1 Samuelchapter 27
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Key verse
David, however, said to himself, “One of these days now I will be swept away by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will stop searching for me all over Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.”
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 7.
The chapter
Chapter summary
David does the arithmetic and concludes he shall one day perish by the hand of Saul, so he defects with six hundred men to Achish of Gath, the king he once escaped by drooling in his beard. Achish grants him Ziklag, where he stays a year and four months, and the town becomes crown property of the kings of Judah from that day. From there he raids the Geshurites, Girzites, and Amalekites, leaving no survivor to carry the report, so that Achish believes he has been striking his own people. It is the book's most uncomfortable stretch: the anointed king surviving by deception in enemy pay, one battle from having to fight Israel.
Context
History · Samuel, Nathan, Gad · 1 Samuel overview
Where the chapter sits
1 Samuel 27 falls in David's rise in Saul's shadow (chapters 16–31). David anointed in secret; Goliath; Jonathan's covenant; Saul's pursuit; the cave of Adullam; Nabal and Abigail; the Philistine sanctuary; Saul's death at Gilboa.
Before it: Saul's reign: promise and rejection, chapters 9–15.
The whole shape of 1 Samuel→The world behind this chapter
1 Samuel 27The history
David becomes a mercenary vassal, and the arrangement was completely normal. Rulers across the region hired displaced war bands as frontier troops, gave them a border town to garrison, and expected raids and tribute in return. Achish gets an experienced force guarding his southern flank; David gets six hundred men and their families out of Saul's reach and a base of his own, which is far better than living in a Philistine capital under a king's eye.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Ziklag sits in the dry Negev on the edge of the desert, well away from Gath. Its distance is the point, it puts David out of daily observation and gives him room to run his own policy.
That policy is deception at scale. He raids the Geshurites, Girzites, and Amalekites, desert peoples on the far southern approaches, old enemies of Israel, and reports to Achish that he has been raiding the Negev of Judah and its allied clans. To keep the story airtight he leaves no survivors to carry the truth back to Gath. The text states this plainly and does not defend it. He is protecting Israelite towns while telling a Philistine king he is destroying them, and he keeps it up for sixteen months.
There is a cost the book does not hide. This is the same man who in the last chapter refused to let Abishai kill a sleeping king because he would not take a shortcut. Here he takes several, and the writer records both without smoothing either.
Achish's conclusion is the chapter's closing hook: he has made himself utterly hated by his own people, therefore he shall be my servant forever. That belief is what puts David in the Philistine battle line two chapters from now, marching toward a war against his own nation.
What it meant to them
The chapter opens with David saying in his heart that he will one day perish by the hand of Saul. He does not inquire of the LORD, he does not consult Abiathar's ephod, he reasons from fear, and everything in the next four chapters follows from that decision.
For first hearers this was the honest record of their greatest king's worst stretch. Israel's Scriptures kept the story of the anointed man living on a Philistine payroll and lying for a living, because the point was never that David was good.
Sources cited
- Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. Ziklag: David takes refuge with the king of Gath
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.David's own verdict, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul, comes after Saul's spear missed him twice and a cave full of proof that the Lord had already delivered him. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the resolution wrong in more than one particular, and Blaikie reads the verse as the lapse of faith the chapter is built to expose, a shepherd who once trusted a sling now trusting Philistine borders instead. David crosses with six hundred men to Achish son of Maoch, the same Gath where he once feigned madness at chapter 21.
1 Samuel 27:1, 3 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Samuel 27:1-3
"When the Philistines held him in Gath"; this is recounted in the text of the book of Kings [Samuel]. David was terrorized by attacks of Saul and thought that he would be hidden in the city of Gath among the Philistines. But we have said …
Cassiodorus· written before 585· EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 55.1patristic
1 Samuel 27:1
“I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul - This was a very hasty conclusion: God had so often interposed in behalf of his life, that he was authorized to believe the reverse. God had hitherto confounded all Saul’s stratagems, and it was not at all likely that he would now abandon him: there was now no additional reason why he should withdraw from David his helping hand.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 27:1
“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 (1Sa 22:5);”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Samuel 27:2, 1 voice
1 Samuel 27:2
“David arose, and he passed over - unto Achish - There is not one circumstance in this transaction that is not blameable. David joins the enemies of his God and of his country, acts a most inhuman part against the Geshurites and Amalekites, without even the pretense of a Divine authority; tells a most deliberate falsehood to Achish, his protector, relative to the people against whom he had perpetrated this cruel act; giving him to understand that he had been destroying the Israelites, his enemies.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.David settles at Gath with his household entire, even David with his two wives, and the text notes every man's family made the same crossing, more a clan on the move than a raiding band. Saul hears David has fled to Gath and lets the matter drop; Wesley reads Saul's own parting words to David, Return, my son, as proof the king never meant to hunt him past the border. Gill offers the plainer reading, that Saul kept spies out and simply saw no profit chasing an enemy into another king's country.
1 Samuel 27:3, 1 voice
1 Samuel 27:3
“Every man with his household - So it appears that the men who consorted with David had wives and families. David and his company resembled a tribe of the wandering Arabs.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 27:4, 1 voice
1 Samuel 27:4
“Sought no more for him - At their meeting Saul's heart was deeply wounded, and he had said, "Return, my son David, Be with me as in time past." Nor have we the least proof, that he would have sought for him again, with any other design.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
3. (vv. 5-7)
a.David asks Achish for some town in the country rather than lodging in the royal city, and Henry credits two motives, freedom to keep his own worship apart from Gath's idols and plain unwillingness to burden his host as an uninvited guest. Achish gives him Ziklag, a town Joshua had assigned to Judah that the Philistines had since held, and Henry reads the gift as a king of sense and honor restoring land that was never rightly his to keep. The town becomes the property of Judah's own kings from that day, and David dwells there a full year and four months before Saul's death ends the exile.
1 Samuel 27:5, 2 voices
1 Samuel 27:5
“David, with characteristic Oriental subtlety (compare 1Sa 21:2), suggests as a reason for leaving Gath that his presence was burdensome and expensive to the king. His real motive was to be more out of the way of observation and control, so as to act the part of an enemy of Saul, without really lifting up his hand against him and his own countrymen of Israel.”
1 Samuel 27:5
“In a town of his own he might have the more free exercise of his religion, and keep his men better to it, and not have his righteous soul vexed, as it was at Gath, with the idolatries of the Philistines. (2.) As it was presented to Achish it was very modest.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 27:6, 2 voices
1 Samuel 27:6
“Achish gave him Ziklag - Ziklag was at first given to the tribe of Judah, but afterwards it was ceded to that of Simeon, Jos 15:31; Jos 19:5. The Philistines had, however, made themselves masters of it, and held it to the time here mentioned; it then fell into the tribe of Judah again, and continued to be the property of the kings of Judah.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 27:6
“It was given to the tribe of Judah before, Josh. xv, 31, but the Philistines kept the possession of it 'till this time. And being given by them to David, it now belonged not to the tribe of Judah; but to the king of Judah, David and his heirs forever. To this day - This, and some such clauses seem to have been added, after the main substance of the several books was written.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
B. Raids reported crooked, and an enemy who trusts him
1. (vv. 8-9)
a.The raids strike the Geshurites, the Gezrites and the Amalekites, and the third name reaches back to the war Exodus 17 swore against Amalek and Deuteronomy 25 commanded blotted out, the same war chapter 15 left unfinished when Saul spared Agag and the best of the flock. Barnes places these tribes on the desert border toward Egypt, old inhabitants of the land rather than late arrivals, and distinguishes them from other clans bearing similar names elsewhere in the record. David leaves neither man nor woman alive and takes the sheep, oxen, asses and camels for spoil, and Adam Clarke calls it a complete extirpation of the people struck.
1 Samuel 27:8, 1 voice
1 Samuel 27:8
“The Geshurites bordered upon the Philistines, and lived in the mountainous district which terminates the desert on the northeast (marginal reference). They were a different tribe, or, at least, a different branch of it, from the Geshurites who lived on the northeast border of Bashan, and were Arameans 2Sa 15:8. The Gezrites, or Gerzites, may be connected with those who gave their name to Mount Gerizim.”
1 Samuel 27:9, 2 voices
1 Samuel 27:9
“David smote the land - Here was a complete extirpation of all these people, not one being left alive, lest he should carry tidings of the disasters of his country! The spoil which David took consisted of sheep, oxen, asses, camels, and apparel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 27:9
“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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 10-12)
a.Achish asks Whither have ye made a road to day, and David names Judah, the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites, all of them Achish's own allies rather than the tribes actually struck. Wesley calls the answer ambiguous and beneath David's usual candor, and reads his later prayer at Psalm 119:29, remove from me the way of lying, as David's own reflection on this deceit; the narrative itself passes no verdict and simply records that Achish believed him. David spares no one who might carry the true report back to Gath, and Achish concludes that David has made his own people utterly abhor him and so will serve the Philistines forever, a trust the coming chapters will show was entirely misplaced.
1 Samuel 27:10, 2 voices
1 Samuel 27:10
“Whither have ye made a road today? - He had probably been in the habit of making predatory excursions. This seems to be implied in the question of Achish.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 27:10
“David - These and the following words are ambiguous, and contrary to that simplicity which became David, both as a prince, and as an eminent professor of the true religion. The fidelity of Achish to him, and the confidence he put in him, aggravates his sin in thus deceiving him, which David seems penitently to reflect on, when he prays, Remove from me the way of lying.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 27:11, 1 voice
1 Samuel 27:11
“Tidings - The word is not in the original. The sense rather is “to bring them to Gath,” as captives and slaves. The prisoners taken would naturally have been part of the spoil, but David dared not to bring them to Gath lest his deceit should be discovered. Obviously these tribes were allies of the Philistines.”
1 Samuel 27:12, 1 voice
1 Samuel 27:12
“He hath made his people - utterly to abhor him - This deception, which Dr. Delaney says “did harm to nobody, and to the account of which he is at an utter loss what degree of guilt to charge,” imposed upon Achish, had the most direct tendency to make him imagine himself secure, while in the utmost danger; and to have a faithful friend and able ally in David, while he was the veriest enemy he could possibly have. Shame on him who becomes the apologist of such conduct!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Samuel 27. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Cassiodorus, EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 55.1; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley; Matthew Henry and W. G. Blaikie, The First Book of Samuel (Expositor's Bible).
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