place in one of them, though one was given him; but of whom he asks it, it is not easy to say; though it is certain that Achish gave it him, 1Sa 27:6. Perhaps he might desire it might be given him by Achish, with the consent of his princes and nobles, or at least of his privy council; that so it might be to general satisfaction, and the grant more authentic; though it may be impersonally read, as in the Vulgate Latin version, "let there be given me", &c. David's view in this might be partly to prevent the envy of the courtiers of Achish, who might think that David was too near the king, and might have too great an interest in him, and receive too many of his favours, and become his chief confidant and prime minister; and partly to preserve himself and people from all temptations to idolatry, and corruptions in religion; as also that ho might have an opportunity, without the knowledge of Achish, to fall upon the enemies of Israel; though the excuse he made was as follows:



for why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with thee? for so Gath was; and six hundred men and their families might seem to crowd the city; and this reasoning of his might suggest, that he and his men were a straitening of him, and a burden on him; and it might seem as if he was a rival with him in state and dignity, when he was no other than a servant of his.





1 Samuel 27:6



Ver. 6. Then Achish gave him Ziklag that day,.... A city which in the division of the land was given to the tribe of Judah, and after that to the tribe of Simeon, Jos 15:31; though it seems not to have been possessed by either of them, at least not long, but soon came into the hands of the Philistines, who kept it till this time, and now it returned to its right owners; according to Bunting {g} it was twelve miles from Gath:



wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day; not to the tribe of Judah, though it originally belonged to it, but to the kings of it, it, being granted to David, who quickly after this became king of Judah; and this was annexed to the crown lands, and ever after enjoyed by the kings, of the house of Judah; for this was not given for a temporary habitation, but for perpetual possession. This clause seems to be added by the continuator of this history, after the death of Samuel; who might be Gad or Nathan; some say Ezra, and Abarbinel that Jeremiah was the writer of it.



{g} Travels, &c. p. 136.





1 Samuel 27:7



Ver. 7. And the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines,.... At Gath and Ziklag:



was a full year and four months; or "days and four months"; days being sometimes put for a year, Jud 17:10; though some interpret it not of a year, but of some few days out of the fifth month, besides the four months; so Jarchi and Kimchi; and Josephus {h} makes his abode to be four months and twenty days; but, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, it was only four months; and so it may be rendered, "days, that is, four months"; for according to the Jewish chronology {i} Samuel died four months before Saul, and this flight of David was after the death of Samuel, and when Saul died he left the land of the Philistines, and took the throne of Judah;

See Gill on "1Sa 25:1".



{h} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 10. {i} Sepher Olam Rabba c. 13. p. 37.





1 Samuel 27:8



Ver. 8. And David and his men went up,.... From Ziklag, where they dwelt:



and invaded the Geshurites; some of the old inhabitants of the land of Canaan, the remains of the Amorites, whose land was given to the half tribe of Manasseh, but could never be expelled; and therefore David had a just right to invade them, and, if he could, either expel or destroy them; see De 3:14; these are the Geshurites which are joined with the Philistines, Jos 13:2;



and the Gezrites; the inhabitants of Gezer, which place fell to the tribe of Ephraim; but that tribe could not drive out the inhabitants of it, and therefore David now fell upon them as the enemies of Israel, and seized on their country, as belonging to them, Jos 16:3;



and the Amalekites; the sworn and implacable enemies of Israel, and whose memory they were laid under obligation to root out. These were such as had escaped the sword of Saul, and had fled to the more distant parts, against whom David now went; and perhaps these had fled to and mixed themselves with the people here mentioned:



for these [nations were] of old the inhabitants of the land; of the land of Canaan;



as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt; see 1Sa 15:7.





1 Samuel 27:9



Ver. 9. And David smote the land,.... In which the above mentioned people dwelt, that is, the inhabitants of it:



and left neither man nor woman alive; for these being the old Canaanites and Amalekites, according to the law of God were not to be spared, but utterly destroyed; which may be observed to remove the charge of cruelty that might be brought against David on this account, De 7:2; though this must be understood of such that came within his reach; for it is certain there were people of these several names after this; see 1Sa 30:1;



and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels,

and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish; at Gath, to make a report of what he had been about and done; and what he brought was a good booty for the support of his men and their families.





1 Samuel 27:10



Ver. 10. And Achish said, whither have ye made a road today?.... Or whither had they rushed in, or poured in and spread themselves? or where had they made their excursion to fetch in the prey and booty they now brought?



and David said, against the south of Judah; he meant against some people that lay to the south of the land of Judah, without it; but expressed himself so, that Achish might think he meant the southern parts of Judah within the country; which, though not a downright lie, was an equivocation, and made with a design to deceive; and was by no means agreeably to the character of David, nor to be defended nor imitated:



and against the south of the Jerahmeelites; these were the descendants of Jerahmeel, the son of Hezron, the grandson of Judah, and so inhabited in the tribe of Judah, and very probably in the southern part of it, 1Ch 2:9,



and against the south of the Kenites; the posterity of Jethro; these, at least some of them, at the first seating of the children of Israel in the land of Canaan, went with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad, Jud 1:16.





1 Samuel 27:11



Ver. 11. And David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring [tidings] to Gath,.... How David had fallen upon these people, and destroyed great numbers of them, and carried off their substance; which would have given great offence to Achish, and caused him to have driven him out of his country once more; though Abarbinel is of opinion that these Geshurites, &c. were haters and enemies of Achish, and therefore were smitten and spoiled by David; or otherwise it would have been such a piece of perfidy, rebellion, and ingratitude, as mast have made the name of David to stink, since it could not but be known sooner or later; but being the enemies of Achish, no notice was taken of it afterwards, nor inquiry made about it, nor complaint made of it, by any of their neighbours: nor does he suppose they were all cut off, and much less that this was done that it might not be told in Gath what destruction he had made; but that the sense is, that he did not carry the captives to Gath, to be disposed of there; for they would have told from whence they came, and so have contradicted what David said, and what he would have Achish understand, as if he had been out against and smote some of the cities of Judah, that he might place the greater confidence in him; which end would not have been answered, if he had brought any of them to Gath; and so the words may be read without the supplement we make, "spared neither man nor woman alive to bring to Gath": and so could tell no tales. Though Josephus expressly says {k} that David spared the men, and abstained from the slaughter of them, fearing lest they should declare to the king what he had done in plundering them:



saying, lest they should tell on us, saying, so did David: in such and such places, such numbers of people he destroyed, and such quantities of cattle and goods he carried off:



and so [will be] his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines: this is what may be expected will be done by him in one place or another, as long as he stays here; nothing will be heard of but desolation and destruction, in some part of the country of the Philistines or another; or among those that were tributaries to them; so that it was not safe that he should be allowed to abide in it.



{k} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 13. sect. 10.





1 Samuel 27:12



Ver. 12. And Achish believed David,.... As he would have him understand his story; imposing upon him by ambiguous terms, insinuating he had been against the southern parts of Judah, when he had been against foreign nations that lay to the south of Judah:



saying, he hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; they shall never forgive him the destruction of their cities, and the inhabitants of them, and the plunder of their goods and cattle; his name will be had in the utmost detestation and abhorrence, and he must never return thither any more:



therefore he shall be my servant for ever: would be glad to continue with him as a servant, and be obliged to serve him faithfully and truly, since his own people, and even those of his own tribe, would never more receive him; it being, as he understood it, the south of Judah that he had been plundering.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Samuel 28:1



INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 28



The Philistines gathering together, to fight with Israel, Saul trembled at it, not being able to get any answer from the Lord about it in any way whatever, 1Sa 28:1; upon which he applies to a woman that had a familiar spirit to bring him up Samuel, which she did, 1Sa 28:7; and what passed between Saul and Samuel, or at least the apparition in his form, is recorded, 1Sa 28:15; which so struck him, as to make him strengthless, and so melancholy, that he refused to eat until persuaded, or rather compelled, by the woman and his servants, 1Sa 28:20.



Ver. 1. And it came to pass in those days,.... That David was in the country of the Philistines:



that the Philistines gathered their armies together: out of their five principalities or lordships:



for warfare to fight with Israel; with whom they were continually at war, and though sometimes there was a cessation of arms, yet never any settled peace; and the Philistines took every opportunity and advantage against them, as they now did; when David was among them, and so had nothing to fear from him, but rather expected his assistance; and Samuel was dead, and Saul in a frenzy:



and Achish said unto David: who seems to have been at the head of the combined armies of the Philistines:



know thou assuredly that thou shall go with me to battle, thou and thy men; against Israel; which was a trying thing to David, and whereby he was like to be drawn into a dilemma; either to fight against his country, which he could not do conscientiously; or be guilty of ingratitude to Achish, and incur his displeasure, and be liable to be turned out of his country, or treated in a worse manner, even he and his men, to be seized on and cut to pieces by the forces of the Philistines, should he refuse.





1 Samuel 28:2



Ver. 2. And David said to Achish, surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do,.... By which he would have Achish understand, and so he did, that he would exert himself in favour of the Philistines, and against Israel, and do great and brave things, of which Achish would be, made sensible, through his heroic courage and valour; though he meant rather what he could and should do for Israel against the Philistines, if he had an opportunity: but it seems best of all to consider David as quite undetermined, and at a loss what to do, hoping that God in his providence would extricate him out of this difficulty, and direct him what he should do, which then Achish would know; and accordingly he was delivered out of it:



and Achish said to David: putting confidence in him on account of his answer, and believing he was hearty in engaging in the war with the Philistines against Israel:



therefore will I make thee keeper of mine head for ever; the captain of his bodyguard, which post he should hold for life; or he proposed to put him into this post, that he might be with him, near his person, and under his eye, that he might observe how he behaved himself; which may show some suspicion of him.





1 Samuel 28:3



Ver. 3. Now Samuel was dead,.... Had been so for some time; which is mentioned before, 1Sa 25:1; and here repeated, partly to observe the reason of the Philistines renewing the war, and partly to account for the conduct of Saul, in seeking to a witch to raise Samuel, and for the sake of that story:



and all Israel lamented him; as they had great reason to do;

See Gill on "1Sa 25:1"; and buried him in Ramah, even his own city; there being two Ramahs, as Kimchi observes, it is added, "in his own city", to show that he was buried in that Ramah which was his native place, and where his constant residence was; though, as he says, it may mean that he was buried within the city, and not without it; but the Targum gives a different sense,



"and they buried him in Ramah, and mourned for him every man in his city:''



and Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards,

out of the land: out of the land of Israel; had by an edict banished them, or had given orders that neither witches nor wizards should abide in the land; but should be taken up, and prosecuted according to the law of God; which he had done either at the instigation of Samuel; or, as some think, from a conceit that the evil spirit he had been troubled with was owing to them; or to make some appearance of a zeal for religion, and the honour and glory of God: this is observed to show the inconstancy of Saul, and his folly in applying after this to a person of such a character, and to account for the fears of the woman when applied to, and afterwards when she was engaged, when she found it was by Saul; see 1Sa 28:7.





1 Samuel 28:4



Ver. 4. And the Philistines gathered themselves together,.... From different parts, and formed a considerable army:



and came and pitched in Shunem; a city, in the borders of the tribe of Issachar, of which See Gill on "Jos 19:18";



and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa; a range of mountains, near Jezreel, and which Jerom {b} calls the mountains of the Philistines, six miles from Scythopolis, where there is a large village called Gelbus.



{b} De loc. Heb fol. 92. D.





1 Samuel 28:5



Ver. 5. And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines,.... From the mountains of Gilboa, where he had pitched his camp:



he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled; on sight of the numbers of them, and thinking perhaps of the death of Samuel, and of the loss of David; who was now among the Philistines, and might possibly fight against him, and for the Philistines, of which he might be informed; however, he was not with him, and his conscience might accuse him of various sins he had been guilty of, for which he might fear the Lord would now reckon with him.





1 Samuel 28:6



Ver. 6. And when Saul inquired of the Lord,.... And this being not done truly and heartily, nor continued in, it was as if he had not inquired, and especially after he had inquired of one that had a familiar spirit, as Kimchi observes; for so it is said, 1Ch 10:14;



the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams; which he dreamed himself, from whence he could not conclude anything relating to the will of God; so the Targum,



"the Lord did not receive his prayer even by dreams;''



or by dreamers, diviners, who pretended to give answers by dreams:



nor by Urim; there being no priest to consult in this way, Abiathar having fled with the ephod, in which were the Urim and Thummim, to David, 1Sa 23:9; though some think that he sent to Abiathar, who was with David, to inquire for him; and others that he made another ephod with Urim, and appointed another priest to consult by them; neither of which are probable:



nor by prophets; of which there was a school not far from him, even at Naioth in Ramah, of which Samuel in his lifetime was president; but neither by the one nor the other could Saul get an answer from God, who for his sins had departed from him.





1 Samuel 28:7



Ver. 7. Then said Saul unto his servants,.... That waited upon him, to some of them, to such as he could place most confidence in to keep a secret; perhaps only the two after mentioned:



seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her; that was mistress of the bottle, a ventriloquist, that spoke out of her belly, or seemed to do; who had the spirit of Python or divination, conversed with the devil, and by his assistance pretended to bring up a dead person, and thereby foretell things to come; See Gill on "De 18:11"; a woman is pitched upon, because such were most addicted to those wicked arts, and being of the weaker sex, were more easily imposed upon by Satan; and Saul showed himself to be as weak, to seek after such persons; but being left of God, he acted the part of a mad man, as well as of a bad man:



and his servants said to him, behold, [there is] a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor; a city in the tribe of Manasseh, of which see

Jos 17:11; it was not far from Gilboa. Mr. Maundrell speaks {c} of it as near Nain, at the foot of Mount Hermon; and turning, a little southward, he says, you have in view the high mountains of Gilboa. It is a tradition of the Jews {d} that this woman was the mother of Abner, the wife of Zephaniah; some say her name was Zephaniah; but, as Abarbinel observes, if so she would have known Saul, and also Saul would have known her, and what she was, if, as they say, she was spared because of her relation to him; nor needed he to have inquired of his servants for such a woman.



{c} Journey from Aleppo, p. 115. {d} Pirke Eliezer, c. 33. foi. 35. 2. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 8. 1. Hieron. Trad. Heb. in lib. Reg. fol. 77. B.





1 Samuel 28:8



Ver. 8. And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment,.... Stripped himself of his royal robes, or military apparel, as supreme commander, and clothed himself in the habit of a peasant or a common soldier; and this not only that he might not be known by the woman, but that he might pass from his army incognito, and it might not be known that he was gone, and especially whither he was gone:



and he went, and two men with him: these, according to the tradition of the Jews {e}, were Abner and Amasa; but it is not probable that Saul should leave his army destitute of their general at such a time as this:



and they came to the woman by night; not only that they might not be seen, but because it was a work of darkness they were going about, and it was only in the night season that such persons exercised their black art; though the Jews {f} say it was day, only because of their distress it was like tonight with them; but the literal sense is best:



and he said, I pray thee divine unto me by the familiar spirit; exercise her art of divination, by the assistance of the familiar spirit she conversed with:



and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee: that is, from the dead; for necromancy was the kind of divination she professed; and such persons pretended to have a power to bring up a deceased person, and consult with him about secret and future things.



{e} Vajikra Rabba, sect. 26. fol. 167. 1. Shalshalet ib. {f} Tanchuma apud Jarchiura in loc.





1 Samuel 28:9



Ver. 9. And the woman said unto him,.... Not knowing who he was:



behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done; for by his speech and habit she perceived he was an Israelite, and so must be acquainted with what had passed in the nation, especially of a public nature, and which made a great noise, as doubtless this, lid:



how he both cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards,

out of the land; as many of them as he had knowledge of, or information about; and by this it appears that he did not merely expel them his dominions, but he put them to death, according to the law of God, Ex 22:18; so the putting them out of the land, 1Sa 28:3, was putting them to death, and the woman's after reasoning confirms this: one should think for Saul to be told this to his face must fill him with shame and confusion, and his conscience must accuse him of sin and folly to make this attempt; and he must stand self-convicted and self-condemned; and it was enough to have deterred him from pursuing his scheme, had not his heart been strangely hardened:



wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die? she suspected that Saul and his men were persons that came to entrap her; that when they had prevailed upon her to exercise her art, would turn informers against her, to the taking away of her life, it being death to practise it.





1 Samuel 28:10



Ver. 10. And Saul sware to her by the Lord,.... By the Word of the Lord, as the Targum: it is much that Saul, being about such a work of darkness and wickedness, could take the name of the Lord into his mouth, and swear by him in such a solemn manner; which must surely put him in mind of his omniscience, from whom this wicked action could not be hid:



saying, [as] the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing; the tenor of the oath was, and so the woman understood it, that he would never make any discovery of what she did, and so she would be sat from punishment; though as he was the supreme governor, and a very arbitrary prince, had it been discovered, he could have screened her from justice, though contrary to the law of God; however, he could not secure her from eternal punishment.





1 Samuel 28:11



Ver. 11. Then said the woman, whom shall I bring up unto thee?.... For such persons, according to their profession, pretended they were able to bring up any of the dead, that he who inquired of them should name:



and he said, bring me up Samuel; the prophet Samuel he meant, and no doubt the woman so understood him, whose name was well known; he had been an old acquaintance and friend of Saul's, his counsellor and adviser in many things and though he greatly neglected him in the latter part of his life, was very desirous of an interview with him now dead, that he might be advised by him how to get out of the straits and difficulties in which he was involved; but it argued extreme folly and madness in him to imagine, that the spirit of this great and good man was at the beck of a witch, and he to be called out of the state of the dead by her enchantments; or that God would permit him to appear to him, and by him give an answer, when he would not answer him by living prophets, nor any other way.





1 Samuel 28:12



Ver. 12. And when the woman saw Samuel,.... The appearance of him whom she took for Samuel; no mention is made of the methods she used to raise him, to check the curiosity of such as might be desirous to know them, and to prevent the imitation of them; though some think that Samuel, or the apparition, was seen before she made use of any, which surprised her; but this seems not so probable, and is only observed for the sake of an hypothesis; though it must be owned the word "when" is not in the text:



she cried with a loud voice; not so much frightened at what she saw, and the manner of his appearing, and as thinking the resurrection of the dead was come, as say the Jews {b}, as what she feared would be the consequence to her, even death by the hand of Saul; for though he had sworn no punishment should come upon her, she might begin to fear she was not safe, perceiving who he was:



and the woman spake to Saul, saying, why hast thou deceived me? for thou [art] Saul: how she knew this is a question; it could not be by the appearance of Samuel, for it was Samuel she was to bring up; unless with Ben Gersom it can be thought that she understood him of another man, whose name was Samuel, and not Samuel the prophet; and so when she saw him, concluded he was Saul, because of the intimacy between them in his lifetime; but this is not probable, nor does it appear that she as yet knew who it was, but rather she was told by her familiar spirit, or by the apparition, so Josephus {c}, that it was Saul that inquired of her; or she guessed at it by some gesture of the apparition to Saul, by way of homage and honour; and so Abarbinel thinks that the clause in

1Sa 28:14 respects not Saul's bowing to Samuel, but Samuel bowing to Saul; and so by this means the woman knew who he was.



{b} Pirke Eliezer, c. 33. {c} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 14. sect. 2.





1 Samuel 28:13



Ver. 13. And the king said unto her, be not afraid,.... Meaning not of the apparition, but of him; since he had sworn no punishment should come upon her, and he should inviolably observe his oath: for what sawest thou? for as yet Saul himself saw not anything, the woman being between him and the apparition; or she might be in another room with her familiar spirit performing the operations when Samuel appeared:



and the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth; a great personage, one of a majestic form, like the gods, or judges and civil magistrates, sometimes so called, as Kimchi and R. Isaiah rightly interpret it; and so the Targum,



"I saw an angel of the Lord;''



a person that looked like one; for not many came up with him, and particularly Moses, as say some Jewish writers {d}.



{d} T. Bab. Chagigah, fol. 4. 8. Pirke Eliezer, c. 33.





1 Samuel 28:14



Ver. 14. And he said unto her, what form [is] he of?.... Of what stature is he? or rather of what age does he seem to be? and what clothes has he on? as appears from the answer:



and she said, an old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle; such as either priests or judges wore, and Samuel did in his lifetime:



and Saul perceived that it [was] Samuel; by the description she gave of him, by his age and apparel; for as yet it is not certain that he himself saw him, though it should seem as if he did by what follows: it is in the original, "that it was Samuel himself"; which seems to make for those who think the real Samuel appeared, and no doubt Saul thought it was really he himself:



and he stooped with [his] face to the ground, and bowed himself: either in reverence to Samuel, and from whom he hoped relief, and therefore was all obeisance; or he put himself in this posture, that he might listen and hear what should be said; it being a general notion that such spirits gave their responses whispering and muttering, Isa 8:19; though Abarbinel, as before observed, is of opinion, that this is to be understood of Samuel, that he bowed to Saul in reverence of him as a king; which does not so well agree with the connection of the words. Some have thought that it was the true Samuel, or the soul of Samuel, that appeared; so Josephus {e}, and many other writers; but to this may be objected, that that would not have ascended out of the earth, but come down from heaven; and that it cannot reasonably be supposed that it was in the power of the witch, by the assistance of the devil, to fetch it from heaven; nor be thought that God would send it from thence on such an errand, to give Saul an answer, when he would not answer him by any prophet on earth, nor in any other way; and especially it seems quite incredible that he should send it at the motion of a witch, and through her enchantments, who, according to a law of his, ought not to live; whereas nothing could have given greater countenance to such a wicked profession than this: nor would the true Samuel have admitted such worship and homage to be paid him, as is expressed in this last clause, which angelic spirits have refused, Re 19:10; though perhaps no more than civil respect is intended: but rather this was a diabolical spectre, or apparition, or the devil, that appeared in the form and shape of Samuel, and mimicked him; and was one of those deceiving spirits Porphyry speaks {f} of, that appear in various shapes and forms, and pretend to be gods or demons, or the souls of the deceased. Some {g} think all this was the cunning and imposture of the woman alone, or that she was assisted with a confederate, who acted the part of Samuel; but this is not probable.



{e} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 6. c. 14. sect. 2.) {f} De Abstinentia, l. 2. apud Grotium in loc. {g} See Webster's Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, &c. ch. 8. p. 166, &c.





1 Samuel 28:15



Ver. 15. And Samuel said to Saul, why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?.... This makes it a clear case that this was not the true Samuel; his soul was at rest in Abraham's bosom, in the state of bliss and happiness in heaven, and it was not in the power of men and devils to disquiet it; nor would he have talked of his being brought up, but rather of his coming down, had it been really he; much less would he have acknowledged that he was brought up by Saul, by means of a witch, and through the help of the devil:



and Saul answered, I am sore distressed; in mind, being in great straits and difficulties, pressed hard upon by men, and forsaken of God, as follows:



for the Philistines make war against me; so they had many times, and he had been victorious, and had no reason to be so much distressed, if that was all: but he adds,



and God is departed from me: and therefore he feared he should be left to fall into their hands; and that he had forsaken him he concluded from hence,



and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams:

See Gill on "1Sa 28:6"; he makes no mention of Urim, either because they were not with him to inquire by, being carried away by Abiathar when he fled to David, 1Sa 23:9; or, as the Jews say {h}, through shame, he said nothing of the Urim before Samuel, as he took this appearance to be, because he had slain the priests at Nob, and because of this shame, they say, his sin was forgiven him:



therefore have I called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do; which was downright madness and folly to imagine, that since God had forsaken him, and would give him no answer, that a prophet of his should take his part; or when he could get no answer from a prophet of God on earth, that he could expect an agreeable one from one fetched down from heaven: one would be tempted to think that he himself believed it was the devil he was talking to, and whom he had called for under the name of Samuel, and expected to see; for from whom else could he expect advice, when he was forsaken of God, and his prophets?



{h} T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 12. 2.





1 Samuel 28:16



Ver. 16. Then said Samuel, wherefore then dost thou, ask of me,.... Whom thou knowest to have been a prophet of the Lord, and therefore can say nothing more or less than what comes from him, and is according to his will, if anything at all; the "devil" representing Samuel, whom Saul had called for, and reasons in such language as might be thought to be his own, though sometimes he betrays himself:



seeing the Lord is departed from thee; as Saul himself owned: to which he adds,



and is become thine enemy; to make his case appear still more desperate; for his whole view is to lead him to despair, which shows what sort of spirit he was: though some understand this as spoken of David, and read the words, and "he is with thine enemy" {i}; is on his side, and favours his cause; so the Targum,



"and he is for the help of a man, whose enmity thou sharest in;''



or who is at enmity with thee, meaning David; but now the true Samuel would never have said this, or suggested it, that David was an enemy to Saul, for he was not.



{i} Kre yhyw "et est cum inimico tuo", Pagninus, Vatablus; so V. L.





1 Samuel 28:17



Ver. 17. And the Lord hath done to him,.... To David, Saul's enemy, as he insinuated he was:



as he spake by me; pretending to be the true Samuel, and wearing the guise of him, he speaks his very words, which he was well acquainted with, and could deliver exactly as he did:



for the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour; which words are expressed by Samuel, 1Sa 15:28;



[even] unto David; which is added by the apparition, by way of explanation, interpreting the words of David; which he might safely venture to do, seeing such a train of circumstances had occurred since the delivery of these words, which plainly made it appear he was intended.





1 Samuel 28:18



Ver. 18. Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord,.... At Gilgal, as Abarbinel thinks; which is the first thing for which the kingdom was threatened to be taken from him, 1Sa 13:13;



nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek: in sparing Agag, and the best of the cattle, 1Sa 15:9;



therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day; forsaken him, rent his kingdom from him, and would deliver him into the hands of the Philistines, as follows: had he been the true Samuel, he would have told him of some other sins of his, provoking to the Lord; as his slaughter of the priests at Nob, his cruel persecution of David, and especially of his asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit at this time, of which not a word is said, and yet was the very transgression for which Saul died, 1Ch 10:13.





1 Samuel 28:19



Ver. 19. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hands of the Philistines,.... Not a word of comfort does he speak unto him, it being the business of this foul spirit to drive him to despair by the permission of God; had he been the true Samuel, he would have directed him to have altered his course of life, and especially his behaviour toward David, and advised him in those difficulties to send for him, who might have been of singular use unto him; he would have exhorted him to repentance for his sins, and humiliation before God on account of them, and given him hope on this that God would appear for him, and work deliverance, as he had done; but instead of this tells him, that he and his army would be delivered into the hands of the Philistines, which he might make a shrewd guess at, and venture to say from the circumstances of things, and the situation Saul and his people were in; the armies of the Philistines were very numerous, and those of Israel comparatively weak; Saul was quite dispirited, and God had forsaken him:



and tomorrow [shalt] thou and thy sons be with me; which if understood in what sense it may, seems to be a lie of the devil, and at best an ambiguous expression, such as he has been wont to give in the Heathen oracles; if he meant this of himself as an evil spirit, it could not be true of Saul and all his sons, that they should be with him in hell, especially of Jonathan who appears throughout the whole of his life to have been a good man; if he would have it understood of him as representing Samuel, and of their being with him in heaven, it must be a great stretch of charity to believe it true of Saul, so wicked a man, and who died in the act of suicide; though the Jews {k}, some of them, understand it in this sense, that his sins were pardoned, and he was saved; and if it is taken in the sense of being in the state of the dead, and in the earth, from whence he is said to ascend, and where the body of Samuel was, which seems to be the best sense that is put upon the phrase, "with me"; yet this was not true, if he meant it of all the sons of Saul, as the expression seems to suggest; for there were Ishbosheth, and his two sons by Rizpah, which survived him; nor was it true of Saul and his sons that they were cut off, and that they died the next day; for the battle was not fought till several days after this, see 1Sa 28:23; if it should be said, that "tomorrow" signifies some future time, and not strictly the next day, this shows the ambiguity of the expression used, and the insignificance of it to the present purpose; for who knew not that Saul and his sons would die some time or another?



the Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines; which is only a repetition of what is said in the first clause.



{k} T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 12. 2.





1 Samuel 28:20



Ver. 20. Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth,.... Fell at his full length at once, as if he had been thunderstruck, or pierced through with a dart or sword:



and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel; as he supposed they were, whose words never failed:



and there was no strength in him: to rise up again, he was quite dispirited and strengthless:



for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night; which contributed the more to his weakness; not only his fears, but not eating any food, occasioned his weakness, and that through want of an appetite, by reason of the great concern of his mind in his present troubles.





1 Samuel 28:21



Ver. 21. And the woman came unto Saul,.... Having left him and the apparition in a room by themselves to converse together, and perhaps on hearing him fall to the ground came in:



and saw that he was sore troubled: by his lying on the ground, and the agonies he seemed to be in, and the uneasiness that sat upon his countenance:



and said unto him, behold, thine handmaid hath obeyed thy voice; in divining by her familiar spirit for him, and in bringing up Samuel to him, as he desired:



and I have put my life in my hand; exposed it to the utmost danger, since a person of her profession, and token in the exercise of it, was punishable with death; and especially she was in the greater danger, as it was Saul himself, who had by an edict expelled all such persons from his dominions, who now employed her, as she perceived:



and have hearkened unto thy words which thou spakest unto me: to the oath he had taken, that no hurt should come to her, which she confided in, and relied upon, and to what he bid her do, according to her art of divination.





1 Samuel 28:22



Ver. 22. Now therefore, I pray thee, hearken thou also unto the voice of thine handmaid,.... She argues, that as she had hearkened unto him to the endangering of her life, it was but reasonable, and might be expected, that he would hearken to her in a case that would be to the preservation of his life:



and let me set a morsel of bread before thee, and eat, that thou mayest have strength, when thou goest on thy way; which she might urge, not merely out of respect to the king, but for her own sake, lest should he die in her house, she might be taken up, not only for a witch, but as being accessory to the death of the king; and therefore she moves, that he would take some food for refreshment of nature, that he might be able to depart her house, and go on his way to his army.





1 Samuel 28:23



Ver. 23. But he refused, and said, I will not eat,.... Choosing rather to die with famine than by the sword of the Philistines; though perhaps his meaning is, he could not eat, his stomach loathed it, being overwhelmed with grief and trouble:



but his servants, together with the woman, compelled him; not by force, but by arguments; they reasoned with him, and prevailed upon him to try to eat:



and he hearkened unto their voice; and agreed to eat, if he could;



so he arose from the earth; on which he lay at his full length:



and sat upon the bed; or couch, it being now the custom to recline on couches at caring; though some deny that this custom obtained so early.





1 Samuel 28:24



Ver. 24. And the woman had a fat calf in the house,.... This was reckoned a very dainty dish in those countries, and fit for any guests, see Ge 18:7; Josephus says {l}, she vouchsafed to feed and take care of it in her house, and it was very familiar with her; and he highly commends the liberality of the woman, and as worthy of imitation:



and she hasted and killed it; and dressed it in some way or another, and which in those times was done speedily:



and took flour and kneaded [it], and did bake unleavened bread therewith; which was soonest made, she not having time to leaven it.



{l} Antiqu. l. 6. c. 14. sect. 3. 4.





1 Samuel 28:25



Ver. 25. And she brought [it] before Saul, and before his servants, and they did eat,.... Of the fatted calf, and unleavened bread, which she set upon a table before them, in the best manner she could:



then they rose up, and went away that night; that it might not be seen in what house they had been, and that they might get to the camp without being discovered by the Philistines, or known by the Israelites that they had been out.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

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