1 Samuel 19:1-10

Saul Tries to Kill David

1 Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan had taken a great liking to David

2 and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there.

3 I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”

4 Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly.

5 He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The LORD won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?”

6 Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the LORD lives, David will not be put to death.”

7 So Jonathan called David and told him the whole conversation. He brought him to Saul, and David was with Saul as before.

8 Once more war broke out, and David went out and fought the Philistines. He struck them with such force that they fled before him.

9 But an evil^[a] spirit from the LORD came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre,

10 Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.

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.

Cross References

• 1. S 1 Samuel 18:1
• 2. 1 Samuel 18:9
• 3. 1 Samuel 20:5,19
• 4. 1 Samuel 20:12
• 5. 1 Samuel 20:32; 1 Samuel 22:14; Proverbs 31:8,9; Jeremiah 18:20
• 6. Genesis 42:22; 1 Samuel 25:21; Proverbs 17:13
• 7. S Judges 9:17; S Judges 12:3
• 8. S 1 Samuel 11:13; 1 Samuel 17:49-50; 1 Chronicles 11:14
• 9. S Genesis 31:36; Deuteronomy 19:10-13; 1 Samuel 20:32; Matthew 27:4
• 10. S 1 Samuel 16:21; 1 Samuel 18:2,13
• 11. S Judges 9:23; 1 Samuel 16:14; 1 Samuel 18:10-11
• 12. S 1 Samuel 10:5
• 13. 1 Samuel 18:11

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "But a harmful"