1 Samuel 23:16
Ver. 16. And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose,.... And came from Gibeah, which, according to Bunting {o}, was twenty two miles from the place where David was:
and went to David into the wood: having had intelligence where he was, this being a proper place to have an interview with him privately: and strengthened his hand in God; and his heart too, his hand of faith to lay hold on God, as his covenant God and lean and rely upon him; he strengthened him in his power and in his providence, and in his promises to him; the Targum is,"he strengthened him in the Word of the Lord;''not only in his word and promise, but in Christ the essential Word of God, who should spring from him according to the flesh.{o} Travels, &c. p. 334. (text not clear could be 834 or some other number) 1 Samuel 23:17Ver. 17. And he said unto him, fear not,.... Distrust not the power, providence, and promises of God, nor dread the wrath of Saul, or fear falling into his hands:for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; to lay hold on him, seize him, and do him any hurt:and thou shalt be king over Israel; meaning after the death of his father; which he knew either by some special revelation made to him; or rather by being informed he had been anointed by Samuel, and which he had either from Samuel or from David himself; and this he most firmly believed, though David was now in so low a condition:and I shall be next unto thee; not succeed him in the kingdom; but if living when he came to the throne, he should be the second man in civil affairs, as he now was, and that he should be content with:and that also Saul my father knoweth; having knowledge of the anointing of David by Samuel; or he might, and did conclude this from various circumstances, that David was his neighbour Samuel had told him of, God had given his kingdom to, 1Sa 15:28. 1 Samuel 23:18Ver. 18. And they two made a covenant before the Lord,.... Renewed the covenant they had before made in the name and fear of God, and before him as a witness of it. Kimchi and Abarbinel interpret this phrase,before the Lord, of the covenant being made before Abiathar, with the Urim and Thummim in his hand; and so Jerom {p}, before Gad the prophet, and Abiathar who wore the ephod:and David abode in the wood; being a proper place for him for secrecy and safety:and Jonathan went to his house; in Gibeah; and these two dear and cordial friends never saw one another more, as is highly probable.{p} Trad. Heb. in lib. Reg. fol. 76. K. 1 Samuel 23:19Ver. 19. Then came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah,.... Who though he had been out in quest of David, yet was now returned to Gibeah, the place of his residence, and where he kept his court; and hither came the Ziphites, the inhabitants of Ziph, in the wilderness of which David hid himself, with a proposal to deliver him to Saul; for though they were of the same tribe with David, yet being terrified with what Saul had done to Nob, they thought it best for their own security to inform Saul where he was, and make an offer to deliver him to him. Some interpreters, as Kimchi, think that this was done before Jonathan was with Saul, and should be rendered, "the Ziphites had come up to Saul"; and hence it is before said, and David saw, &c. for he had heard that the Ziphites should say to Saul, that David had hid himself there; and at this time it was that David wrote the fifty ninth psalm, Ps 54:1:saying, doth not David hide himself with us in the strong holds in the wood; which is in the wilderness of Ziph, in their neighbourhood; they were informed he had hid himself there, and they thought it their duty to let the king know of it: and particularlyin the hill of Hachilah, which [is] on the south of Jeshimon? Hachilah is by Jerom {q} called Echela; and he speaks of a village of that name seven miles from Eleutheropolis, and of Jeshimon as ten miles from Jericho to the south, near the dead sea; on the top of this hill, which was an ascent of thirty furlongs or about four miles, Jonathan the high priest built a castle, and called it Masada, often spoken of by Josephus; who says {r}, that Herod built a wall around it of seven furlongs or about a mile, twelve cubits high, and eight broad, and thirty seven towers of fifty cubits stood in it.{q} De loc. Heb. fol. 91. C. {r} De Bello Jud. l. 7. c. 8. sect. 3. Vid. Adrichom. Theatrum T. S. p. 38. 2. & 39. 1. 1 Samuel 23:20Ver. 20. 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; if he chose to come down himself, and lay hold on him, they invite him to come down; but if he did not choose to come down himself, they would seize him, and bring him to him, and deliver him up into his hand, and so he would be under no necessity of going down after him:and our part [shall be] to deliver him into the king's hand; this we will take upon us to do, and save the king the trouble of coming down. 1 Samuel 23:21Ver. 21. 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 which he complained, 1Sa 22:8. 1 Samuel 23:22Ver. 22. 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, not only get knowledge of it by information, but if they could get sight of it with their own eyes, that they might describe it more exactly:[and] who hath seen him there; not only seen the place, but him in the place, and that often, that it may be certain it is the place he usually resorts to:for it is told me [that] he dealeth very subtilly; sometimes he is seen in one place, and sometimes in another; he is here today, and elsewhere tomorrow; and by such crafty methods it is not easy to know where the place is, and where to be found; this Saul had information of from some, who knew the methods David took to keep it unknown where it was; or "it says to me"; my heart says so to me, as R. Isaiah interprets it; my mind suggests this to me, knowing the man, that he uses such wiles as these: or "he said to me", so Kimchi; when he was with me, and we were intimate, when I used to ask him how he smote the Philistines, so and so, and preserved himself from them; his answer was, "that he dealt very subtilly", he used a good deal of craftiness; and so I imagine he does now.{s} wlgr "pes ejus", Pagninus, Montanus. 1 Samuel 23:23Ver. 23. 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 certain intelligence: it is very much he did not seize this opportunity, and go directly with them; for by this delay, David being informed of the Ziphites coming to Saul to betray him, had time to depart elsewhere:and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land; in the land of Israel, or rather in the land that is in the tribe of Judah:that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah; through all the divisions of that tribe, which, as others, were divided into thousands, see Mic 5:2. 1 Samuel 23:24Ver. 24. 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 Maon; for by the time the Ziphites returned home, David had intelligence of their design, and therefore removed from the wilderness of Ziph to the wilderness of Maon; which, though in the same tribe, was a distinct place;See Gill on "Jos 15:55";in the plain on the south of Jeshimon; the same as in 1Sa 23:19; only David was now farther to the south of it, and in a plain, whereas before he was on an hill. 1 Samuel 23:25Ver. 25. 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 it, or he came down from the hill Hachilah to a plain or valley, in order to go up to a rock, the same with the mountain in 1Sa 23:26:and abode in the wilderness of Maon; in which was the rock or mountain he came to:and when Saul heard [that], he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon; for upon the intelligence of the Ziphites, he came out to seek for him in the wilderness of Ziph, but hearing that he was removed to the wilderness of Maon, he pursued him there. 1 Samuel 23:26Ver. 26. 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 side of the mountain, while Saul was pursuing him on the other, and hastening to get round unto him:for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them; he took methods by dividing his troops, and sending them different ways, to surround David and his men, and had very near effected it. 1 Samuel 23:27Ver. 27. 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, haste thee, and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land; were come into it, and spread themselves in it, as the word signifies, which expresses their numbers they had poured in, the force they came with, and the possessions they had already got; perhaps they had taken the advantage of Saul's departure in quest of David, to penetrate into the tribe of Benjamin, where his patrimony, residence, and court were, and which were liable to fall into their hands; and therefore his presence was immediately required, and haste was necessary.{t} Midrash apud Yalkut in loc. 1 Samuel 23:28Ver. 28. 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 it this name, not only because it divided between Saul and his men, and David and his men, when they were one on one side of it, and the other on the other side of it; but because Saul was, by the providence of God, divided and separated from David here, whereby he escaped falling into his hands. The Targum is,"therefore they called that place the rock of division, the place where the heart of the king was divided to go here and there:''he was divided in his own mind, and at a loss what to do; he was in two minds, as Jarchi says, and did not know which to follow, whether to return and deliver his country from the hands of the Philistines, or to pursue and take David; and others represent the soldiers of Saul as divided, some saying that since the son of Jesse was just falling into their hands, they should not leave him; others, that the war of Israel should be regarded before him, who might be found at any time {u}.{u} Midrash apud Yalkut in loc. 1 Samuel 23:29Ver. 29. 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, Ps 63:1, the wilderness about Engedi being the most desert of all other places, that being upon the borders of the dead sea; of this place, See Gill on "Jos 15:62".{w} Works, vol. 1. p. 58.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.