1 Samuel 26:10

10 As surely as the Lord lives, the Lord himself will punish Saul. Maybe Saul will die naturally, or maybe he will go into battle and be killed.

1 Samuel 26:10 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 26:10

And David said furthermore
In order to make Abishai easy, and prevent his doing what he proposed:

[as] the Lord liveth;
which was the form of an oath, made to assure Abishai of the truth of what follows, and therefore he need not be hasty to put Saul to death, since it would not be long before he should die, in one or other of the three following ways: either

the Lord shall smite him;
suddenly, which the Jews call cutting off, or death by the hand of heaven, by the immediate hand of God:

or his day shall come to die;
the time appointed for him to die a natural death, of some disease common to men:

or he shall descend into battle, and perish;
which was commonly reckoned death, casual or accidental, and in which last way Saul did die, ( 1 Samuel 31:3 1 Samuel 31:4 ) .

1 Samuel 26:10 In-Context

8 Abishai said to David, "Today God has handed your enemy over to you. Let me pin Saul to the ground with my spear. I'll only have to do it once. I won't need to hit him twice."

9 But David said to Abishai, "Don't kill Saul! No one can harm the Lord's appointed king and still be innocent!

10 As surely as the Lord lives, the Lord himself will punish Saul. Maybe Saul will die naturally, or maybe he will go into battle and be killed.

11 But may the Lord keep me from harming his appointed king! Take the spear and water jug that are near Saul's head. Then let's go."

12 So David took the spear and water jug that were near Saul's head, and they left. No one saw them or knew about it or woke up, because the Lord had put them sound asleep.