1 Samuel 19:9-19

9 But once again an evil spirit from the Lord rushed upon Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. David was playing the harp.

10 Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear, but David jumped out of the way. So Saul's spear went into the wall, and David ran away that night.

11 Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, warned him, saying, "Tonight you must run for your life. If you don't, you will be dead in the morning."

12 So she let David down out of a window, and he ran away and escaped.

13 Then Michal took an idol, laid it on the bed, covered it with clothes, and put goats' hair at its head.

14 Saul sent messengers to take David prisoner, but Michal said, "He is sick."

15 Saul sent them back to see David, saying, "Bring him to me on his bed so I can kill him."

16 When the messengers entered David's house, they found just an idol on the bed with goats' hair on its head.

17 Saul said to Michal, "Why did you trick me this way? You let my enemy go so he could run away!" Michal answered Saul, "David told me if I did not help him escape, he would kill me."

18 After David had escaped from Saul, he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him everything Saul had done to him. Then David and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there.

19 Saul heard that David was in Naioth at Ramah.

1 Samuel 19:9-19 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.