Bible Commentaries

David Delivers Keilah. He Is Betrayed by the Ziphites, and Marvellously Saved from Saul in the Desert of Maon - 1 Samuel 23

The following events show how, on the one hand, the Lord gave pledges toHis servant David that he would eventually become king, but yet on theother hand plunged him into deeper and deeper trouble, that He mightrefine him and train him to be a king after His own heart. Saul's rage againstthe priests at Nob not only drove the high priest into David's camp, butprocured for David the help of the “light and right” of the high priest in allhis undertakings. Moreover, after the prophet Gad had called David backto Judah, an attack of the Philistines upon Keilah furnished him with theopportunity to show himself to the people as their deliverer. Andalthough this enterprise of his exposed him to fresh persecutions on thepart of Saul, who was thirsting for revenge, he experienced in connectiontherewith not only the renewal of Jonathan's friendship on this occasion,but a marvellous interposition on the part of the faithful covenant God.

1 Samuel 23:1-14

Rescue of Keilah. - After his return to the mountains of Judah,David received intelligence that Philistines, i.e., a marauding company ofthese enemies of Israel, were fighting against Keilah, and plundering thethreshing-floors, upon which the corn that had been reaped was lyingready for threshing. Keilah belonged to the towns of the lowlands of Judah(Joshua 15:44); and although it has not yet been discovered, was certainlyvery close to the Philistian frontier.

1 Samuel 23:2

After receiving this information, David inquired of the Lord(through the Urim and Thummim of the high priest) whether he should goand smite these Philistines, and received an affirmative answer.

1 Samuel 23:3-6

But his men said to him, “Behold, here in Judah we are in fear(i.e., are not safe from Saul's pursuit); how shall we go to Keilah againstthe ranks of the Philistines?” In order, therefore, to infuse courage intothem, he inquired of the Lord again, and received the assurance from God,“I will give the Philistines into thy hand.” He then proceeded with hismen, fought against the Philistines, drove off their cattle, inflicted a severedefeat upon them, and thus delivered the inhabitants of Keilah. In 1 Samuel 23:6 asupplementary remark is added in explanation of the expression “inquiredof the Lord,” to the effect that, when Abiathar fled to David to Keilah, theephod had come to him. The words “to David to Keilah” are not to beunderstood as signifying that Abiathar did not come to David till he was inKeilah, but that when he fled after David (1 Samuel 22:20), he met with himas he was already preparing for the march of Keilah, and immediatelyproceeded with him thither. For whilst it is not stated in 1 Samuel 22:20 thatAbiathar came to David in the wood of Hareth, but the place of meeting isleft indefinite, the fact that David had already inquired of Jehovah (i.e.,through the oracle of the high priest) with reference to the march to Keilah,compels us to assume that Abiathar had come to him before he left themountains for Keilah. So that the brief expression “to David to Keilah,”which is left indefinite because of its brevity, must be interpreted inaccordance with this fact.

1 Samuel 23:7-9

As soon as Saul received intelligence of David's march toKeilah, he said, “God has rejected him (and delivered him) into my hand.”נכּר does not mean simply to look at, but also to find strange, andtreat as strange, and then absolutely to reject (Jeremiah 19:4, as in the Arabic inthe fourth conjugation). This is the meaning here, where the constructionwith בּידי is to be understood as a pregnant expression:“rejection and delivered into my hand” (vid., Ges. Lex. s. v.). The earlytranslators have rendered it quite correctly according to the sense מכר, πέπρακεν , tradidit, without there being any reason tosuppose that they read מכר instead of נכּר. “For he hathshut himself in, to come (= coming, or by coming) into a city with gatesand bolts.”

1 Samuel 23:8

He therefore called all the people (i.e., men of war) together towar, to go down to Keilah, and to besiege David and his men.

1 Samuel 23:9-12

But David heard that Saul was preparing mischief against him(lit. forging, החרישׁ, from הרשׁ; Proverbs 3:29; Proverbs 6:14, etc.), andhe inquired through the oracle of the high priest whether the inhabitants ofKeilah would deliver him up to Saul, and whether Saul would come down;and as both questions were answered in the affirmative, he departed fromthe city with his six hundred men, before Saul carried out his plan. It isevident from 1 Samuel 23:9-12, that when the will of God was sought through theUrim and Thummim, the person making the inquiry placed the matterbefore God in prayer, and received an answer; but always to one particularquestion. For when David had asked the two questions given in 1 Samuel 23:11, hereceived the answer to the second question only, and had to ask the firstagain (1 Samuel 23:12).

1 Samuel 23:13

“They went whithersoever they could go” (lit. “they wanderedabout where they wandered about”), i.e., wherever they could go withoutdanger.

1 Samuel 23:14

David retreated into the desert (of Judah), to the mountainheights (that were to be found there), and remained on the mountains inthe desert of Ziph. The “desert of Judah” is the desert tract between themountains of Judah and the Dead Sea, in its whole extent, from thenorthern boundary of the tribe of Judah to the Wady Fikreh in the south(see at Joshua 15:61). Certain portions of this desert, however, receiveddifferent names of their own, according to the names of different towns onthe border of the mountains and desert. The desert of Ziph was thatportion of the desert of Judah which was near to and surrounded the townof Ziph, the name of which has been retained in the ruins of Tell Zif, anhour and three-quarters to the south-east of Hebron (see at Joshua 15:55).

1 Samuel 23:14 . “And Saul sought him all the days, but God delivered him not into hishand.” This is a general remark, intended to introduce the accounts whichfollow, of the various attempts made by Saul to get David into his power. “All the days,” i.e., as long as Saul lived.

David in the Deserts of Ziph and Maon. - The history of David'spersecution by Saul is introduced in 1 Samuel 23:15-18, with the account of anattempt made by the noble-minded prince Jonathan, in a private interviewwith his friend David, to renew his bond of friendship with him, andstrengthen David by his friendly words for the sufferings that yet awaitedhim. 1 Samuel 23:15, 1 Samuel 23:16 are to be connected together so as to form one period:“When David saw that Saul was come out … and David was in the desert ofZiph, Jonathan rose up and went to David into the wood.” חרשׁה, from חרשׁ, with ה paragogic, signifies a wood or thicket; here,however, it is probably a proper name for a district in the desert of Ziphthat was overgrown with wood or bushes, and where David was stoppingat that time. “There is no trace of this wood now. The land lost itsornament of trees centuries ago through the desolating hand of man” (v. deVelde). “And strengthened his hand in God,” i.e., strengthened his heart,not by supplies, or by money, or any subsidy of that kind, but byconsolation drawn from his innocence, and the promises of God (vid., Judges 9:24; Jeremiah 23:14). “Fear not,” said Jonathan to him, “for the hand of Saulmy father will not reach thee; and thou wilt become king over Israel, and Iwill be the second to thee; and Saul my father also knows that it is so.”Even though Jonathan had heard nothing from David about his anointing,he could learn from David's course thus far, and from his own father'sconduct, that David would not be overcome, but would possess thesovereignty after the death of Saul. Jonathan expresses here, as his firmconviction, what he has intimated once before, in 1 Samuel 20:13.; and withthe most loving self-denial entreats David, when he shall be king, to let himoccupy the second place in the kingdom. It by no means follows from thelast words (“Saul my father knoweth”), that Saul had received distinctinformation concerning the anointing of David, and his divine calling to beking. The words merely contain the thought, he also sees that it will come. The assurance of this must have forced itself involuntarily upon the mindof Saul, both from his own rejection, as foretold by Samuel, and also fromthe marvellous success of David in all his undertakings.

After these encouraging words, they two made a covenant before Jehovah:i.e., they renewed the covenant which they had already made by anothersolemn oath; after which Jonathan returned home, but David remained inthe wood.

The treachery of the Ziphites forms a striking contrast to Jonathan'streatment of David. They went up to Gibeah to betray to Saul the factthat David was concealed in the wood upon their mountain heights, andindeed “upon the hill Hachilah, which lies to the south of the waste.” Thehill of Ziph is a flattened hill standing by itself, of about a hundred feet inheight. “There is no spot from which you can obtain a better view ofDavid's wanderings backwards and forwards in the desert than from thehill of Ziph, which affords a true panorama. The Ziphites could see Davidand his men moving to and fro in the mountains of the desert of Ziph, andcould also perceive how he showed himself in the distance upon the hillHachilah on the south side of Ziph (which lies to the right by the desert);whereupon they sent as quickly as possible to Saul, and betrayed to himthe hiding-place of his enemy” (v. de Velde, ii. pp. 104-5). Jeshimon doesnot refer here to the waste land on the north-eastern coast of the Dead Sea,as in Numbers 21:20; Numbers 23:28, but to the western side of that sea, which is alsodesert.

1 Samuel 23:20 reads literally thus: “And now, according to all the desire of thy soul,O king, to come down (from Gibeah, which stood upon higher ground),come down, and it is in us to deliver him (David) into the hand of theking.”

For this treachery Saul blessed them: “Be blessed of the Lord, that ye havecompassion upon me.” In his evil conscience he suspected David ofseeking to become his murderer, and therefore thanked God in his delusionthat the Ziphites had had compassion upon him, and shown him David'shiding-place.

In his anxiety, however, lest David should escape him after all, he chargedthem, “Go, and give still further heed (הכין without לב,as in Judges 12:6), and reconnoitre and look at his place where his footcometh (this simply serves as a more precise definition of the nominalsuffix in מקומו, his place), who hath seen him there (sc., letthem inquire into this, that they may not be deceived by uncertain or falsereports): for it is told me that he dealeth very subtilly.”

They were to search him out in every corner (the object to דּעוּ must be supplied from the context). “And come ye again to me with thecertainty (i.e., when you have got some certain intelligence concerning hishiding-place), that I may go with you; and if he is in the land, I will searchhim out among all the thousands (i.e., families) of Judah.”

With this answer the Ziphites arose and “went to Ziph before Saul” (whowould speedily follow with his warriors); but David had gone farther inthe meantime, and was with his men “in the desert of Maon, in the steppeto the south of the wilderness.” Maon, now Maïn, is about three hoursand three-quarters S.S.E. of Hebron (see at Joshua 15:55), and therefore onlytwo hours from Ziph, from which it is visible. “The table-land appears toterminate here; nevertheless the principal ridge of the southern mountainsruns for a considerable distance towards the south-west, whereas towardsthe south-east the land falls off more and more into a lower table-land.”This is the Arabah or steppe on the right of the wilderness (v. de Velde, ii. pp. 107-8).

Having been informed of the arrival of Saul and his men (warriors), Davidwent down the rock, and remained in the desert of Maon. “The rock” isprobably the conical mountain of Main (Maon), the top of which is nowsurrounded with ruins, probably remains of a tower (Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 194), as the rock from which David came down can only have been themountain (1 Samuel 23:26), along one side of which David went with his men whilstSaul and his warriors went on the other, namely when Saul pursued himinto the desert of Maon.

“And David was anxiously concerned to escape from Saul, and Saul andhis men were encircling David and his men to seize them; but a messengercame to Saul … . Then Saul turned from pursuing David.” The two clauses,“for Saul and his men” (1 Samuel 23:26 ), and “there came a messenger” (1 Samuel 23:27), arethe circumstantial clauses by which the situation is more clearly defined:the apodosis to דּוד ויהי does not follow tillויּשׁב in 1 Samuel 23:28. The apodosis cannot begin with וּמלאך because the verb does not stand at the head. David had thus almostinextricably fallen into the hands of Saul; but God saved him by the factthat at that very moment a messenger arrived with the intelligence,“Hasten and go (come), for Philistines have fallen into the land,” and thuscalled Saul away from any further pursuit of David.

From this occurrence the place received the name of Sela-hammahlekoth,“rock of smoothnesses,” i.e., of slipping away or escaping, from חלק, in the sense of being smooth. This explanation is at any rate bettersupported than “rock of divisions, i.e., the rock at which Saul and Davidwere separated” (Clericus), since חלק does not mean toseparate.