1 Samuel 26:10

10 David added, "As the Lord lives, the Lord will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.

1 Samuel 26:10 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 26:10

And David said furthermore
In order to make Abishai easy, and prevent his doing what he proposed:

[as] the Lord liveth;
which was the form of an oath, made to assure Abishai of the truth of what follows, and therefore he need not be hasty to put Saul to death, since it would not be long before he should die, in one or other of the three following ways: either

the Lord shall smite him;
suddenly, which the Jews call cutting off, or death by the hand of heaven, by the immediate hand of God:

or his day shall come to die;
the time appointed for him to die a natural death, of some disease common to men:

or he shall descend into battle, and perish;
which was commonly reckoned death, casual or accidental, and in which last way Saul did die, ( 1 Samuel 31:3 1 Samuel 31:4 ) .

1 Samuel 26:10 In-Context

8 Then Abishai said to David, "Today God has handed your enemy over to you. Let me thrust the spear through him into the ground just once. I won't [have to strike] him twice!"

9 But David said to Abishai, "Don't destroy him, for who can lift a hand against the Lord's anointed and be blameless?"

10 David added, "As the Lord lives, the Lord will certainly strike him down: either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.

11 However, because of the Lord, I will never lift my hand against the Lord's anointed. Instead, take the spear and the water jug by his head, and let's go."

12 So David took the spear and the water jug by Saul's head, and they went their way. No one saw them, no one knew, and no one woke up; they all remained asleep because a deep sleep from the Lord came over them.