1. Samuel 27:8 Kommentar

David was a man after God's own heart, and yet he had his faults, which are recorded, not for our imitation, but for our admonition; witness the story of this chapter, in which, though, I. We find, to his praise, that he prudently took care of his own safety and his family's (Sa1 27:2-4) and valiantly fought Israel's battles against the Canaanites (Sa1 27:8-9), yet, II. We find, to his dishonour, 1. That he began to despair of his deliverance (Sa1 27:1). 2. That he deserted his own country, and went to dwell in the land of the Philistines (Sa1 27:1, Sa1 27:5-7). 3. That he imposed upon Achish with an equivocation, if not a lie, concerning his expedition (Sa1 27:10-12).

Here is an account of David's actions while he was in the land of the Philistines, a fierce attack he made upon some remains of the devoted nations, his success in it, and the representation he gave of it to Achish. 1. We may acquit him of injustice and cruelty in this action because those people whom he cut off were such as heaven had long since doomed to destruction, and he that did it was one whom heaven had ordained to dominion; so that the thing was very fit to be done, and he was very fit to do it. It was not for him that was anointed to fight the Lord's battles to sit still in sloth, however he might think fit, in modesty, to retire. He desired to be safe from Saul only that he might expose himself for Israel. He avenged an old quarrel that God had with these nations, and at the same time fetched in provisions for himself and his army, for by their swords they must live. The Amalekites were to be all cut off. Probably the Geshurites and Gezrites were branches of Amalek. Saul was rejected for sparing them, David makes up the deficiency of his obedience before he succeeds him. He smote them, and left none alive, Sa1 27:8, Sa1 27:9. The service paid itself, for they carried off abundance of spoil, which served for the subsistence of David's forces. 2. Yet we cannot acquit him of dissimulation with Achish in the account he gave him of this expedition. (1.) David, it seems, was not willing that he should know the truth, and therefore spared none to carry tidings to Gath (Sa1 27:11), not because he was ashamed of what he had done as a bad thing, but because he was afraid, if the Philistines knew it, they would be apprehensive of danger to themselves or their allies by harbouring him among them and would expel him from their coasts. It would be easy to conclude, If so he did, so will be his manner, and therefore he industriously conceals it from them, which, it seems, he could do by putting them all to the sword, for none of their neighbours would inform against him, nor perhaps would soon come to the knowledge of what was done, intelligence not being so readily communicated then as now. (2.) He hid it from Achish with an equivocation not at all becoming his character. Being asked which way he had made his sally, he answered, Against the south of Judah, v. 13. It was true he had invaded those countries that lay south of Judah, but he made Achish believe he had invaded those that lay south in Judah, the Ziphites for example, that had once and again betrayed him; so Achish understood him, and thence inferred that he had made his people Israel to abhor him, and so riveted himself in the interest of Achish. The fidelity of Achish to him, his good opinion of him, and the confidence he put in him, aggravate his sin in deceiving him thus, which, with some other such instances, David seems penitently to reflect upon when he prays, Remove from me the way of lying.

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, Sa1 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, Sa1 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, Sa1 27:8.

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 Deu 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 Sa1 15:7.

And David and his men went up, etc. Upon the rock, Egypt sounds darkness. Therefore, the Church was growing through the steadfastness of Christ's disciples, and was rescuing souls from pagan rites, which, following the examples of not new but ancient men, had clung to earthly desires, with all going to the hardness of heart, and arriving as far as the dark land, covered with the gloom of death, the land of the misery of darkness, where the shadow of death, and no order, and eternal horror dwells.

David flies to Achish, king of Gath, who receives him kindly, and gives him Ziklag to dwell in, where he continues a year and four months, Sa1 27:1-7. David invades the Geshurites and Amalekites, and leaves neither man nor woman alive, Sa1 27:8, Sa1 27:9. He returns to Achish, and pretends that he had been making inroads on the Israelites, and Achish believes it, Sa1 27:10-12.

SAUL HEARING THAT DAVID WAS FLED TO GATH, SEEKS NO MORE FOR HIM. (Sa1 27:1-4) David said in his heart, . . . there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines--This resolution of David's was, in every respect, wrong: (1) It was removing him from the place where the divine oracle intimated him to remain (Sa1 22:5); (2) It was rushing into the idolatrous land, for driving him into which he had denounced an imprecation on his enemies (Sa1 26:19); (3) It was a withdrawal of his counsel and aid from God's people. It was a movement, however, overruled by Providence to detach him from his country and to let the disasters impending over Saul and his followers be brought on by the Philistines.

David . . . went up, and invaded the Geshurites--(See Jos 13:2). and the Gezrites--or the Gerizi [GESENIUS], (Jos 12:12), some Arab horde which had once encamped there. and the Amalekites--Part of the district occupied by them lay on the south of the land of Israel (Jdg 5:14; Jdg 12:15).

David at Ziklag in the Land of the Philistines - Sa1 27:1-12 In his despair of being able permanently to escape the plots of Saul in the land of Israel, David betook himself, with his attendants, to the neighbouring land of the Philistines, to king Achish of Gath, and received from him the town of Ziklag, which was assigned him at his own request as a dwelling-place (Sa1 27:1-7). From this point he made attacks upon certain tribes on the southern frontier of Canaan which were hostile to Israel, but described them to Achish as attacks upon Judah and its dependencies, that he might still retain the protection of the Philistian chief (Sa1 27:8-12). David had fled to Achish at Gath once before; but on that occasion he had been obliged to feign insanity in order to preserve his life, because he was recognised as the conqueror of Goliath. This act of David was not forgotten by the Philistines even now. But as David had been pursued by Saul for many years, Achish did not hesitate to give a place of refuge in his land to the fugitive who had been outlawed by the king of Israel, the arch-enemy of the Philistines, possibly with the hope that if a fresh war with Saul should break out, he should be able to reap some advantage from David's friendship.

From Ziklag David made an attack upon the Geshurites, Gerzites, and Amalekites, smote them without leaving a man alive, and returned with much booty. The occasion of this attack is not mentioned, as being a matter of indifference in relation to the chief object of the history; but it is no doubt to be sought for in plundering incursions made by these tribes into the land of Israel. For David would hardly have entered upon such a war in the situation in which he was placed at that time without some such occasion, seeing that it would be almost sure to bring him into suspicion with Achish, and endanger his safety. ויּעל, "he advanced," the verb being used, as it frequently is, to denote the advance of an army against a people or town (see at Jos 8:1). At the same time, the tribes which he attacked may have had their seat upon the mountain plateau in the northern portion of the desert of Paran, so that David was obliged to march up to reach them. פּשׁט, to invade for the purpose of devastation and plunder. Geshuri is a tribe mentioned in Jos 13:2 as living in the south of the territory of the Philistines, and is a different tribe from the Geshurites in the north-east of Gilead (Jos 12:5; Jos 13:11, Jos 13:13; Deu 3:14). These are the only passages in which they are mentioned. The Gerzites, or Gizrites according to the Keri, are entirely unknown. Bonfrere and Clericus suppose them to be the Gerreni spoken of in 2 Macc. 13:24, who inhabited the town of Gerra, between Rhinocolura and Pelusium (Strabo, xvi. 760), or Gerron (Ptol. iv. 5). This conjecture is a possible one, but is very uncertain nevertheless, as the Gerzites certainly dwelt somewhere in the desert of Arabia. At any rate Grotius and Ewald cannot be correct in their opinion that they were the inhabitants of Gezer (Jos 10:33). The Amalekites were the remnant of this old hereditary foe of the Israelites, who had taken to flight on Saul's war of extermination, and had now assembled again (see at Sa1 15:8-9). "For they inhabit the land, where you go from of old to Shur, even to the land of Egypt." The עשׁר before מעולם may be explained from the fact that בּואך is not adverbial here, but is construed according to its form as an infinitive: literally, "where from of old thy coming is to Shur." עשׁר cannot have crept into the text through a copyist's mistake, as such a mistake would not have found its way into all the MSS. The fact that the early translators did not render the word proves nothing against its genuineness, but merely shows that the translators regarded it as superfluous. Moreover, the Alexandrian text is decidedly faulty here, and עולם is confounded with עלם, ἀπὸ Γελάμ. Shur is the desert of Jifar, which is situated in front of Egypt (as in Sa1 15:7). These tribes were nomads, and had large flocks, which David took with him as booty when he had smitten the tribes themselves. After his return, David betook himself to Achish, to report to the Philistian king concerning his enterprise, and deceive him as to its true character.