1 Samuel 19:8-18

8 Forsooth (the) battle was moved again; and David went out, and fought against the Philistines, and he smote them with a great wound/with great fierceness, and they fled from his face.
9 And the evil spirit of the Lord was made upon Saul (And then again an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul); and he sat in his house, and held a spear; certainly David harped with his hand.
10 And Saul enforced to preen, that is pierce, with the spear (right through) David in(to) the wall; and David bowed [aside] from the face of Saul; and the spear without hurt of David was fixed into the wall; and David fled, and so he was saved in that night. (And Saul endeavoured to preen David with the spear, that is, to pierce right through him, into the wall; but David veered away from the spear thrown by Saul; and it was fixed into the wall without hurting him; and David fled, and so he was saved that night.)
11 Therefore Saul sent his knights in the night into the house of David, that they should keep him, and that he should be slain in the morrowtide. And when Michal, the wife of David, had told this to David, and said, If thou savest not thee in this night, thou shalt die tomorrow; (And so Saul sent his sergeants in the night to David's house, to keep watch over him, and then to kill him in the morning. And Michal, David's wife, told this to David, and said, If thou savest not thyself this night, thou shalt die tomorrow;)
12 and she let him down by a window. And David went, and fled thence, and (so) he was saved.
13 And Michal took an image (And Michal took an idol), and laid it on the bed of David, and she put a rough goatskin at the head thereof, and covered it with clothes.
14 Forsooth Saul sent sergeants, that should ravish David, and it was answered, that he was sick. (Then when Saul's sergeants entered to take hold of David, she said that he was sick.)
15 And again Saul sent messengers, that they should see David, and he said, Bring ye him to me in the bed, that he be slain. (And Saul sent the men back to see David for themselves, and he said, Bring ye him to me in his bed, and then I shall kill him myself!)
16 And when the messengers had come, a simulacrum was found on the bed, and skins of goat at the head thereof. (And when the men had come in, they found the idol on the bed, with a goatskin at its head.)
17 And Saul said to Michal, Why scornedest thou me so (Why hast thou so scorned me), and deliveredest mine enemy, (so) that he fled? And Michal answered to Saul, For he spake to me, and said, Deliver thou me, (or) else I shall slay thee.
18 Forsooth David fled, and was saved; and he came to Samuel into Ramah, and told to him all things which Saul had done to him; and he and Samuel went, and dwelled in Naioth.

1 Samuel 19:8-18 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.

Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.