841 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now therefore, O king, come down,.... From Gibeah to Ziph, and the wilderness of it, where David was: according to all the desires of thy soul to come down; to seize such a prey which he was greatly desirous of, and of nothing more so than of that according to Abarbinel, the sense is, that the thing was ready in whatever way he should desire it;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Saul said, blessed [be] ye of the Lord,.... He highly commends them for the offer they made to him, blesses God for them, and desires the blessing of God upon them for it: for ye have compassion on me; pitied him on account of the troubles he met with from his son-in-law, were sorry for him, and sympathized with him, which others did not, of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Go, I pray you, prepare yet,.... That is, go home, return to their habitations, and get things in a greater readiness for him; inquire more diligently after David, get more intelligence of him, and inform themselves more exactly about him: and know and see his place where his haunt is; or "foot" (s) is, where that steps and walks most frequently,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself,.... Which he most frequents, that ye may be able to describe them, and the way to them, and easily find them when necessary: and come ye again to me with the certainty; of time and place, when and where he may be certainly found: and I will go with you; upon such...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they arose, and went to Ziph, before Saul,.... Not before his person, as if he went with them, and they before him leading the way; but they went thither before he went, to prepare things more exactly, and with more certainty, before he came, and in order to return to him again and go with him: but David and his men [were] in the wilderness at...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Saul also and his men went to seek [him],.... Whether the Ziphites returned to him with better intelligence, or sent him word where David was, is not said, however Saul with his army came out in search of him: and they told David; or it was told him, that Saul was come in quest of him: wherefore he came down into a rock; either into a cave in...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain,.... Saul with his army came to the very mountain where David and his men were, the one was on one side of it, and the other on the other side; there was only one mountain between them: and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; he fled on one...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But there came a messenger unto Saul,.... From his court, by order of his council there; though the Jews (t) say it was an angel from heaven; but be it which it will, it was certainly the providence of God that directed this affair, that a messenger should come to Saul just at that very time that David was like to fall into his hands: saying,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Therefore Saul returned from pursuing after David,.... Stopped short at once, as soon as ever he received the message: and went against the Philistines; to stop them in their progress, and drive them out of his country: therefore they called that place Selahammahlekoth, which signifies the rock of divisions. David and his men, very probably, gave...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And David went up from thence,.... From the wilderness of Maon, having had a narrow escape for his life: and dwelt in strong holds in Engedi; another place in the tribe of Judah, and which lay in the wilderness of Judah, and from whence that is called the wilderness of Engedi; and here Dr. Lightfoot (w) thinks he penned the sixty third psalm,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 24 Saul being returned from following the Philistines, renews his pursuit after David, 1 Samuel 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, 1 Samuel 24:3; which, calling after him, he held up to...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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, 1...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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 comments on Zephaniah 2:6]; and Saul went in to cover his feet; the Targum is, to do his necessaries; and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...