1 Samuelchapter 29
11 verses · BSB1 Samuel book hub →
Key verse
As the Philistine leaders marched out their units of hundreds and thousands, David and his men marched behind them with Achish.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 5.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The Philistine armies pass in review at Aphek, David and his men marching in the rear with Achish, and the lords demand to know what these Hebrews are doing there. Achish defends him warmly (I have found no fault in him since he fell away unto me) but the princes are angry and remember the song: is this not David, of whom they sang, Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands? He shall not go down with us, lest in the battle he become an adversary. Achish sends him home with a soldier's compliment, that he is good in his sight as an angel of God, and providence quietly spares David from drawing a sword at Gilboa.
Context
History · Samuel, Nathan, Gad · 1 Samuel overview
Where the chapter sits
1 Samuel 29 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 29The history
The Philistine forces gather at Aphek, the same staging point where the ark was lost decades earlier, before marching up to the Jezreel valley for the battle. The review described is a real military procedure: the five rulers pass the units in order, by hundreds and by thousands, and David's six hundred come up in the rear with Achish.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The commanders' objection is professional, not personal. What are these Hebrews doing here? They know a mercenary unit with old ties to the enemy is the classic way to lose a battle, and they say so directly: in the battle he may become an adversary to us. Then they quote the same song that has followed David since the valley of Elah, Saul has struck down his thousands and David his ten thousands. Philistine officers knew Israel's victory songs by heart, which tells you how thoroughly David had beaten them.
Achish's defense of David is warm and completely mistaken: I have found nothing wrong in him from the day he deserted to me to this day. He has believed the reports of raids on Judah for sixteen months. His oath is even sworn by the LORD, the God of Israel, a Philistine king swearing by a god he does not serve because it is the god his favorite officer serves.
David's protest, what have I done, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king, is a masterpiece of ambiguity. Every hearer could ask which lord and which enemies he meant, and the answer is deliberately unavailable.
The dismissal is the deliverance. Sent home at first light, David and his men march south, which is the only reason they reach Ziklag in time for what has happened there.
What it meant to them
The chapter answers a question a later Israelite would certainly ask: was David in the battle where Saul died? The record is emphatic. He was sent away before the march, over the protest of the man who wanted him there.
It is also God rescuing a man from a trap of his own making. David walked himself into the Philistine order of battle by his own reasoning, and was walked out of it by the suspicion of enemy generals who did not trust him.
Sources cited
- Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. The Philistine lords will not have David in the battle
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.The armies gather at Aphek in the north while Israel camps by the fountain in Jezreel, the same ground where Saul's line falls in chapter thirty-one. David rides in the rear guard with Achish, a captain in a foreign king's army after a year and four months at Ziklag, the last stage of the outlaw years that began at Adullam. The chapter opens with David positioned exactly where he must be removed from, inside the very army marching toward the field where Saul dies.
1 Samuel 29:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Samuel 29:1
“A fountain - Probably, the fine spring Ain-Jalud. It is impossible to say what the special circumstances were which led to the struggle between Israel and the Philistines taking place so far north as the plain of Jezreel. Possibly it was connected with some movements of the Aramaic tribes to the north of Palestine. See 2 Sam. 8.”
1 Samuel 29:1
“A person who compares the Bible account of Saul's last battle with the Philistines, with the region around Gilboa, has the same sort of evidence that the account relates what is true, that a person would have that such a battle as Waterloo really took place. Gilboa, Jezreel, Shunem, En-dor, are all found, still bearing the same names.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Samuel 29:2, 3 voices
1 Samuel 29:2
“By hundreds, and by thousands - They were probably divided, as the Jewish armies, by fifties, hundreds, and thousands; each having its proper officer or captain.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:2
“David and his men passed on in the rereward with Achish--as the commander of the lifeguards of Achish, who was general of this invading army of the Philistines.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Samuel 29:2
“If Saul should be killed (as it proved he was) in this engagement, the fault would be laid at David's door, as if he had killed him. So that on each side there seemed to be both sin and scandal. This was the strait he was in; and a great strait it was to a good man, greater to see sin before him than to see trouble.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.Achish defends David to his own princes with a plain testimonial, no fault found in him since the day he fell unto me. The princes answer with military logic David cannot disprove, that a man cannot buy his way back into Saul's favor except with Philistine heads, and their suspicion sits closer to the truth than Achish's trust, since David had spent his months at Ziklag raiding towns he never reported to his Philistine lord. The scene sets one Gentile king's honest good opinion against shrewder men who read the case rightly for the wrong reason.
1 Samuel 29:3, 1 voice
1 Samuel 29:3
These days, or these years - I suppose these words to mark no definite time, and may be understood thus: “Is not this David, who has been with me for a considerable time?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:4, 2 voices
1 Samuel 29:4
“The princes of the Philistines were wroth - It is strange that they had not yet heard of David’s destruction of a village of the Geshurites, Gezrites, and Amalekites, 1Sa 27:8, 1Sa 27:9. Had they heard of this, they would have seen much more cause for suspicion.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:4
“But David is not free from censure in his professions to Achish (1Sa 29:8), to do what he probably had not the smallest purpose of doing--of fighting with Achish against his enemies. It is just an instance of the unhappy consequences into which a false step--a departure from the straight course of duty--will betray everyone who commits it.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (v. 5)
a.The song first sung by Israel's women at 18:7 returns here from Philistine mouths, and it does the opposite work now, praise that once cost David Saul's jealousy costs him a place in the Philistine line. The princes quote the very words that proved his standing with Israel to argue he cannot be trusted against Israel. His own reputation becomes the means that keeps him off the field at Gilboa.
1 Samuel 29:5, 1 voice
1 Samuel 29:5
“Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances,.... Long ago: saying, Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands; so that he is an old sworn enemy of ours; and the more valiant and victorious he has been, the less is he to be trusted, see 1Sa 18:7.”
B. Sent back at daybreak, good as an angel of God
1. (vv. 6-7)
a.Achish swears as the Lord liveth, a Philistine king using the covenant name of Israel's God, and some of the bench read it as a mark of what he had picked up across a year and four months in David's company. He lays the whole dismissal on the princes and keeps none of it for himself, praising David's conduct in the same breath he sends him away. The good word he gives is genuine and does David no good at all, since the men who outrank him in this council will not be moved by it.
1 Samuel 29:6, 2 voices
1 Samuel 29:6
“Thou hast been upright - So he thought, for as yet he had not heard of the above transaction; David having given him to understand that he had been fighting against Israel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:6-11
“The princes - The Lords of the other eminent cities, who were confederate with him in this expedition. These days or years - That is, did I say days? He hath now been with me a full year and four months, chap. xxvii, 7, and he was with me some years ago, chap. xxi, 10, and since their time hath been known to me.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 8-9)
a.David protests that he has done nothing to earn dismissal, and several of the older writers read the protest as performance rather than sincerity, since he had led Achish to believe he raided Israelite towns while actually striking Israel's enemies at 27:8-10. Achish answers with a compliment shaped like prophecy, David is good in his sight as an angel of God, language Matthew Henry sets beside Zechariah's promise that the house of David would be as the angel of the LORD. One is a court compliment, the other a divine word, and Henry names the difference rather than let them merge.
1 Samuel 29:8, 2 voices
1 Samuel 29:8
“David said - what have I done? - Dr. Chandler and others may say what they will to make David act a consistent part in this business; but it is most evident, whatever his intentions might be as to the part he was to take in the approaching battle, he did intend to persuade Achish that he would fight against Israel; and affects to feel his reputation injured by not being permitted on this occasion to show his fidelity to the king of Gath.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:8
“He seemed anxious to serve him when he was at this juncture really anxious to leave him, but he was not willing that Achish should know that he was. No one knows how strong the temptation is to compliment and dissemble which those are in that attend great men, and how hard it is to avoid it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 29:9, 3 voices
1 Samuel 29:9
“As an angel of God - There is some reason to think that Achish had actually embraced or was favourably disposed towards the Jewish religion. He speaks here of the angels of God, as a Jew might be expected to speak; and in 1Sa 29:6 he appeals to, and swears by Jehovah; which, perhaps, no Philistine ever did. It is possible that he might have learned many important truths from David, during the time he sojourned with him.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:9
“Angel of God - In whom nothing is blame-worthy. The Heathens acknowledged good spirits, which also they worshipped as an inferior sort of deities, who were messengers and ministers to the supreme God;”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:9
“What Achish says of David, God, by the prophet, says of the house of David ( Zech. xii. 8 ), that it shall be as the angel of the Lord. But the former is a court-compliment; the latter is a divine promise.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (vv. 10-11)
a.David and his men rise early and turn back toward Philistine territory while the Philistines march up to Jezreel for the battle that kills Saul and Jonathan. Wesley reads the timing as more than accident, for David did not yet know Ziklag needed him, but God did, and sent him back exactly when a raided home called for a rescuer. The chapter's whole shape serves this one exit, David is removed from the field where Saul falls, so that when the news comes to him in chapter one it comes as a report rather than a memory, and his lament and his judgment on the killer of the anointed are not touched by his own hand in that battle.
1 Samuel 29:10, 1 voice
1 Samuel 29:10
“With thy master’s servants - Who were these? has been very properly asked; and to this question there can be but two answers: - 1. The six hundred Israelites which were with him; and who might still be considered the subjects of Saul, though now residing in a foreign land. 2. The servants of achish; i.e., David’s men thus considered; because on his coming to Gath, he had in effect given up himself and his men to Achish.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 29:11, 1 voice
1 Samuel 29:11
“Rose up early - David did not then know, how necessary this was, for the relief of his own city. But God knew it well, and sent him thither accordingly.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Samuel 29. 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 Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel and Matthew Henry.
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