1 Samuel 19:1-10

David Protected from Saul

1 Now Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants ¹to put David to death. But ²Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David.

2 So Jonathan told David saying, "Saul my father is seeking to put you to death. Now therefore, please be on guard in the morning, and stay in a secret place and hide yourself.

3 "I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where * you are, and I will speak with my father about you; ³if I find out anything, then I will tell you."

4 Then Jonathan ⁴spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, "⁵Do not let the king sin against his servant David, since he has not sinned against you, and since his deeds have been very beneficial to you.

5 "For ⁶he took his life in his hand and struck the Philistine, and ⁷the LORD brought about a great deliverance for all Israel; you saw it and rejoiced. ⁸Why then will you sin against innocent blood by putting David to death without a cause?"

6 Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan, and Saul vowed, "As the LORD lives, he shall not be put to death."

7 Then Jonathan called David, and Jonathan told him all these words. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as ⁹formerly.

8 When there was war again, David went out and fought with the Philistines and defeated them with great slaughter, so that they fled before * him.

9 Now there was ¹⁰an evil spirit from the LORD on Saul as he was sitting in his house ¹¹with his spear in his hand, ¹²and David was playing the harp with his hand.

10 ¹³Saul tried to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away out of Saul's presence, so that he stuck the spear into the wall. And David fled and escaped that night.

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1 Samuel 19:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 19

This chapter relates the dangers David was exposed unto through Saul's enmity at him, and his deliverance from them, as by the notice Jonathan gave him of his father's designs against him, and by his kind interposition on his behalf, 1Sa 19:1-7; by David's slipping out of Saul's presence, when he was about to cast a javelin at him, 1Sa 19:8-10; by Michal's letting him down through a window, when Saul sent messengers to kill him, and by deceiving them with an image laid in his bed in the room of him, 1Sa 19:11-17, and again by Samuel's protection of him at Naioth, whither David fled, and where Saul sent messengers after him, and at length came himself; and instead of laying hands on David, both he and the messengers were set a prophesying, 1Sa 19:18-24.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 13

1. 1 Samuel 18:8, 9
2. 1 Samuel 18:1-3
3. 1 Samuel 20:9, 13
4. 1 Samuel 20:32; Proverbs 31:8, 9
5. Genesis 42:22; Proverbs 17:13; Jeremiah 18:20
6. Judges 9:17; 1 Samuel 17:49, 50; 1 Samuel 28:21; Psalms 119:109
7. 1 Samuel 11:13; 1 Chronicles 11:14
8. Deuteronomy 19:10-13; 1 Samuel 20:32; Psalms 94:21; Matthew 27:4
9. 1 Samuel 16:21; 1 Samuel 18:2, 10, 13
10. 1 Samuel 16:14; 1 Samuel 18:10, 11
11. 1 Samuel 18:10
12. 1 Samuel 16:16
13. 1 Samuel 18:11; 1 Samuel 20:33; Proverbs 1:16

Footnotes 5

[a]. Lit "see"
[b]. Lit "good"
[c]. Lit "smote"
[d]. Lit "strike David and the wall"
[e]. Lit "struck"