1 Samuel 23:22

22 Please go and make still more certain exactly where he is and who has seen him there, because I've been told that he's very tricky.

1 Samuel 23:22 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 23:22

Go, I pray you, prepare yet
That is, go home, return to their habitations, and get things in a greater readiness for him; inquire more diligently after David, get more intelligence of him, and inform themselves more exactly about him:

and know and see his place where his haunt is;
or "foot" F19 is, where that steps and walks most frequently, not only get knowledge of it by information, but if they could get sight of it with their own eyes, that they might describe it more exactly:

[and] who hath seen him there;
not only seen the place, but him in the place, and that often, that it may be certain it is the place he usually resorts to:

for it is told me [that] he dealeth very subtilly;
sometimes he is seen in one place, and sometimes in another; he is here today, and elsewhere tomorrow; and by such crafty methods it is not easy to know where the place is, and where to be found; this Saul had information of from some, who knew the methods David took to keep it unknown where it was; or "it says to me"; my heart says so to me, as R. Isaiah interprets it; my mind suggests this to me, knowing the man, that he uses such wiles as these: or "he said to me", so Kimchi; when he was with me, and we were intimate, when I used to ask him how he smote the Philistines, so and so, and preserved himself from them; his answer was, "that he dealt very subtilly", he used a good deal of craftiness; and so I imagine he does now.


FOOTNOTES:

F19 (wlgr) "pes ejus", Pagninus, Montanus.

1 Samuel 23:22 In-Context

20 So now, king, since you've wanted so much to come down, come down! Our part will be to turn him over to you."
21 Sha'ul said, "May ADONAI bless you for showing me compassion
22 Please go and make still more certain exactly where he is and who has seen him there, because I've been told that he's very tricky.
23 So look closely, find out where all his hiding-places are, and come back when you're sure. Then I will go with you, and if he is there in that territory, I'll search till I find him among all the thousands of Y'hudah."
24 They set out and went to Zif before Sha'ul. But David and his men had gone on to the Ma'on Desert, in the 'Aravah south of Yeshimon.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.