Bible Commentaries

1 Samuel 24:1-2

(with Song of Solomon 1:14)

Engedi means the fountain of the wild goat or rather, as we should say, of the ibex, the Syrian chamois, or the antelope. Among these wild but beautiful solitudes David, with his young men, established himself. Engedi itself was on a perpendicular cliff, hanging fifteen hundred feet above the Dead Sea. The palms have all gone, the vineyards all gone; the trenna, the beautiful wild flower supposed to be that called the camphire, abounds still. The crags and cliffs are thronged with doves, and upon a shelf of the mountain there is a little lakelet or fountain, breaking forth into a stream and tumbling on, no great torrent, but a thread of silver, for four hundred feet below.

I. Here, to David's retreat by the fountain of the wild goat, came Saul, "the deceitful and unjust man." But the cumbrous and heavy Saul could do nothing against the lithe stripling, David. There is even a sportive humour in the very acts by which David shows his superiority to his foe. Altogether, the sublime, the pathetic, the humorous and the graphic mingled together in the various adventures of David, the outlaw of Engedi.

II. With this spot too, no doubt, we are to associate the inditing of many of the imprecatory Psalms; for here, hunted as a bird through the wilderness, he said "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul."

III. During his stay at Engedi, David was not a wild bandit; among the hills the law of his God was in his heart; not wreaking on society his revenge, but flying to the spot where, if he could be most securely screened from invasion, he would also be farthest removed from the possibility of inflicting injury; and there he waited, nursing his great soul amidst the solitudes of the eternal hills. Among the rocks of Engedi, David "endured as seeing Him who is invisible."

E. Paxton Hood, The Preacher's Lantern, vol. iii., p. 605.

References: 1 Samuel 24:4.—F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 149; J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 442. 1 Samuel 24:11.—T. Coster, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 20. 1 Samuel 24:16.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 41. 1 Samuel 25:1.—W. M. Taylor, David King of Israel, p. no; J. R. Macduff, Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains, p. 78. 1 Samuel 25:1-36.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 272. 1 Samuel 25:3.—T. Coster, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 51. 1 Samuel 25:10.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2654. 1 Samuel 25:10, 1 Samuel 25:11.—F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1st series, p. 245. 1 Samuel 25:8.—F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 168. 1 Samuel 25:18.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 76. 1 Samuel 25:29.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Children's Bread, p. 113; F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 168. 1 Samuel 25:32.—J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 445. 1 Samuel 26:6.—F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 187. 1 Samuel 26:25.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 44. 1Sam 26—W. M. Taylor, David King of Israel, p. 95. 1 Samuel 27:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 439; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 291; F. W. Krummacher, David the King of Israel, p. 199. 1Sam 27-31.—W. M. Taylor, David King of Israel, p. 123. 1 Samuel 23:3.—C. J. Vaughan, Sunday Magazine, 1872, p. 777. 1 Samuel 28:3-19.—G. Mason, A Pastor's Legacy, p. 429. 1 Samuel 28:6.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 139. 1 Samuel 28:7.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 47. 1 Samuel 28:7-25.—Expositor, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 424, and vol. iv., p. 111. 1 Samuel 28:11.—B.J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 140; J. M. McCulloch, Sermons on Unusual Subjects, p. 13. 1Sam 28—W. Hanna, Sunday Magazine, 1865, p. 609.