1 Samuel 26:8

8 Abishai said to David, "God has handed your enemy over to you today! Let me pin him to the ground with my spear. One stroke is all I need! I won't need a second."

1 Samuel 26:8 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 26:8

Then said Abishai to David
Seeing Saul fast asleep, and a spear so near him:

God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day:
or at this time, properly it was night:

now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear;
with Saul's own spear, which was stuck in the ground at his bolster. He remembered that David would not put forth his hand to stay him before, when he had an opportunity; and since now another offered, he did not move it to him to do it, but begged leave to do it himself; which he might think would be granted, since there was such a remarkable hand of Providence in it, which seemed to direct to such a step:

even to the earth at once, and I will not [smite] him the second time;
signifying, that he would give such a home blow or thrust, that the spear should pierce through him, and fasten him to the ground, that there would be no need to repeat it.

1 Samuel 26:8 In-Context

6 David asked Ahimelech the Hittite and Joab's brother Abishai, Zeruiah's son, "Who will go down into the camp with me to Saul?" "I'll go down with you," Abishai answered.

7 So David and Abishai approached the troops at night and found Saul lying there, asleep in the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. Abner and the army were sleeping all around him.

8 Abishai said to David, "God has handed your enemy over to you today! Let me pin him to the ground with my spear. One stroke is all I need! I won't need a second."

9 But David said to Abishai, "Don't kill him! No one can lift a hand against the LORD's anointed and go unpunished.

10 As surely as the LORD lives," David continued, "it will be the LORD who will strike him down, or his day will come and he will die, or he'll fall in battle and be destroyed.