1 Samuel 19:15-24

15 Then Saul sent messengers to see David, saying, "Bring him up to me on his bed, that I may put him to death."

16 When the messengers entered, behold, the household idol was on the bed with the quilt of goats' hair at its head.

17 So Saul said to Michal, "Why have you deceived me like this and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?" And Michal said to Saul, "He said to me, 'Let me go! ¹Why should I put you to death?' "

18 Now David fled and escaped and came ²to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in ³Naioth.

19 It was told Saul, saying, "Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah."

20 Then ⁴Saul sent messengers to take David, but when they saw ⁵the company of the prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing and presiding over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul; and ⁶they also prophesied.

21 When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. So Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied.

22 Then he himself went to Ramah and came as far as the large well that is in Secu; and he asked and said, "Where are Samuel and David?" And someone said, "Behold, they are at Naioth in Ramah."

23 He proceeded there to Naioth in Ramah; and ⁷the Spirit of God came upon him also, so that he went along prophesying continually until he came to Naioth in Ramah.

24 He also stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay down ⁸naked all that day and all that night. Therefore * they say, "⁹Is Saul also among the prophets?"

1 Samuel 19:15-24 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. 2 Samuel 2:22
• 2. 1 Samuel 7:17
• 3. 1 Samuel 19:22, 23
• 4. 1 Samuel 19:11, 14; John 7:32
• 5. 1 Sam 10:5, 6, 10
• 6. Numbers 11:25; Joel 2:28
• 7. 1 Samuel 10:10
• 8. 2 Samuel 6:20; Isaiah 20:2; Micah 1:8
• 9. 1 Samuel 10:10-12

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "the"
• [b]. Heb "teraphim"
• [c]. Lit "went"
• [d]. Lit "fell"
• [e]. I.e. without outward garments